Leaving Nepal

Today I am leaving Nepal and heading to India for 3 weeks. I look forward to meeting Heini and Avin and traveling together. These past days I have just been walking around Katmandu. I will miss this place but I am now ready to travel on! Getting a flight in a few hours.

Some pictures of me

People ask why I am almost never in the pictures I post. Its usually because I am behind the camera. But here are some pictures of me. Pictures are courtesy of Markus Micheler from PureBiking.at(coming soon). Check out his flickr profile for more.

Patale to Manebangong

To get from Patale to Manebangong we had a good ride infront of us. Mostly on paved and gravel road. As we rode out of Patale we said goodbye to the mountains for one last time. When we entered Manebangong, after 5 hours of riding, we found a very nice downhill trail leading through the city. We jumped at the oppertunity and the locals cheered us on as we blasted past them at high speed. After some fun we packed up for the night ad we were ready to leave for Katmandu the next day.

The next day we rode down to the river were our jeep waited for us. After getting in the jeep we had a nice 7 hour ride on some of the worst roads I have ever seen before we arrived in Katmandu.

Pickey to Patale

After waking up in Pickey we did a two hour climb to get back to Pickey Base were we stayed a couple of days earlier. We took a break there and enjoyed the view. Then we rode out for some great freeriding and single track riding in a 2 hour downhill experience. There were som great views on the way down and high fives were easy to come by when we reached the bottom.

We stayed at a small house just outside Patale. The owner was proud to have us visit and also showed us his half finished building next door. The building was to be a bar and was of course open for business even though the building itself was not finished. So we ended the day by drinking beer in a half finished bar without a roof on the ridge line of Patale.

Junbesi to Pickey

We woke up in Junbesi to a grey morning. After breakfast we started our climb to Pickey again. This was going to be a hard day full of climbing. We started out by riding some more amazing single track and after a while we reached a junction. We had the choice of either doing a long downhill followed by an even longer climb or we could try a shortcut and cut across the ridge line to save us some hard earned climbing meters. We opted for the shortcut, this turned out to be a really bad idea.

We had underestimated the harshness of the trail along the ridge line and we soon learned that the trail was almost not rideable. Still we pushed on. Markus got two flats and had real problems with the patched tubes. After going for about 5 hours we realized our mistake, the trail we had chosen
continued along the ridge to an other destination than our goal. So we had to bite the bullet and climb down onto the very trail we tried to shortcut. After climbing down we had another 3 hour 30% gradient climb up the correct trail to look forward to. When we arrived at the top I was bruised and battered, almost out of energy and water. The house we stayed at that night lay just along the ridge line and the sunset viewed from there made you forget about any climbing at all.

Phaplu to Junbesi

After speding two nights at Phaplu we headed to Junbesi. It was a beautifull ride along pristine single track. There were some death defying drops off to the side but that is just something you have to deal with. After getting to Junbesi we rode up to the monestary close by.

The entrance to the monastery was a very long stair case decorated with love by the local monks. We got to meet some amazing monks and they invited us in and served us tea. When leaving the monastery we wanted to be respectful and carry the bikes out. But the monks insisted that we ride the stair case down so they could watch us. So we set down the stairs on our bikes while the monks were chasing us cheering and laughing. The day ended at Junbesi in a lovely guest house.