Off Road Mountain Biking Holiday in Nepal

One of our representatives welcomes you at the TIA in Kathmandu and your transfers from Kathmandu Airport are provided. Meet the group at a hotel in Kathmandu. Depending on your arrival time, you may have the opportunity to explore the immediate vicinity of the hotel and get acclimatised to this bustling city. Alternatively, you may prefer to recover from your journey by relaxing beside the hotel pool. Package services begin only with the evening meal. Your guide will take dinner with you and will provide an informal briefing about the days ahead.

Meals: Dinner

Our bikes (still packed) will be collected in the morning and are transported overland to Pokhara. After breakfast we’ll take a sightseeing tour of Kathmandu, including the sacred Hindu site of Pashupatinath and the striking Buddhist Stupa at Bouddhanath. After lunch we have time to explore the bustling, narrow streets of the Thamel area of the city and visit the ancient palaces of Durbar Square. As a part of this trip package, we have included complimentary evening meals at our hotel or favourite restaurants in Kathmandu on each night that we stay in the city.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

After breakfast we catch the morning flight to Pokhara, which provides superb aerial views of the peaks of the central part of the Nepal Himalayas, especially the Annapurna range. We also have views of the route that we will be riding on our bikes. On arrival at Pokhara, we check into a very pleasant hotel in the lakeside district of the city. Pokhara is at an altitude of just 800 metres and is warmer than Kathmandu. It’s also less hectic and has a very chilled, almost beach like, atmosphere. It boasts probably the best mountain views of any major town in the Himalayas, with the Annapurnas, especially the sacred mountain of Macchapuchare (the Fishtail) dominating the skyline. After lunch, we get reunited with our bikes, which we reassemble and check out by taking a short ride along the shores of Pokhara’s lake, Phewa Lake.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Pokhara is too pleasant a place to leave immediately and so we spend an extra day here. Now fully recovered after our long journey, we set off on a quite challenging day ride, the circuit of Sarangkot. This ride is mainly on a switch-back blacktopped road. Just before the top of the pass at Kaski, we turn onto a jeep track and a combination of short, steep climbs and contouring trails take us to a high viewpoint overlooking Pokhara and the lake. From here, there is an impressive panorama of the Himalayas stretching from Dhaulagiri to Manaslu. Descending now, we can enjoy a great 10 kilometre blast down to Pokhara on steep, fast mixed trails, then on through the town to our lakeside hotel. A cold beer as the sun sets over the Himalaya is a great way to finish our first full day of biking.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We now set off on our classic off-road journey back to Kathmandu, avoiding tarmac roads wherever possible. Leaving Pokhara, initially on the main Kathmandu highway, we soon turn off onto a narrow road that climbs towards the north-east. We follow a natural horseshoe on ridge-top trails that encircle Khaste Lake, with the tarred road soon giving way to a rough jeep track. Our high point is at around 1270 metres, just after the village of Hot Chilli. Beyond this small settlement, we turn off onto a doubletrack trail just before the ridge and begin an awesome and sustained descent complete with (optional) technical sections down to the Begnas Lake. We pass through Begnas Village and meet up with our support vehicle and crew, who have already established our camp and have drinks waiting. For those who want more cycling, there’s the option of a short, flattish ride by the lake. Or, the more adventurous rider can sample the stepped carry-climb back up to the Kali Ridge and repeat the earlier descent.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

As the name implies this is a longish day, which provides brilliant biking. Climbing directly above our camp on a jeep road, we can take a detour to a village right at the top of a low hill between Begnas and Rupa Lakes to the south. Then, we drop back down to the jeep road on a village path that includes interesting sections of steps. Beyond the twin lakes, we climb again to cross the ridge of Sundari Danda and drop down to Modi Khola at Bhorletar, at first on a jeep road – which is in the process of being improved – then on rougher, undulating trails. Instead of crossing the river at Bhorletar, we have reconnoitred a new route on the western bank, passing through the villages of Pulchok and Poland, crossing tributary streams and even including some sections of singletrack through the paddy fields – raised paths and 90 degree bends make for some fun riding. The locals can be pretty amused by our antics. We are the only bikers that they have seen attempting this route and they seem to think we’re all crazy. We finally cross the river to reach our camp at the small village of Kalasti. Again, our support vehicle has had to go along the main highway and our crew will be waiting for us and have our riverside camp set up.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

You may begin to wonder how we can sustain the quality of the off road riding – and today it gets even better. Starting out below 400 metres, we have a mix of up and down today, with a longish initial ascent and lots of downhill rushes. To begin with, it’s uphill, on a section we named the ‘jungle highway’, to the start of the real climbing. We gain around 400 metres over the course of about 2 and a half hours, passing through completely unspoilt ridge-top villages that make this route so memorable. Although only a relatively short distance from the main highway, these villages have only ever had a handful of Western visitors and our recent groups have certainly been the only mountain bikers they had ever seen. The locals could not be more friendly and pleasant. A fast and rough descent leads to the narrow tarmac road from Dumre to Besisahar (the principal access point for the Annapurna Circuit Trek). We are only on the blacktop for half an hour, heading north, before we turn off and cross the Marsyangdi River. A short steep climb then takes us up to the rim of the valley and a small village which is a good spot to stop for lunch, with views towards Manaslu, one of the world’s 8000 metre peaks. After lunch, we climb again and again enjoy some outstanding cross-country riding, through small villages and past mud-brick kilns on a maze of footpaths and powdery roads. Crossing a small pass – soft drink stop at the village at the summit – we then drop down to the Doraundi River. This is a magical jungle section that is 95% rideable – apart from the odd section of steep steps. Back down at 500 metres again, we reach our camp at Chhepetar beside the Doraundi River.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

After a leisurely breakfast, we ride a short section of jeep track that takes us to the tarred road leading to the ridge-top town of Gorkha. As this is an offshoot of the main highway, traffic is relatively light and we have a pleasant road climb up to Gorkha, which generally takes about an hour and a half. Arriving in this small hill-town, we check in at a basic, but comfortable hotel with the added bonus of hot showers. We have most of the day to take it easy or look around. Gorkha holds a central place in Nepalese history, as it is the hometown of the former Royal Family and is the ancient capital of Nepal. It is also where the original Gurkha soldiers came from. There is the option of 3-hour circular walk taking in the 300 metre ascent to the ancient Gorkha Durbar with its palace, temples and fascinating carvings. This climb is well worth the effort as the peaks of the Annapurna and Manaslu massifs suddenly come into view as we reach the top. Or, there is also the option of a circuit ride that contours through the cultivated terraces and loops back to the halfway point on the climb we tackled yesterday – the views of the Doraundi valley are outstanding. Although Gorkha is midway between Kathmandu and Pokhara, very few Western tourists come here and the terrace of our hotel makes the ideal spot for relaxing and taking in the spectacular views.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Still one of the best days of riding anywhere, we have made some changes to today’s route to provide a better mix of off-road and jeep road riding. This is the first of 3 excellent and quite challenging days on this trip. On our original reconnaissance back in 1998 it was agreed by everyone that this was one of the best mountain biking days that we had ever had – it may have been something to do with the fact that no one had a clue where we were going to end up, as nobody had ever biked here before. Leaving Gorkha it’s straight onto rough, undulating jeep tracks, contouring at around the 1100 metre level to a viewpoint where we should see the peaks of Mt. Manaslu and Mt. Ganesh. Then, from the village of Mailung, we begin a wild 700 metre descent – firstly along the ridge and then dropping directly into the Buri Gandaki Valley, with some optional technical sections. Once we reach the valley floor, our amended route turns north (instead of south) and follows a largely forgotten jeep track towards the village of Sallyantar, with some sections of paddy fields and several stream crossings. Before Sallyantar, we cross the Budi Gandaki and follow village trails and jeep track above the Ankhu river to Hanse Bazaar and then Kali Sundhara Bazaar. Our support vehicles have made a long detour to reach this remote spot and the group’s baggage and camping equipment may need to be portered across the Ankhu river to our overnight camping place. The vehicles cannot cross the river here and will make another detour to meet up with us again tomorrow.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We make an early start for possibly the toughest day of the holiday, especially if it is hot. Our vehicle support can be called up for bikers having a bad day. We continue our journey eastwards, starting out with a long and steep ascent on a washed-out and at times rocky jeep road, via Chisapani and Charanki Pauwa, to Katunje. There are fantastic panoramic views of the Annapurnas, Manaslu, Ganesh and the Langtang peaks. We drop down again into a tributary valley of the Trisuli River and then climb up to the ridge known as the Samari Bhanjyang, with some more short sections where we may have to get off and push. Beyond this point it’s largely downhill on jeep road to Phedi, where we meet the tarmac road for the last stretch into Trisuli Bazaar. We set up our camp beside the river on the outskirts of this major bazaar town.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Crossing the rim of the Kathmandu Valley involves a challenging climb, with 1600 metres of ascent on a newly improved tarmac road via Thansing Phant. Long, and at a generally fairly easy gradient, this ‘Vertical Mile’ climb will take around 4 hours. Our support vehicle follows us and we will stop for lunch at our high point, with great views of the Nepal Himalaya. After lunch, our descent into the city will take just about an hour. At our Kathmandu hotel, we pack up our bikes and then go out to celebrate the end of our Himalayan biking bonanza with dinner in one of Kathmandu’s top restaurants.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

BDEx Land Only Package services end after breakfast. Transfers to Kathmandu Airport are provided. There are lots of extensions that can easily be added to your holiday in Nepal. Why not pre-book a simple day-tour in the Kathmandu Valley, or a multi-day excursion to one of the important wildlife reserves at Chitwan or Bardia. Extension packages are also available to include a visit to neighbouring Tibet or Bhutan. Contact our office for details.

Meals: Breakfast