#smallenginebigdreams

They told me a 110cc scooter belongs in the supermarket parking lot, not the Himalayas. They said the altitude would choke the engine, and the hairpins would break my back.

I went anyway.

The ride from Delhi to Shimla isn't a "trip"; it is a slow-motion peeling away of the city’s grit. You start in the thick, petrol-heavy soup of the Delhi morning, weaving through the chaos of Haryana. 

By the time you hit the Himalayan Expressway, the geometry of the world shifts. The hills reveal themselves one cautious, gear-straining turn at a time.

The Sensory Reality:

The Vibration: My hands hummed with the constant buzz of the throttle. After six hours, you don't just ride the scooter; you feel every mechanical protest of the engine in your bones.

The Scent Shift: It starts with the heavy smell of highway dust and burning rubber. Then, the sudden, oily comfort of a Murthal dhaba (parathas soaked in white butter). Finally, near Barog, the air turns sharp and smells like wet pine and cold stone.

The "Solan Surge": This was the peak. Near Solan, the road became a metal graveyard, hundreds of SUVs trapped in a motionless line, drivers leaning on their horns in a symphony of frustration. I didn't stop. I nudged my scooter along the gravel shoulder, feeling the grit under my tires. I slipped through gaps barely wider than my handlebars. While the rest of the world sat in a cloud of exhaust, I was moving. That is the "cheat code" of a small machine; it finds the spaces the rest of the world misses.

The Moment of Doubt:

Somewhere near Dharampur, the fog rolled in so thick I couldn't see five feet ahead. The engine felt sluggish, gasping for air as we climbed past 2,000 meters. 

For a second, I wondered if the skeptics were right. But then the clouds broke, the sun hit the valley, and I realized: you don't need 500cc of power to reach the clouds. You just need the stubbornness to keep your wrist twisted.

Reaching the Shimla Ridge felt like winning a race I wasn't even running. The view is better when you have earned every single kilometer of it.