WMDR 5th apr

We just got back from our ride down the worlds most dangerous road. It all started when we got all organised and booked our bike trip and jungle tour in the same day as coming from Copa. That was ok because we had a rest day before we went down the hill. We had decided on one of the most expensive companies to help us down the road, someone had gone off the mountain not 3 weeks previous. I asked if it was Roy, but they said no. The plan was to do the bike trip and then stay a couple of days at a town called Coroico, recover there and then head to the jungle.
Gravity assisted mountain bikes is who we went with. They offer two types of packages, $75us full package and $55us essential package. For the full package you get, wind jacket, pants, $2500 front and rear shocked mountain bike, goggles, buff( for the dust we were told ), helmet, gloves, animal footprint chart and one triple strength condom ( because you never know ). I was curious as to what the essential package had and was told a front shocked only bike and a helmet... maybe.. so we got the lot.

Jo all dressed up with somewhere to go.

We met at a cafe in La Paz at 730, got on the bus and headed up the hill out of town. I'm not sure if they use a poor grade fuel over here, but smoke was belching from every exhaust . The hour on the bus saw us go through a couple of checkpoints, one of these was to let the authorities know who was on the mountain, what for they wouldn't say. I told Jo it was so they could greet you by name when you got to the bottom, I think she bought it. We finally reached the start of the ride, it also happened to be the highest we had ever been on land, 4700m. Yep we were starting our ride amongst snow covered hills, I won't call them mountains because we were just about on the peaks anyway. The ride is 22km of road then 44km of gravel, the WMDR.

We all tore off down the hill. The was a lot of misty cloud to start with, which soon turned into rain. We were soaked through before we hit the drug checkpoint, this stops cocaine processing equipment reaching the coca growing areas. Jo and I were at the back of the group on the road, the riding position of the mountain bikes, wasn't quite to my liking on the road, I had my knees around my ears, but everyone was going very fast, so the 22km was over quickly. Then it was on to the WMDR. A few months ago they open a new road around the other side of the mountain so most traffic now uses that. The downside to this is that, the traffic that still uses the old road goes a lot faster, and everything coming up has right of way. Once on the gravel I felt a lot better, it is where the bikes came into there own. I moved from back of the pack to around the middle, the bikes had so much grip. We were constantly fighting a loosing battle with mud in our faces and fog on the inside of our goggles, cause lets be honest sight is probably the most important sense for this activity. We started riding at about 9am and finished covered in mud, soaked to the bone, yet with massive grins on our faces at 1.45pm, that was one of the hardest things, concentrating on not smiling while riding and getting a mouth full of mud for your trouble. Our ride had taken us from 4700m down to 1200m over 66km, gravity assisted alright.
We had showers and some lunch, this was at a wildlife refuge place. They had some monkeys, birds and a boa constrictor, all rescued from different places. Jo was is heaven, she was also surprised at how much she enjoyed the ride. Who knows I might even get her on a bike yet.

This was apparently the biggest size they had.

PS. we have a disc full of photo's from they day, but we only took these two on our camera.