All About this Tour
On this mountain bike tour in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan we take you off the grid and into the heart of the Tien Shan mountains that include the marble pyramid of Khan Tengri (6995 m) and Pobedy Peak (7439 m). Snow-capped mountains provide a stunning backdrop for our mountain biking trip through Kazakhstan's valleys with lush pastures and up to passes and plateaus that are teeming with grasslands and wildflowers. The only traffic will be the occasional horseman and we'll meet nomadic Kazakhs that have moved their flocks of sheep to high pastures.
We meet in the cosmopolitan city of Almaty that still has remnants of the Soviet era while evolving into a city with a distinctive European feel. We have walk around this leafy city before heading to the mountains and rivers. We start biking from the Turgen River Gorge and the landscape quickly changes from pine trees to open rolling grasslands. Everyday we'll bike up dirt roads to the top of passes, have adrenalin-inducing downhills and then camp next to rushing rivers as we weave our way to Karkara Valley. The highlight of our tour is two days heli-biking. We are flown to the lofty height of 3500 m and then have a daunting descent on single track and jeep dirt roads back to our camp. The adventure continues as we climb to the top of Mingtur Pass (3900m) and the Chon Ashy Pass (3820m) and descend into Kyrgyzstan.
This is a tough off road mountain biking tour as not only is the cycling challenging, we are riding at high altitudes and in extreme weather conditions. This all makes for a true adventure for those that want a unique biking experience with spectacular high mountain scenery.
Watch a video of the tour here
