It’s close-calls and chaos in Kathmandu - Mountain Biking Nepal

Let the chaos begin. It's time for a little mountain biking in Kathmandu, Nepal. I'm on yet another Wandering Wheels International trip. We're going to get to some single track here in a little bit, but not quite yet. You can't hesitate. That was our first instruction. No hesitation. This is the Tamil neighborhood. Nice and touristy. 32 hours, 15 minutes door-to-door from my house to the hotel room in Kathmandu. It was quite a journey. Our glorious trip leader Matt Yackey is up front. Been with him to Peru. His great trip to Peru. The Yukon, British Columbia. Really nice to ride with Matt again. He told us the stray dogs in Nepal are a little bit nicer than the ones in Peru, so we might get barked at, but hopefully we won't get chased too long. Traffic flows on the left side of the road, but you know what? It flows on every side of the road out here. There are no rules. We saw a cop giving someone a ticket and we figured that he must have killed someone to actually get a ticket. Uh-oh, here we go. First dog of the trip. This is going to be our warm-up day. This will not be a typical day on the trip, but getting everybody warmed up, seeing a few sights, drinking it all in. It's definitely a mellow vibe, even though it's all chaos with the traffic. Nobody's yelling at each other. Of course there's the honks and stuff, but it's really not that bad. Everyone knows to have respect and there's always, there's always pedestrians and everything. All of the above. We've got our guide Samir leading the way right here. Good, good. I haven't looked behind me one time to make sure Dan is with us, but he's here. Maybe some more narrow bars would be helpful out here. Namaste. It's only 4,000 feet in Kathmandu, so it's a little bit of elevation, but I think we will cross over 13,000 feet on this trip. Lots of shuttle laps though. We're not going to be doing much climbing. Finally see some mountains. Probably just call those hills. Air quality was pretty nasty when I flew in yesterday. It's about 12 hours different from home, time zone change wise, but getting out here is just, any way you slice it is a far journey. I did SFO to Istanbul, Istanbul to Kathmandu, and I splurged for the business class so I could actually sleep with the lay flat seat. It was worth it. I am like good to go. Take my life into my own hands to get an Instagram clip. Oh my. Triple black diamond. I think Nepal is most known for Mount Everest. Big trekking, big hiking destination, but there's also a really good mountain bike community here. Hopefully we'll be able to show off in these videos. Different world out here. Get in where you fit in. Show of force. Got hit by a bus in Nepal. I know you feel all safe and sound on your couch at home right now, but if you don't have your electrolytes dialed in, you're going to feel like you got hit by a bus in Nepal. Oh, there must be a better way. Yes, there really is. The best way to break through and get your hydration sorted is with Element, the best electrolyte drink mix in the business. The Element thesis is out with sugar and in with salt. They believe that most people, especially active people that get out and sweat a lot, need more salt in their diet, not less, to feel good and to perform their best. The Element mission is to restore health through hydration. I spent many, many years looking for that perfect electrolyte drink mix that tasted great, but didn't have a pound of sugar, that kept me fired up through a ride, but didn't get me all jittery. I hate that stuff with caffeine. Element has none of it, and the best part of all, it doesn't mess with my stomach or have any weird aftertaste. The best thing about Element for me is that it knocks out cramps and headaches before they even get started. The best thing about Element for you is that they have a fantastic no questions asked refund policy. If you give Element a try, I really think you're going to like it, but anything's possible. If you don't like it, you just send them an email. They will refund your money. You don't even have to send anything back. You are taking zero risk on your first taste of Element. Head on over to drinkelement.com slash BKXC, and when you put in your order, whether it's your first order or your 500th order of Element, you're going to get a free eight pack sample pack, which is very, very key because I always suggest when it's your first order of Element, go with citrus salt. It's a nice middle of the road flavor, but then when you get the sample pack, you get to try them all. My link is D-R-I-N-K, element.com slash BKXC. It's time to get your hydration dialed in. 100 Nepalese rupees is equivalent to 72 US cents. I love prices. Everywhere I go, I just love seeing the prices of everything. Median salary for folks from Kathmandu, 8,000 bucks a year, 660 bucks a month. Nepal has huge tariffs on gas automobiles. If the engine is over 2,000 CC, basically 200%. If the car's 30 grand, what are you going to pay? 90 grand for it? 60 grand goes to the government. Namaste is the hello. You hear it all the time. My buddy Patrick taking off. He's a usual suspect on my international trips. This is pretty typical taxi situation. Call up the motorbike and they pick you up, take you where you need to go. And riding up ahead, here's our local guide Om. He's helped build this trip with Matt over the past nine years, scouting, spending many days out in the mountains. I just saw something across the road. What was that? Looked like a furry rat slash marmot. It was like a squirrel, but not. 120 different plus languages in Nepal. A lot of people speak English. It's great. And the vibe you get from everyone is so friendly. The trash burning is never good for the lungs. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, no. Get him. Get his ass. Get him. It's about 35 cents for one of the perfect ride size. I can't clip out. I'm cemented in. Wheels on the ground in Nepal. Let the single track begin just a little bit today. Landslide-y. Samir in the lead. Really perfect weather right now. 75 degrees, maybe. The sun is, oh, it's nice. And now it's even better in the shade. Oh, yeah. Fresh landslide, yeah. Oh, yeah. And this is Matt, the mastermind behind this trip. Check out the link in the description if it's something you ever want to do. Namaste. Cookout. So that was a Hindi little temple and the local guys call these the temple trails for the god Ganesh, the god of money. Left turn. Got 33 million different gods in the Hindu religion. Memorize them all. Oh, there was one monkey there. I didn't see it. I saw it in the peripheral. Oh, yeah. A little slower. Whoa. Intimidating. Man, it's so funny how I give myself very little credit for actually being good at mountain biking. Just have to read the comments to deflate any sense of accomplishment. But it's pretty cool to actually build up a skill over 15 years and become very, very proficient. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a hard left. He was right. A deck of playing cards. Couldn't hold it, even though the pavement would probably have perfect grip. Didn't trust it. My bike made it through perfectly fine. I never take off the rotors. I have taken off the rotors once, but just let it keep those tires inflated and pray. It sucks to have a six hour layover in the Istanbul airport, but it means that my luggage is probably not going to get lost when you have those tight connections. It's trouble. The Nepalese people are such a mix. It is a melting pot. If you just took one person and you look at them, you're like, OK, maybe they're from India. Maybe they're from Thailand. Maybe they're from China. But it's really all different ethnicities, backgrounds. Nice, smooth transition. Tell my wife I love her. Perfect. There's also a pretty good mix of food. I had some beef chow mein last night. There was Mexican food on the menu. It's a touristy spot, so that's why. But we're going to give you the sample of everything as we go along during the trip. On this night, we had a pretty good dinner and a show at the Gokarna house. They would serve one course and then do a little show in between. And it was five courses and five different shows. It was quite involved. And we got our first taste of the Nepalese traditional food, dal bhat, rice and a bunch of fixings. Monkey town. Having a banana. Oh, yeah. Easy. So that little temple we saw before was Hindi, and I'm pretty sure all this other stuff right here is Buddhist. Let sleeping dogs lie. After all that hectic city riding, we had a nice little stroll around Durbar Square. This was the historic seat of the Nepalese monarchy for generations, where kings were crowned and ruled. We even got to see a living god, the royal Kumari. No video is allowed of her. She was selected at three years old, taken from her home and moved into this palace where she will be waited on hand and foot until she reaches puberty. And then they'll go pick another one. She is not allowed to leave the residence except for when she goes out for 13 different holy festivals each year. And her feet are also never supposed to touch the ground. Whoa, I got a couple poles holding up my house. So this is called Freak Street. And before 1990, drugs were all legal out here. So there'd be a lot of ne'er-do-wells. Come visit Nepal and stay forever. I think the nicest newest car I've seen so far is the Hyundai Ioniq 5. It's like a brand new one. Oh man. Oh yeah. This blinker, that blinker. Oh. Oh yeah. Critical mass. Who farted? Oh my god. Force the issue. Oh no. No, no, no. It's Om's fault. Green, green, green. These dang handlebars. Cut them down to 450 for Nepal. I think we're going to end up with 15 miles. This is a real ride. Really crazy. So we hung a right and then all of the sudden we were in the epicenter of mountain biking in Nepal. They have got two real deal bike shops here in the center of Kathmandu and a cycling themed cafe. The big mural is from the Mountain Riders of Nepal bike shop. That's where Sameer works as a mechanic. And then next door, you've got Himalayan Single Track where Om works as a guide. Both shops were stocked with great gear. They both do rentals. They both do guided trips. We got to meet Jenny and Santos who are the proprietors of Himalayan Single Track and they have been building this mountain bike scene for almost 15 years now. And then right there, you've got the pedal and stop cafe where we all just sat down and rejoiced in our first day of riding that none of us got ran over by any trucks. That's a pretty good way to start an epic trip. We got a lot of miles ahead of us. Squeeze them. That's our turn. Crazy. All right. Get on the Patreon if you want to see the extended cuts. Three bucks a month. Otherwise, do me a favor. Go ride something new and maybe I'll see you on the trail.