Mountain Bike Trails Around The WorldThe mountain bike, that knobby-tired, ultrastable, multigeared goat of a two-wheeler, has delivered us from Mountain Bike Trails such as the Loire Valley and rural New England. No longer are bicycle tourists forced to pedal endlessly from winery to winery, nor to marvel forever at the pretty autumn leaves. Adventurous riders now can negotiate just about any stretch of bad road in the world they please, the most extreme current example being Papua New Guinea's Kokoda Trail, site of a famous campaign between the Australians and the Japanese. And that's progress because, actually, it isn't a road at all, but a steep, narrow and at times very muddy footpath. In this country, bike travelers are taking mountain bikes into the Mountain Bike Trails of Sangre de Cristo mountains outside Santa Fe, N.M., the Canyonlands National Park of Utah and the ends of Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. Internationally, they are cycling the mountain roads of Tibet, the footpaths of the Golden Triangle of Thailand, the out islands of Tahiti. And they are, by most accounts, having a good time at it. Tom Sheehan of the aptly named Off the Deep End Travels of Jackson, Wyo., is a practitioner of what he calls the "expeditionary'' side of mountain biking. Sheehan's motto is: "I'll go down any road once, and any road twice if it's fun.'' Doug McSpadden of Backcountry Bicycle Tours of Bozeman, Mont., says mountain bikes have opened up vast new areas to cyclists -- for wilderness lovers, the very best areas. Sheehan claims to be able to ride a normal 10-speed touring bike just about anywhere he would take a mountain bike. But for the average rider, he says, mountain bikes "are a lot more stable, a lot less skittish, and more forgiving on rougher terrain.'' A few years ago, Sheehan and his partner got tired of bumping into mobs of competitors' cyclists on the trade routes and started looking around for more unusual cycling destinations. Today, they run mountain bike trips in Tibet, Thailand, Tahiti and Papua New Guinea. "There isn't a place in the world where you can't take your bike,'' he says. "They're a primary mode of transportation just about everywhere. The local people you meet can relate to someone on a bike. You can't necessarily say that about a bus full of tourists.'' Tahiti is one of Sheehan's easier trips, for cyclists of any ability. The bikes allow the riders to venture out into the countryside, the areas of hidden waterfalls and traditional Tahitian life. The people are friendlier, the fellow tourists fewer than elsewhere on the islands. The trip is accompanied by van. Papua New Guinea is another story. |