Mangaluru: Kumble woman completes 23,000km solo bike ride

MANGALURU: Amrutha Joshi, who was told many a time that motorbikes are for men, has just finished riding 23,000 km across the country and returned to Mangaluru.
In the middle of her solo biking adventure, the 21-year-old graduate from Canara College in Mangaluru met with an accident in Agra and had to change her vehicle, from the KTM 200 Duke which she started on, to a BMW G310 R bike, which was her fiancé Puneeth Kamath’s.
Amrutha, originally from Kumble in Kasaragod, returned to the city on Tuesday. She started her journey on February 4. The accident — she was hit by an SUV— grounded her for a month in April-May. But she completed the journey from where she had left off.
“I learnt to ride a bike when I was 12, but after I turned 18, I started riding on the road. It was my father the late Ashok Joshi’s dream that I ride a bike. People always criticised me and said that motorbikes were not meant for women. My father passed away two years ago and I was depressed. To help me fight my depression, my mother Annapoorna Joshi, a homemaker, suggested that I start going on rides. I have not looked back since then. I am part of the CRF Women On Wheels Club.”
She said that as the youngest solo rider, she decided to go on “a long ride to the Northeast since 80% of the ride there would be offroading”. The ride from Kerala to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh was between February 4 and April 9. She dedicated this ride to the Indian Army which she did as the youngest solo rider. “People treated me like their family. It was a great interaction with the Indian Army personnel stationed in the border areas. I was inspired to travel further. I went to Myanmar and Nepal and then decided to explore India further,” Amrutha said.
However, when she was riding from Ayodhya to Agra, she was hit by an SUV. Her bike was mangled. Amrutha suffered minor injuries as she was in riding gear. “On April 25, my family reached Agra and they brought me home. I rested for a week but decided to go back. My bike was still under repair. My fiance gave me his bike that was transported from Kasaragod to Agra. I started my journey from the accident spot on June 8 and then went on to Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Hyderabad, Telangana, Bengaluru, Shivamogga, Udupi and Mangaluru,” she said.
Amrutha dreams of exploring the world on her bike. She would ride between 6 am to 6 pm every day. Except for the accident, there was no other breakdown on the journey.