Death Road in Bolivia
This story goes back about 2 years to when I was in La Paz in Bolivia. Been there a few days so decided to do one of the more exotic things: mountain biking down the "Death Road", so dubbed because of its extreme conditions in parts.

My mate J and me dragged ourselves out of bed at 6ish, got changed and headed for the bike place. We met our little group, got our helmets (the full face deal which will feature later in this story) and gear then headed for the start of the day, about an hour or so drive away. The ride started fine: tested our bikes and when everything was ready we headed off. The day is basically a descent from 4500m to roughly 1100m, starting along an asphalt road. We started off down the road absolutely gunning it. Went through some checkpoints and then had to peddle uphill for about 40mins which was agony for a seriously unfit knacker like myself. We then started on ´the world's most dangerous road´. For those of you who don't know where this is, its reputation comes from a dirt track cut into the mountain, wide enough for about one minibus, with drops on one side ranging from 250 to 400m straight down. Two hundred people a year used to die on this, until they built the bypass. We then started the road. The views were crazy...just mountains, sheers drops and the road. We bombed it down the first section and stopped for lunch. Should have really seen the omens as my chain broke clean off my bike and so I had to get a new bike.

Now comes the fun part. About 30mins later, we are shooting down a gravelly section, when my helmet strap comes loose and the helmet rides up in my face. I start tapping the brakes, but at about 35mph I lost control reaching up for my helmet to pull it down. So I stacked it in a massive way. The bike flicked round to the right (according to the guy behind) as my brakes locked and I bounced off, sliding on my side until I came to a stop, literally boots hanging over the edge of a 200m drop. If I had come off the other side of the bike I would have been over and well...dead. Not to be melodramatic or anything but it is kinda cool i survived!

Got mashed up though: massive cuts and burns on my side and ripped up my arms, hands and knee. But got back on and finished the road

Incidentally, the journey back was interesting as our two guides were completely wasted, so much so that one of them threw up out the window on no less than 7 separate occasions before passing out. The driver was luckily sober, which was good as we took the death road back up.
(satanstolemyteddybear Mu hõljuk on angerjaid täis, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 22:29, Reply)