Going down the Worlds Most Dangerous Road

Trip Start Aug 31, 2007
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16
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Bolivia  ,
Tuesday, October 2, 2007

On 2 Oct our group did a whole day mountain biking down the worlds most dangerous road from La Paz to Coroico.

64kms down hill most of the way, decending over 3.5kms vertically on a dirt track with, at times, a 600m drop off the road and only 44 metres of safety railing the whole way down.

Why on earth did we think this was a good idea???

Now, before you start to think that we are absolutely crazy to do such a thing, a new road opened between the two cities in March this year, so most traffic which used to use this road now uses a very safe, paved road and very few vehicles use the "Death Road" as it is called. Ready to ride ... I think.
Ready to ride ... I think.
 Prior to this time though, it was very unsafe, with fatal accidents (either car, truck or mountain biker going over the edge) averaging every two weeks (according to stats from a few years ago).

I think the photos speak for themselves ... it was very hard work, and to be honest, we were all concentrating on NOT falling off the cliff that we were focussing very hard on the tyre tracks we were following and hardly noticed exactly how far the fall was. Usually you drive on the right in Bolivia, but on this road drivers have to drive on the left (cliff side) while going down so they can look out their window and make sure their wheels are not right on the cliff edge. This meant that any vehicles coming up the hill would be on the right, so we too had to ride in the left hand wheel track, right at the edge of the cliff so that we didnt get a surprise coming around a corner and go head first into an oncoming car.

It took a bit over 5 hours to get to the bottom, with many stops to admire the view and recover from all the hard work. Out of 10 people we only had one very minor fall, and Chrisso's back brakes broke, but it was a few seconds before a rest stop and they had a spare bike on hand. We went to an animal refuge at the bottom for lunch and then drove back up the same road to get back to La Paz. That was scarier than the ride, as you could actually look over the cliff and see how skinny the road was!

This is definitely not an activity for the faint hearted, but is a lot safer now that the new road has opened and few vehicles use the road. 
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Comments

eileena
eileena on Oct 8, 2007 at 08:25AM

You have to be joking!
This old heart of mine is beating a little fast. I hate to think how Sonia's is.
Love reading of your travels though.
Love
Eily

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