World's most dangerous road...

The world’s most dangerous road

According to the BBC, this road, near La Paz, recorded an average 200-300 deaths per year, before a new road was built, taking away most of the traffic, but doing nothing for the dangerous drops, gravelly road surface or the potholes that seem to be more frequent than the flat bits.

The idea of riding the world’s most dangerous road on a mountain bike definitely had me thinking twice, but what the heck, how many times do you get to ride the World’s most dangerous road? Some of the group opted for solid ground but 16 of us headed up to see just what all the fuss is about. The deal was simple, get a bus to the top, ride a bike to the bottom, don’t fall off.

We got to the top for a 9am departure, which was early for a few reasons. Sensibly most of us had kept off the beers the night before, and the cold air soon snapped us out of our early morning daze. There was snow around us and the air was fresh, so we opted for lots of layers as we started the first stages, a 20km cycle down well tarmacked roads that allegedly got upto speeds of 80kph or 50mph in real money. I reckon we touched 40mph at most, but it was still pretty quick to be sweeping round bends.

I managed to take the title for the faster down hiller, though arguments abounded whether weight was an advantage, or just my superior streamlining and technical abilities. Still, the ”Fast as Bolt cycling club” has its founder member and I will be signing autographs later. Particularly miffed was young Kiwi Mark, who I pass one handed and waving as he gave it all he had to keep up with the master downhiller.

The uphill stretch was sensibly missed out by a few of us, rising uphill is hard at the best of times, but 5 miles up, when you are cycling at altitude, no way my lungs would cope with that.

The final and longest section was onto the actual old road, gravel, rocks, waterfalls, one river, countless hairpins, lots of memorials to dead motorists, rockslides etc. This was the point where the road started to twist and turn, the surface deteriorate and the drops become deadly. The guide was very good and stopped us every 10 minutes or so to tell us about the deaths at a particular point, the dangerous bends ahead and to give us the chance to get our breath back and stretch our arms and legs. The gravel was pretty much constant and the rocks described as “babies heads” seemed to be on every bend at times.

Luckily the bikes were up to the battering they were taking as we flew down the hills, round the bends confident no cars would be coming up hill, after the guide mentioned heavy rain had caused a landslide the previous day, as well as leaving the load littered with more stones / rocks than usual. We did have one crash, though she got off with a bump to the head and a load of superficial bleeding and cuts to her face and arms. Not good, but could have been much worse if she had crashed over the edge rather than just onto the tarmac.

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