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Published: December 18th 2007
Bus and bikes
There was about $30,000 worth of bikes on top of this bus. Great for going through shanty towns in La Paz, the driver never stopped!Today was one of the reasons we wanted to stay in La Paz and that was to mountain bike down the Worlds Most Dangerous Road. We spent a long time researching companies to go with and Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking was a clear winner. All the reviews were great and the equipment was the best. You don't exactly want anything less when you are cycling down the WMDR!
An early start! As always on this trip, the excursions start early, so it was a 7am start at a café down beside the Gravity office. Gravity has now decided to class December as the “rainy season” therefore more risks are involved and they have adapted their packages. So we were a smaller group of only 8 and we had 3 guides which was great. It was time to get going so the bus drives for a couple of hours out of La Paz to a place called La Cumbre. After being fitted for our bikes and our wet weather gear, there was a ritual that we all had to participate in and it consisted of drinking something which tasted like mezcal, pretty strong for 9am and then pouring some on
Lynz and Andy (guide)
Looking good with the kit on! our bikes for good luck, well it worked for all of us, we are all still alive!
The World's Most Dangerous Road The WMDR is a steep and bumpy road that runs from La Paz to Coroico and it plunges down 3,600 meters over a 64 km path. The path is narrow and sometimes extremely narrow and the track snakes through the valley and the sheer drops are sometimes terrifying. Until last year when the new road was finally finished after 20 years, there used to be a fatal accident every fortnight. In 1995 the Inter American Development Bank called the route “the world's most dangerous road”.
The first part of the road is concrete and it is fast and wide which is great. Andy our guide leads the group then Ross goes first and I follow. The rest of the group are behind with the other guides. The minibus follows us all the way to make sure we are all ok and if we need any assistance or bike changes etc.
We were off and we were flying, we overtook a few lorries and at top speed, still having a slight hold on the brakes. The wind
Ross making the gear look even better!
This was at La Cumbre the start at 4725m above sea level whistles past us and we must have dropped about 1,600 metres and riding at 70 km per hour if not more without any effort. It was quite scary stuff when you are overtaking lorries.
We passed a narcotics check point where we had to get off our bikes and walk through. Apparently they are not checking for drugs but are looking for drug making equipment. In all honesty it looked so relaxed that I don't know why they even bother. After 20km or so on the nice wide concrete road it was time to hit the bumpy WMDR. The road is stony and unsurfaced and very narrow. Our guides keep informing us of the dangers and they keep giving us advice on how to ride safely and how to pass vehicles on the road. Keep to the left they kept saying but sometimes that was just too close to the cliff edge for my liking! I wanted to stick to the right as much as possible so that if a truck or something did come I would just be squashed against the mountainside rather than riding like “ET” off the cliff edge, as some girl has done in the
past!
A few reminders of the dangers of the road As you ride down the road you can´t help but notice the many crosses and shrines that pop up frequently. It is a constant reminder that this road is dangerous if your not careful. At some points on the road there used to be “human traffic signals” who would watch at ridiculous hairpin bends for traffic. They worked there and were so dedicated to the job because they had lost family on the road and didn’t want this to happen again. These men are not there anymore since the new road has opened and there is now less traffic. There was one part of the road where you could see the wreckage of a lorry which had gone over the cliff and a few years back a bus had gone over the edge with 21 passengers and amazingly 7 people survived. There are also a few stories were cyclists have gone off the road. A few seemed to have happened by people having panic attacks or freezing and just forget how to stop. Some have cycled straight into the oncoming traffic and others just go over the edge.
View of the WMDR
One of the many bends on the road. Our guide kept saying "keep to the left", to avoid traffic. It was a bit too close to the cliff side for me. One guy not too long ago went over the edge but managed to hang onto a tree 200 metres down. He did manage to break almost every bone in his body, but he survived! Ok, no more stories!!
Sunny and time for lunch After a few hours and after a descent off about 2,500 vertical meters we stopped for some lunch. It was hot and the sun was burning. This part of the ride was more like jungle with waterfalls running off the mountainside. We had to cycle under the falls and get soaked which was quite nice but then we had to ride through quite a small but deepish river. Andy advised us to be in a lower gear and keep pedalling to get through it. So with the advice, we were off and poor Ross decides to take to the deepest part of the river and almost falls in, quite amusing especially when we watch the video back at lunch later on in the afternoon.
So the road now turns dusty and it is hot. We can see Coroico in the distance so it is not long til we get a shower, food and some
well deserved beers. By now we are all fairly confident riders and are loving every minute off it. Ross and I always head off first in our group but within 2 minutes Ross is out of sight with the first guide and I always seem to be riding alone but it didn't matter because you could only concentrate on the road and trying to stay on it.
We survived! We survived!!! What an amazing experience, we just wanted to do it all over again. Not the uphill part though because at 3500m above sea level the oxygen is not that great and the uphill is difficult. So we were now at the bottom off the road all in one piece, not even a scratch! We went to the animal refuge where we had a pasta buffet and some beers. The animal refuge was awesome. The animals had been rescued from areas in Bolivia and the place was run by volunteers and money came from riders with Gravity, so the more beers and desserts you ordered, the more money would go the the animals. There were a few monkeys, colourful macaws, pigs, cats and a dog! It was a
Lunch time
lunch with a view! great place to stop after the ride.
So it was now time to head back to La Paz. The bus journey would take three hours and our driver asked if we wanted to drive back along the WMDR or the new one and for some reason we chose the WMDR. It was actually more scary going on the bus than cycling but the driver must've driven that road thousands of times because he was flying round the corners. After an amazing day it was straight back to the hotel and into bed. Muscles were beginning to hurt already. All in all I think for both of us this was one of the best days of our trip. It was so exhilarating and the company was great and they made it a great experience for us. We would love to do it again and if we were going to do it again we'd definitely go with Gravity.
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Vic
non-member comment
Oh my
Yes oh my, before I could even read the blog I got to the 1st to photo'd and burst out laughing so felt the need to go straight to the comments and share that with you. Some Of these photo's will be kept in my safe hands of the pair of you in silly out fits and when the time is right to blow them up they will be coming out xxxxx