Kutch woman on a solo motorbike journey across India

Mangaluru: Ritika Sharma, a spirited young woman from Kutch, Gujarat, is charting her own course on her Royal Enfield Meteor 350. From the sands of Kutch to the shores of Kanyakumari and the snow-clad mountains of Kashmir, her journey ‘Sands, Shores, and Snow' is her way of proving that women can conquer the open road just as boldly as anyone else.
With a bachelor's degree in Hotel and Tourism Management and a stint with an international hotel brand in Pune, she started her biking journey in 2019. During her visit to Udupi, she said, "I grew up as a tomboy in Kutch, where women riding bikes is a rarity. Despite my slim build, I took on the challenge head-first, with small solo rides. Initially, I was forced to ride alone because there were no other women to join me. But now, I have grown to love it."
She formed Musafiro Ki Yaariyan a biking group that took its first trip to Udaipur last year and Manali this year. However, her most gruelling test came last year during the Spiti Circuit, when a fall into a five-foot gorge in Rajasthan left her with three fractured knuckles and eight stitches on her face. Despite her injuries, Ritika's parents, Praveen and Sangeetha Sharma, told her not to give up.
Her desire is to build real connections beyond the superficiality of social media. "I have over 15,000 followers on social media, but when you are in crisis, you need real people. This realisation inspired me to create a WhatsApp group of 170 riders across India, ensuring a support network wherever we travel. Hence, I stay in hostels and zostels so that I can connect with people," she said.
She began her journey from Kutch on March 10. She has since travelled through Surat, Ahmednagar, Hampi, Gokarna, Udupi, Surathkal, Mangaluru, Kozhikode, Allappuzha, Kanyakumari, and Bengaluru, covering around 5,000km. She left Bengaluru on Saturday to reach Hyderabad and will head through Nagpur, Jhansi, Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, before returning to Kutch covering about 12,000km in two months, she said.
Ritika said language barriers, and unwanted attention remain constant challenges. "Highways are fine. It is in cities where people approach you for the wrong reasons," she said. During her journey from Kanyakumari, a flat tyre left her stranded for 2.5 hours at a signal. "The puncture guy was just three kilometres away, but language issues made it worse. I was so tense I forgot to use my translator app," she laughed.
"Riding is my passion. I want to experience new cultures, food, and people. While women flying planes is normal now, why not motorbike riding?" she questioned. Since her bike has a tracker, her parents monitor her. "People question them for letting me ride solo. My father tells them, If she were a boy, would you be this concerned?"