Mountain Biking

The Monarch Crest Trail is one of the best mountain bike trails in Colorado, maybe even the United States.  Starting from the summit of Monarch Pass, west of Salida, the Crest Trail follows the spine of the Continental Divide  as it winds across the mountain tops.  On a good day, you can see all the way across the western side of Colorado, to the San Juan Mountains in the distance.  It’s beautiful. [Read more →]

Mountain Biking the Annapurna Trail in Nepal

Chill rain saturated the mountains of Vermont, drumming heavily on our backs as Dave and I pedaled toward Saint Johnsbury. Three miles from town, we passed a flooded campground inches underwater. We laughed and I remember saying, “It would be horrible to spend the night there.”

The rain intensified as we rode into town in late afternoon and started looking for a place to stay. Just days into our ride across the United States, we already recognized this challenging ground — it’s rarely easy to find a cheap and convenient place to sleep in a new town. Huddling in a leaky phone booth, we scanned the listings for a campground but found nothing. We could have gone to a hotel, of course, but we set a goal to camp every night and were determined not to give in, especially this early in the trip.

“I know,” exclaimed Dave, “Let’s get arrested!” [Read more →]

A secret canyon on the edges of Lhasa. Tibet.

Race through the dusty littered streets, past the junk shops and military with their menacing machine guns and oversize uniforms.  Race past the rickshaws and racing cabs and diesel belching trucks.  Take the backroad that goes along the canal, past the squatter shacks behind the cement plant.  Then turn through the landfill on the thin track that leads past the ancient sky burial site.  Race past the clothes that litter the ground, taken from the bodies of the dead and thrown down as a sign that we are all just temporary on this planet.  Cut through the sandlot and the new walled housing development.  Just beyond is a rough dirt road that leads up into the mountains beyond Lhasa.  Take it and escape the confused rampant confines of the city.

Ride the trails that wind between the barley fields, then turn up the dirt road that goes through the village that looks like it was pulled from a history book.  Watch for Tibetan mastiffs guarding the monasteries.  Keep out of sight of the military base and pretend their shouting drills aren’t happening.  You can’t race now – the air is too thin and the road too steep.  Shift low and ride slow up and up and up.

Soon you’ll find more villages where tradition still lives.  Then you’ll find abandoned hermit caves cut like grand doorways into the cliffs.  The hermits are all gone now, lost in the trials of history.  Ride, ride, ride until your head clears and the day drops away.  Go farther before you turn and race back into the mayhem and discord of the city.  Be free for at least a little while.

Stretched along the whitewater of the Arkansas River, below a high string of 14,000 peaks, lies the Upper Arkansas River Valley. Locals call it the Valley of Fun and it’s home to some of the best mountain bike trails, road rides and hikes in Colorado. Time for a road trip!

The singletrack dipped and swooped across the hillsides, splashed into a small stream and tightly turned back uphill. I shifted down and stood to power up the small hill. At the top I tucked back into the flow of the trail, leaned loosely into the corners, dropped through easy rock gardens and it all felt perfect. All mountain bikers want to find trails that flow fast and smooth through the woods and I’d found one – a prime stretch of singletrack above Buena Vista.

Mountain Biking the Colorado Trail near Salida, Colorado

Below me, the green Arkansas River Valley stretched out into the horizon, but I didn’t have much time to look as I gave in to gravity as it rolled me into the next section of trail. I was riding the “Hot Springs Ride”, a fun section of the Colorado Trail that connects two hot springs. After pedaling a few miles of this perfect singletrack, I fully planned on stripping down to [Read more →]

Mountain Biking in Borneo – Part 3

Back in Kuching again, I still hadn’t found what I came for – how to cross Borneo on bicycles without resorting to roads.  It rained harder than I thought possible outside my window and the whole city was flooding.  It actually looked like someone had an endless line of bathtubs and was pouring them out continuously in front of my windown.  It was raining that hard.

I thought my tour of Sarawak was over and I felt unfulfilled.  Then I got a call from Malcolm and Eunice Jitam, two local riders that pioneered riding on most of the trails near the city of Kuching.

Malcolm and Eunice promised to show me what riding in Sarawak could be like, provided it stopped raining enough to get out of town.  The next day we piled the bikes in the car and drove to the Sebong region under sunny skies.

We started riding down a paved road and they suddenly shouted “left, left!”  I spied a thin singletrack trail meandering through the palms and we disappeared into the jungle.  On this trail, I broke into the heart of mountain biking in Borneo.  [Read more →]