Quading in the Valley of the Moon
I use to say that to mountain bike you had to realize your limits, bike within them and trust your bike. I thought I could apply the same to quading and not get killed. It wasn’t really a technical ride but a few places had long drops offs and death would have been certain. The scenery was amazing. Very much like a lunar land scape.
So now with 1300 cc of power between my legs, ½ bottle of Jack D in me, the old lady on the bitch pad, Doobie Brothers on the box. No wait, that is when I went to Sturges on my Harley.
I managed get up to 80 km’s an hour and considering of I have no quad experience and I was on an unfamiliar road with no gear that was enough for me. At one point in the ride a dog have chase and scared the hell out of me. I remember I was going 54 km’s per hour and had to the trick ride with by body of the quad and the hound from hell going crazy. I left the path but it was a big field so no damage done. The dog lost interest so now the hunter became the hunted. I chased him a bit but he took off into a village. That was just a warm up for the (pause for dramatic effect), WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS HIGH WAY.
The World ’s Most Dangerous Highway
I use to mountain bike a lot before I started working Yemen with the apex of my mountain biking hobby was biking in Moab, Utah. Amazing.
So now I figured I had the right amount of balls and experience to get myself killed.
You meet at 7:30 to get geared up and I was glad to see that they had good bikes (Kona Stinky) and Hayes Disc Breaks. After meeting your fellow bikers you board the bus and start the climb to the WMDH (World’s Most Dangerous Highway).
The ride starts off on a black top road at an elevation of 4300 meters. It is cold at the top and with a wind chill the only intensifies as you board the bike. At this point I am wearing a t shirt, sweat shirt, heavy fleece, wind breaker and long trousers with wind breakers over them. I now feel that I am ready for snowboarding. I called my bike the harbinger of death and I ride if round a bit to get use to it. Jesus H tapping dancing Christ, the thin air was trying. I did a small climb and it was tough.
I didn’t want to play the macho card here but I knew there were going to be slow riders and my bean sack was the size of an oil tanker at this point so I wanted to make sure that I did not get behind a slow rider so I went first. I was not cold at all and man o man was this fun. The first 20k is strait downhill on a great road with lots of turns. I don’t know how fast we were going but passing trucks was really easy. The scenery was spectacular but I really had to focus on the ride. 20k and if you didn’t want to you would not have to pedal at all. There were a few spots where the wind would slow you down so I pedal for a bit.
A couple of times we would stop and wait for the slower riders with every one wearing a grin.
There was a small patch of rough road that game some people a little grief and the guide said that if you did not like that then you would not enjoy the next 42km.
The weather is now a bit warmer so I shed as much layers as I could. Most of the riders were from Australia and New Zealand so they still found it cold.
Now you can see why it is considered a dangerous road. The drop offs are mind boggling. Easily 4 or 5 hundred meters and I don’t how much you would roll from there. I don’t think anyone has gone over and lived.
Time to check the wheels and brakes again. And we are off. A unique thing about the WMDH is that you drive on the left hand side of the road. It is the best way for navigation but goes against the grain for the N. American riders.
The people that have died biking have died for no good reason in my opinion. It is not a technical ride by any means. It is a dirt road. One French woman died because she had a crappy bike and the breaks gave out. Another woman dies because she got off the bike on the wrong side, took two steps backwards to her death, and one Israeli guy was pretending that he was going to shove his friend, his friend lost his footing and over he went. Because of the sheer drops you don’t getting any second chances.
At the same time, for about 75% of the ride you are inches or a foot from death. So some of the minor mistakes and mishaps often become fatal.
So I had to figure out my riding limits, put trust in The Harbinger of Death and away I go. I found the biggest challenge was the tracking. I wanted to ride hard but for some reason I did not want to die. The bike just did not want to stay on the road at the speed I was going so I had to slow down. I hit a baby head at one at point lost control and skidded with inches from going over. On most rides you would not give that a second thought but here it could have been fatal.
You lose elevation quickly so about 3 hours later it is really hot because now you are in the Bolivian jungle. Hot and sticky.
Now I had a good rhythm and was absolutely enjoying this. There are some waterfalls that go straight over the road so you can cool off very quickly.
You see some amazing scenery but at other times you really have to focus on the ride. On the bus ride back up the WMDH I was thinking how I missed that.
There were no mishaps or incidents the day that I road. Just amazing mountain biking
At the end of the day we went to an animal refugee camp. While we were showing there was a capuchin monkey trying to get in the shower. That monkey did things to me that no man should have had to him.
As I mentioned the ride is not technical and anyone with basic skills and a little bit of gumption can do it. If I was going to be here longer I would do some gnarly (you are not allowed to be under 100 and talk about mountain biking without using the world gnarly and/or epic) single track and great technical riding. But between the high altitude, having the flu and not doing any mountain biking for 5 years I thought it not a good idea.
I am taking a night bus to Uyuni tonight and that might be a good thing as I cannot see the dodgy road that I will be traveling on.
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