Road of Death - Blogabond

The Road of Death cycle route starts at an altitude of 4650 metres and then it's almost continuously downhill to 1200 metres. The road was declared the world's most dangerous road in 1995, with around 300 people being killed each year on it. It's much safer now that a new road has been opened, which means that there is almost no traffic on the Death Road now apart from mountain bikes and their support vehicles.

The company logo on the van

We were picked up early at our hostel and driven to the starting point of the route. It was nice and sunny, but still very cold at that altitude. We had heard some dodgy tales of unscrupulous operators using badly maintained bikes and minimal protection. We had been recommended Vertigo by someone who had used them and they were offering a low season discount so it cost only Bs400, more than Bs200 less than the most famous company, Gravity, who the Wild Rover Hostel would have been happy to sign us up with.

Me looking really white

Joanne looking really cool

Me looking cool

Full bike team

There's not too much more to say about the day, but I have lots of photos as the fee includes a CD of photos and a t-shirt saying that you survived the Road of Death. Most of the photos were taken on the day, but they also included some standard ones, including lots of photos of shrines and a couple of jokey ones. I was surprised they are still so flippant about it, after our guide Chello told us that there was a fatal accident with their company not that long ago. There are still occasional fatal accidents, but nowhere near the levels they were at before the new road opened.

There are lots of shrines on the road

I'm surprised the company still joke like this

The route starts off on tarmac but at the point the new road splits off it turns into a crumbly gravel road. The mountain biking wasn't as tough as anything I've done in Scotland, though the chances of dying if you do have an accident are certainly much higher: those drops are long. The bikes were good, it was probably the best mountain bike I've ever been on, but they didn't seem to be geared very high, which meant I couldn't go as fast as I would have liked. Maybe this is deliberate to reduce the chances of people taking corners too fast, or perhaps it's just that I'm used to road bikes, which are usually much faster. Nonetheless it was a lot of fun and the views were great.