User Generated: Mountain Biking Nepal

We arrived in Jomsom on a clear October morning. At 7,061 meters, Nilgri looks down upon us like a wise grandfather, white hair glistening in the sunshine. Despite the spin-drift twisting off the mountains, the weather in the valley is calm, a gentle breeze winding its way through this old Tibetan village. The beauty of the place is immediately apparent. No longer a sleepy village accessible only by foot, this place now has a road running through it. It is a new trade route between Nepal and the Tibetan Plateau. The town hasn’t yet become commercialized, but signs of import are cropping up everywhere. Traditional compacted earth roofs are being replaced by corrugated tin. Buses depart every morning for Pokhara full of pilgrims and trekkers.

From a trekkers point of view, the Shangri-La that once was is quickly being spoiled by the dust of these new roads. I guess no place can be paradise forever. However, for those of us traveling by bike, one might say that our Shangri-La has just begun. Access to the villages in this high mountain area has increased dramatically with roads bisecting a web of single-track lines, worn deep by the mule trains of years past. This access allows us to forego riding and hiking uphill and allows us to spend our time enjoying some of the most beautiful single-track and free-riding on the planet.


The propriety of our tour guide’s name quickly becomes apparent, “Epic Rides Nepal”. I'm used to riding in Colorado where the mountains “tower” 1,500 meters above. Here the mountains are 4,000 meters above us. A run at the local bike park drops 900 meters. During this trip we will descend 3,500. I’m used to seeing hikers in spandex, jogging with their dogs. Here, I encounter Tibetan sheep herders, mule trains carrying goods to remote villages, and am forced to dodge chickens as they dart across the trail while Mastiff guard dogs chase close behind. Incredible.


It is not just the scale and scope of the mountains that is epic here. I find myself taken back watching women harvesting terraced fields of barley by hand, their husbands following behind with oxen pulling wooden plows through rich black soil. I watch children carrying goods in bamboo baskets strapped to their foreheads, and hear stories of "Yarsa Gumba", the half-mushroom half-worm plant, known as Himalayan-Viagra. Being surrounded by an ancient culture is half the lure of this trip and I’m beginning to find myself hooked. Before the trip is over, I'm already planning my return.


The riding itself is incredibly fun. Sixty percent of our trip is spent at high altitudes behind the rain shadow of the Himalaya. This makes for incredible single-track and free riding. Parts of the trip, we find ourselves on enormous hillsides, grazed for centuries by local shepherds, surrounded by pristine Himalayan peaks. This is the essence of free-riding; literally being free to pick a line of your choosing and riding it. Absolutely incredible. For the MTB movie buffs out there, this is where Strength in Numbers was filmed. As we wind our way down, we weave through ancient villages and jeep roads, all interconnected by amazing single track.


We run out of daylight on more than one occasion. One evening, we pull on our rain jackets just before dark. While fixing a flat tire, we realize that a $200 pair of sunglasses is lying somewhere on the trail behind us. Repairs made and glasses found, five of us share three headlamps as we ride over ancient stone footpaths in the rain.


Our final day is spent on an incredibly fast and fun jeep track. It’s easy to go too fast here and I have to remind myself to slow down multiple times. Breaking an arm on our last day isn't a memory I want to take with me. Finally, the trip doesn't always go as planned, but I didn't come here to ride my bike. I came here for an adventure on my bike, and that is precisely what I got.

By: Caleb Spear