THE ADVENTURES BEHIND THE HANDLEBARS

Around the time the 2020 lockdown had eased down a little, my brother and I used to go cycling without a particular destination in mind. What started as a spontaneous pass-time activity, it drove my brother into being increasingly into cycling, and now he dreams of becoming a professional mountain biker someday.

In his earlier stages of learning new skills and training to race professionally, he participated in “MTB Uphill Challenge 2022”. Now, the world of mountain biking was utterly unknown to me at the time, and to be completely honest, I was a bit nervous as well, sending my brother off to race in the complicatedlooking trails. So, for his first race, I dropped him off at the starting point and later met him at the finishing point. As I waited for my brother to appear in the finishing line, I noticed the compassion, energy, and support each competing players had for one another. You would see people of all ages, gender, and nationality participating, cheering for one another. I can’t find a word to describe the feeling and the energy in the way the competing participants cheered for each other.

Witnessing the event’s first race, I knew I wanted to let more people know of the event and community of mountain biking in Nepal. A few weeks after the event ended, I met with the man behind the events’ success, Mr. Rakesh Manandhar, founder of Single Track Nepal, to hear his views on the event and the close-knit community of mountain biking in Nepal.

I started cycling in school, but I started cycling professionally in 2005. How did you start your

My journey started in 1998 as a trekker. As I was working as a trekking guide, I met an Australian cyclist client in 2004. As I talked with him, he shared that if I enjoyed cycling, he had a friend in Kerala looking for an assistant. With his sponsorship, I headed to Kerala.

His friend, Michael, was originally from Manchester and was working on looking for cycling routes in Kerala. He guided and trained me regarding different riding skills, and I learned maintenance work that way as well. The two of us discovered many trails and routes there, not being limited to Kerela. We found trails in Darjeeling, Uttarakhand as well. I worked alongside him for a long time in a company (Mountain Biking Kerala) he later established.

It was around the year 2008/09. The Asian Championship Games were about to be held in Nepal. It happened in Chobhar. It was a considerable large-scale game about to be organized in Nepal. International trainers from UCI (International Cycling Union) came to Nepal to train the officials needed for the game. Similar to how FIFA works, UCI is responsible for mountain biking, road cycling, BMX… basically all kinds of cycling there is to exist.

Like games have referees, such officials are called commissars in cycling terms. They were the ones to train us to conduct the games as commissars in a proper mountain biking format. After the championship had ended, the craze for cycling had increased so much. The kids who used to come to watch games have now become national-level riders. Even Rajesh Magar (National Downhill Champion) used to go and watch the game there.

I continued working that way, and right now, I own a company, Single Track Nepal, and we organize various cycling tours, and I also manage races independently as well.

Compared to when you first started cycling professionally, what differences have you seen in cycling trends?

When we used to cycle back then, there used to be very few riders. If we met them while riding, we could quickly tell where the rider was from, even without communicating. We see so many riders these days it’s, hard to tell where they’ve come from. Back then, if we had to change/ repair any component, we had to consider many things. We needed help finding the parts we needed. We would wait on foreigners to arrive and check if they’d sell for second hand. There are so many shops you could get all kinds of repair parts and additional components, so I think that’s a plus point for riders now.

Moreover, most young riders around the age of 20 prefer downhill cycling over other types of cycling. They like to perform jumps and tricks with their cycles and lean more towards recreational cycling.

Why did you start the Uphill Challenge?

You have to consider a lot of factors to conduct a race. It requires a lot of investment in time and financial support as well. You need to acquire permission from the traffic police and the locals from the area you’re about to conduct the race. Because of such factors and COVID, organizations were not conducting racing events at all. The riders were sitting idle, and cycle shops needed to be active. There was a shortage of cycle parts and cycles as a whole in the market. Many athletes and sportspeople turned to process as COVID restrictions didn’t allow them to use the gyms. This hiked the demand for cycles in the market so much that the suppliers could not meet such enormous needs. Shimano and SRAM supply most of the cycle and couldn’t meet such a huge demand. And this led to cycle shops have little going on. So I thought of conducting an accessible format, non-profit cycle race to, include everyone and would be a ‘reason to ride’ for everyone. The race occurred in different stages on different trails within the valley. The race was conducted with the theme of ‘Race to Train. And this theme has unarguably been successful as well. The riders pushing their cycles along the track in the first race had improved and were entirely riding their bikes on the trails by the time they reached the last stage.

The challenge included the involvement and contributions of different cycle shops as well. As riders participated in the race, more cycles would be in, which meant they would also require equal maintenance cells. Similarly, riders could detect the faults in there and may bikes wish to upgrade their components. These would all be eventually beneficial to the cycle shops as well, and it would allow more customers to be driven to them. This would go more activity to the cycle shops. Each stage of the challenge was conducted with the help of the participating cycle shops. The medal distribution ceremonies for the particular stage took place in the shop premises, allowing more riders to visit the shops.

Now the question remains, why an uphill challenge? It is because once you learn to ride uphill, you learn to ride correctly. Conducting the race uphill trained the riders and reduced the risk of injury. This made cycling uphill the best idea.

How would you describe the type of riders present in the challenge?

We had planned to include at least 12 categories that the riders could be a part of. Initially, we had classes for Junior- Men, Women, Elite- Men, Women, Master- Men, Women, Grand Master- Men, Women, Veteran- Men, Women, and Senior- Men, Women. We didn’t have a category for ‘youth’ at first. Because a young kid below the age of 12 was very enthusiastic about participating we included a new category- ‘youth’ to encourage such young riders. We also tried to include women riders, but unfortunately, we only had a few women riders, as many as men riders. We did have a few women expats and, foreigners participating, though.

We conducted the race entirely to encourage riders in the valley. As the stages progressed, we had an increasing number of riders attending. We had more riders above the age of 30 rather than young riders. Through this race, we’ve discovered that the riders above 30 used to feel discouraged from riding and competing in races since they would have to compete with younger riders. But since this challenge had a massive presence of riders over 30, they felt more comfortable participating in the event.

(Ps. My brother competing in the junior category had shared with me that competing with riders over 30 in an uphill challenge felt so amazing because, as he saw, they had such fantastic stamina and strength and would be able to ride uphill without stopping to rest at all. Watching them made riding a steep uphill seems so easy when it wasn’t as easy as it appeared.

As an experienced rider, what would your message be to emerging enthusiastic riders?

Cycling brings health benefits and keeps you young. I am 42 years old, but my friends still compliment me by saying I don’t look 42. Being a part of this community allows you to socialize and learn from your peers and encourage you to remain down to earth. Regardless of your cycle, you should start learning through it. Slowly as you discover your strength and interests, knowing that way is more long-lasting and will stick with you in the long run.

I am grateful for this event and this sport as I witnessed my brother grows so much as an individual. Just as Mr. Rakesh stated, being a part of this community has helped him mentally and physically. The new session of the MTB Uphill Challenge, starting in December 2023, will open a new world for those with the same passion and enthusiasm as my brother. This event has done the same for him in the past

-Luna Shrestha