The Golden Belt

The Golden Belt rides the roads and ridge-country trails around Kotkhai and Jubbal — the slopes where apples are grown with the most advanced techniques, and where the orchards still climb every available hillside. The village houses are traditional and beautifully maintained. It is a road-and-orchard-lane route rather than a dirt one, best on a gravel bike: rolling, misty in the mornings, with the Pabbar somewhere far below and high peaks like Swargarohini and Chanshal on the horizon.

The riding is moderate — a mix of highway and offbeat roads — but the reason to come is timing. In April the whole belt is in blossom; by late August the trees are heavy and the roads smell of fruit. The harvest fills the village roads with pickups carrying fruit to market, which makes that window best avoided — but from the second week of September the autumn colours set in and hold till mid-October. Four days lets you link the best of the orchard villages with the viewpoints, at an unhurried pace that leaves time for the things that make this country what it is.