Lhasa to Kathmandu Biking Adventure

This is an epic ride – one of most adventurous a biker can do. 80-90% of this ride is over 4000m above sea level. In 1100km you cross 5 passes over 5000m, a handful of ‘small’ passes over 4000m and you will ride the longest downhill in the world, dropping from 5050m in Tibet to 540m in Nepal over a little more than 150km! It is a real classic and to make your trip even more adventurous, even longer and even more challenging, we have decided to in-corporate a four day round trip away from the main Lhasa – Kathmandu road, to visit Rongbuk Monastery and the North Base Camp of Mt Everest.

Throughout the ride, your state of the art bicycles will be a source of great interest. As they will not have seen anything more sophisticated than their basic Chinese-made boneshakers, there are great opportunities to share laughs with local people!

We follow the main Lhasa to Kathmandu route as it runs westwards, parallel to the great Himalaya chain, which forms the border with the territories of Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal. Throughout, the road traverses a high and dry plateau-land, which is punctuated by the spectacular monastery towns of Gyantse, Shigatse and Shegar, as well as several smaller settlements and nomadic Drogpa encampments.

On the detour away from the main route towards the Rongbuk Monastery, the road climbs through almost fifty hairpin bends to reach the Pang La, which affords splendid views of the Himalaya, and of Mt. Everest itself. Everest Base Camp is a ‘not to be missed’ inclusion to this ride. Standing before the exposed and shear North Face of Chomolungma [Mt. Everest] at Everest Base Camp (5500m/18044ft) is a memorable experience that few will ever forget. We will spend a night at Everest Base Camp before riding 70 km back out to the main Kathmandu route.

Back on the main road we reach the edge of the Tibetan Plateau as we cross the 5200 metre high Thang La, and begin a mind-blowing descent of 4500 metres, via the border town of Zhangmu, to the valley of the Sun Kosi River in Nepal. A final, easy day’s cycling brings us back to civilisation in the form of Kathmandu.

This tour guarantees to be a high point [in more ways than one] in any mountain biker’s life.