LOCALadk Magazine

Spring 2016 LOCALadk Magazine 33 LOCALadk club. Our roster grew: Bill Frazer, local educator and adventure travel enthusiast, was our fearless leader. Jeff Erenstone and his brother-in-law Taylor Phillips jumped on board, along with locals Kenny Boettger, Brady Callan and Donna Moody, who all deemed it acceptable to duck out of work during mud season. Two Canadian knobby-tired cycling friends, David Lauzon and his wife Isabelle opted in, along with their rally car-racing ami, Ugo Desgreniers. The international squad was now complete. Our goals for the journey were remarkably simple: we wanted to ex- perience the world's largest mountains by bicycle, we wanted to experience challenging singletrack riding, and we wanted to ex- perience Nepali culture firsthand. The City Bleary eyed and disoriented, we stumbled out of the Kathman- du airport, where we immediately spotted a wiry man waving his arms and fighting his way through a massive queue of Nepalis lined up at Customs to declare the flat screen televisions they'd brought back from weekend trips to Qatar. Entirely unfazed by the chaos of the airport terminal, the Nepali man introduced himself as Saloman, our expedition guide to Nepal's Mustang Valley. He deliberately draped a light, white scarf over each of our shoulders, quietly explaining that it was known as a Khata—a Nepali symbol of purity and compassion, and a customary Nepali greeting for guests. Our weary band then tottered out of the airport into the poorly lit streets of Kathmandu. Our first ride on the continent was more a test of courage than a gentle warm up cruise; we clutched our brake levers with white-knuckled death grips, paralyzed by the chaos. Packed vans whizzed by with passengers crammed inside, dangling casually from open doors, crouching on roofs. Whole families passed us on motorbikes while livestock wove through the sea of honk- ing vehicles. Saloman and Alex, our mechanic, would pop into open air buildings to show us the city's jewels: hidden sections of singletrack and well worn footpaths alongside farm fields and irrigation canals. They would laugh quietly to themselves as we rushed to take photos of such oddities as two boys casually roasting a freshly skinned goat over a pile of household refuse, or young monks in crimson robes squabbling during a break from seminary. A decade of Civil War near Nepal's western border caused a rapid influx of refugees, and Kathmandu's population has since sky- rocketed by over 50% in the last 15 years. All signs point to a valley that had long since exceeded its carrying capacity. Late in our ride, as our group crossed a third bridge that spanned a dried up riverbed filled with garbage and abandoned vehicles, Salomon piped up, "I remember swimming in that river as a little kid!" We circled back to the bike shop just as the skies began to open up, the heavy rains pulling the thick smog from the sky. The air smelled thickly of burning plastic. Swerving to avoid cars, we shouted at Salomon, "This is crazy! Is it always like this?" "Yes," he replied, smiling, "It's always like this. That's why we're headed for the mountains!" For those who ask, I stand by the story that 5 month-old Madelyn Frazer was the reason our ragtag bunch of Adirondack- ers escaped the Blue Line for two weeks to ride our mountain bikes in Nepal last April. Never mind that Maddie is only 5 months old and hadn't been born before our journey began! Rewind to last December. A pack of us was en route to Marcy Dam when the contentious topic of potential spring break des- tinations was broached. We were in the midst of debating the merits of a late April return to Chamonix when Bill blurted out: "Hey guys, Mel and I are having a baby this summer...I've got one big adventure left before it's family time. I really want to go mountain biking in the Himalayas!" Incoherent mumbling followed, with each of us chiming in with what tidbits we knew about the most topographically diverse nation on earth, let alone its cycling culture. Weeks passed, with Bill constantly barraging our inboxes with hastily made Vimeo clips he'd scrounged, always featuring riders descending rugged Himalayan singletrack and whizzing through tiny mountain villages. The videos followed a similar pattern: there were monks, there were prayer flags, there were jaw-drop- ping Himalayan scenes, and riders traversing precipitously nar- row suspension bridges at high speeds. Despite being entirely unsure about what a mountain bike ad- venture in Nepal would entail, word spread quickly through the ranks of the Barkeater Trails Alliance, our local mountain bike

• Cover