HST Basic Mt. Bike workshop

The day started at 9:00 am from Himalayan Single Track in the foggy cold winter morning. It was not long before we where all shedding off layers as we climbed up into the sunshine on the Mudkhu Road, Nagarjun Jungle on one side and the fog shrouded views of the expanding rural suburbs of Kathmandu valley on he other their side as we peddled up the steady incline.

Our group consisted of 12 riders and we arrived at the tea shop in Mudhku in time for a warming cup of Nepalie tea and some freshly made Chana and Anda ( chickpeas and eggs) . Didi and Dai at Mudhku Tea Shop really know how to look after local mountain bikers, go here any morning of the week and you will meet many local riders out enjoying their mountain bikes for fun and fitness. A great place to meet new freinds and only 8km from the city.

After the re engerizing tea break we climbed up a short but steep single track and got a close up look at some traditional farming houses as we literally rode throught thier back yards, much to the surprise and curiosity of the people that lived there. Finally our trail ended on a sunny ground overlooking the valleys beyond. 

Here the training began. Santosh and Lama gave an introduction to everyone and first we discussed what is "mountain biking" and what are " mountain bikes". A good place from which to start and develop an understanding of our two wheeled steeds.

From here Santosh went into a talk about the "M" Checks and the key safety points of checking your bike before you get on and ride it. The morning then progressed into demos on puncture repair, wheel removal, repairing broken chains and basic gear tuning. All valuable lessons for riders.

To end the day we moved on to a small session of mountain bike skills and bike handling which focused on the importance of the "Attack Position", bike handling, braking and body position. We had lots of fun doing that. Returning to Thamel our trail took us down some fun and steep singletracks in the paddyfeilds, a good place to practice our new found skills....

Why are courses like this so important? Well mountain bikes are a vehicle of recreation and sport, but we can only get out of them what we put in and by knowing more about how to maintain, look after and fix our bikes as well as a bit about better bike handling and body position can help us get a whole lot more out of our daily mountain biking experiences.

The Himalayan Single Track team is looking forward to doing more of these in the future.

www.himalayansingletrack.com