1st HA GIANG LOOP / Pt. 1 / DONE & DUSTY
Though we are not new to taking people on bike rides nor to organising and curating events, this first tour for under our little KOJO Collective roof definitely made the stomach fluter a little in the build-up.
New and old in the Old Quarter, Hanoi
Could we deliver on our promise to provide that ‘pro-feel’ to our guest riders? Could we ourselves synch as a team and communicate well in the field? Most importantly, could we create and maintain a safe environment for everyone? Basically, would this idea of taking people up into the very northernmost wilds of Vietnam, on the very testing Ha Giang Loop, over 8 stages, 900km and 17,700m of searingly gorgeous (and at times super tough) terrain even work?
Glorious, breathtaking, immense, epic, these routes test your adjectives…
Done and dusted, returned now to the comforts of home, yes would be an answer we are all comfortable with. Here’s a comment from one of our tour riders, Skip Thomas, written a couple of days after out tour ended:
'Snapped back to reality yesterday for a full day in the office, ugh…
I wanted to say what a pleasure it was to meet you all and spend time on and off the bike with you in a foreign land. I learned so much about the local culture, myself and all of you. I have done many different tours and as much as I look for the experiences on the bike, I also look for the human connections, camaraderie and broadened horizons. This tour fully fulfilled all of that and I am thankful for the time and this experience with each of you.'
That message really got us, so nice.
Skip, who also is one of the organisers of the huge VT Monster gravel event out in Stratton, Vermont.
On the KOJO Team in Vietnam we had our CEO and tour leader, Lee Rodgers, and our KOJO filmmaker/media manager Kev Merrey, and our amazing host and all-round star, Minh Ho, from Hanoi. Back home keeoping a watchful eye over us and posting to our social media was Mike McCreesh, our COO.
Lee, Minh, Mike and Kev, L-R.
Here are my Strava entries for Days 1-4 logged on the trip, and some images, hope you enjoy - and we have spots still for our JAPAN tour - Tokyo to Kyoto on roads way less traveled, check that out here!
Part 2 of this trip coming soon
Day 1 / Ha Giang Tour / Hanoi Spin /40km / 1110m / Strava Link
Requires a certain nerve and technical skill to survive riding through Hanoi at 8am and thankfully all our guests survived unscathed - actually, it’s a lot of fun once you read the rhythm of the seemingly chaotic traffic, as the drivers are hyper aware of what is going one around them precisely because there are so few official rules of the road - and the plethora of mopeds keeps every0ne on their toes!
Thanks to our sponsors also! Pedal Mafia, Haro Bicycles and 720 Armour.
The route was one of those fun things that happen on a recon tour, and the only part of the route that we had not ridden last year - and turned out to a way more gravely than expected! Lots of fun tho, and now on our way to Thai Nguyen to get ready for the official first stage of the tour, which should take us a good 7+ hours.
Day 2 / Ha Giang Tour / Thai Nguyen - Lang Son / 168km / 2087km / Strava Link
Writing this laid out on my hotel bed after 9+ hours out on the road today, knees aching and belly full after a good meal at a local restaurant just a stone's throw from our hotel in Lang Son, some 280km north east of Hanoi and just 14km from the Chinese border.
We arrived at 5:40pm, absolutely filthy, covered in mud and clay from head to foot. The bikes were clogged with the same, our drive chains creaking and groaning from the debris clogging them up... and yet we were smiling and laughing the whole last 5km, because we'd just had one heck of an adventure...
This one had it all: our filmmaker getting dragged into a local wedding and 'forced' to down a shot of the local tipple, the lot of us invited into a random stranger's house for tea and cake half way through the ride, and an off-road singletrack section that lasted a good 20km that should not have been on the maps but somehow was - and that, as well as the other occurrences, made for the best first day of a tour just about ever…
Kev forgot his tux but still snuck into the wedding.
This ride was what KOJO was created for - to take people with us and to go adventure. To go with the flow, to be open to experience, to ride into the extraordinary. First tour, 2nd day, and wow, it was a beaut.
Day 3 Ha Giang Tour / Lang Son - Cao Bang / 161km / 1864m / Strava Link
"You've done it - I don't believe that you guys have done it, but yeah, today is actually even better than yesterday…”
And my heart skipped a little. This is exactly what I experienced last year when I recce'd this route with Minh. It actually does get better each day, and we are only on riding day 3 of 8.
Today we rode from Lang Son to Cao Bang in thankfully less rainy conditions than yesterday, and from the off it was a fast (and muddy) start. We flew along the wide rolling roads out of the provincial capital, Lang Son, with several bug trucks honking their way past us, and the usual and always awesome locals shouting us encouragement along the way.
After a few tough kilometers climbing we then turned off these main roads and got into the smaller lanes used only by farmers and other locals, dotted with small villages and surrounded by karste limestone hills, springing up from the rice paddies and tobacco fields like a figment of Roald Dhal's imagination.
We swished and we swayed down hillsides with the most stunning vistas before us... and what an absolute joy to be guiding these people through an environment like this, one I rode through last year and knew I had to bring people to - the seed of what our KOJO Collective became.
The last 15km of the route has 12 km of wicked descending that no cyclist could fail to love...
Proper. That was proper.
Next, 105km tomorrow, to Bao Lac, up some very serious switchbacks and then down a stunning descent with another big dollop of hairpins, before a final run in to the small town near the Chinese border.
Day 4 Ha Giang Tour / Cao Bang - Bao Lac / 104km / 1943m
Can a ride be delicious? If so, this was Michelin starred. Riding from Cao Bang to Bao Lac, the first 60km are a combo of flat and light rolling, all very gentle and quite sweet really... until you hit the 62k mark, then it's 15km of steep almost alpine slopes, featuring long sweeping curves and a landscape reminiscent to Ali Shan and the west ascent of Wuling in Taiwan.
A beautiful flowing set of minor switchbacks takes you to the valley where you just keep picking up speed as you carve around turns cut through the limestone karst hills, which by now are massive - they make the ones from Day 2 and 3 look like cupcakes.
After that we were faced with a viciously steep hill with more switchbacks, with each bend surfaced with loose pebbles, for who knows that reason, making traction more and more difficult as the incline rises. But on we pedalled, because what else is there to do?!
At the top we regrouped, the heat and humidity having risen and left us a proper soggy mess, but the breeze coming up the valley cooled us off.
After that we had the Nah Tenh Pass, which demands your full attention, its curves at thie snasriest coming at somethine over 20%, and rolling up like a wave of tarmac. The big trucks that use the pass swing out so far to get round the bendssa as they climb that there's only about 2 meters left for the driver/rider, and it's a tight fit at times.
One more climb jabs at the thighs and then we had the ginal descent left, a ribbon of a road almost misplaced along the side of the mountain, making it alll rather orgasmic for the seasoned cyclist, as we pelted down at over 80km/hr, giddy and giggling, whooping and a-hollering...
One of our guys, the irrepressible Antoine Issa, was bringing up the rear and missed a small, super tight turn - he went astray for a good 5km but eventually made his was back to us - again, no worries, all smiles! It feels like this - that even though we are tired, and these are some long days in the saddle, you just want to keep riding and riding…
In the hotel now, a nice place by the river, and off next to get those carbs in and a little protein for these poor legs!
Clothing by Pedal Mafia, bikes by Haro Bicycles, sunnies by 720 Armour.
