The high point

Pikey Peak

Three days up, one savage summit push, and a huge descent back toward civilisation.

Pikey Peak was the moment the trip stopped feeling like a mountain biking holiday and became a proper Himalayan adventure: heat, storms, leeches, tea houses, hike-a-bike, thin air, pot-belly stoves, questionable waterproofs and bikes held above the clouds.

See the route Start Day 1

4,065m
and a bit
feral

On paper, the numbers don’t look completely ridiculous. That is how Nepal tricks you.

Three days, roughly eighty kilometres, a few thousand metres of climbing and a summit at 4,065 metres. Fine, right? Then the weather rolls in, the air gets thin, the track turns to treacle, the waterproofs stop being waterproof, and “only six kilometres more” becomes a very different sentence.

Pikey Peak sat in the middle of the trip as the big objective: not just a ride, but a little expedition stitched together from road descents, village tracks, high-country climbing, tea houses, hike-a-bike, base-camp weirdness and one enormous descent. It was the part of the trip that made everything feel properly earned.

This was the moment it stopped feeling like a bike trip and started feeling like an actual adventure.

Below: a route overview, a narrative chapter for each day, with stats, Strava links, photo moments and practical rider notes threaded through it.

Route + elevation

An illustrative profile showing the shape of the route: descent out of Phaplu, big climb to Jhapre, a shorter but harder climb to base camp, then the summit spike and huge drop. Swap in GPX-derived charts from the Strava activities if you want it pixel-accurate.

Day 1Phaplu → Jhapre
35km / 1,300m up

Day 2Jhapre → Base Camp
17km / 1,092m up

Day 3Summit + descent
30km / 441m up / huge down

Day 1: Phaplu to Jhapre

The day that started like a Tour de France descent and ended with storm, mud and a jeep.

800 metres down, then everything up

We rolled out straight from the lodge in Phaplu and immediately dropped around 800 metres through villages, dodging tuk tuks and cars, waving “Namaste” at locals, and briefly pretending this was all going to be quite civilised.

Then the day turned. The heat came in, the climbing started, and the road pointed up for a long time. There were local kids, sleeping dogs, noodles, our first leech sighting, and then the sky properly broke open.

A huge thunderstorm rolled through and we took refuge in a tea house while my allegedly waterproof jacket gave up, soaked through to my down layer, and made the whole thing feel a bit less funny. The 4WD track turned to treacle mud, but somehow the jeep got through and gave us a lift for the last six kilometres.

Day 1 on Strava →

Day 2: Jhapre to Base Camp

Short on distance, big on effort. This was the hike-a-bike and base-camp day.

Seventeen kilometres can be a very big day

Day 2 was shorter on paper and bigger in real life. Seventeen kilometres sounds like a recovery spin until you remember you are climbing over 1,000 metres, pushing bikes, and heading toward 3,800 metres.

The Chasing the Yeti crew were in great form. There was plenty of hike-a-bike, plenty of “this is actually pretty fun”, and the weather couldn’t make up its mind: hot sun, rain, hail, all of it.

By the time we were at base camp, sitting at around 3,770 metres beside a pot-belly stove with a cat on my lap, it felt completely surreal. Brutal outside, strangely cosy inside. Just like being at home, if home involved thin air and a massive summit push the next morning.

Day 2 on Strava →

Day 3: Summit and descent

Short, steep, breathless — then a massive descent and the payoff shot.

The summit spike

The final push was savage from the start: about 441 metres of climbing, with the first 300 metres packed into less than half a kilometre. It was short, steep, breathless work — the sort of climbing where the numbers alone don’t really explain the feeling.

Then came the payoff: the summit, the bikes in the air, the clouds, the mountains, and the sense that this was the shot we had all been quietly hoping for.

And then the descent. A couple of thousand metres of down, loose and long and proper, with the trip suddenly switching from survival mode to “oh right, this is why we brought mountain bikes to Nepal.”

“Hard. But very very good. Not easy. Not at all.” — Shane

Add Day 3 Strava link →

Gallery rhythm

Curated page gallery first; full lightbox later. For Pikey, split the photo story into storm, base camp, summit and descent.

Photo selects needed

What the photos need to prove

The gallery should not just be “nice photos”. It should show the actual arc: the deceptively lovely start, the weather turning, the hike-a-bike grind, the strange warmth of base camp, the summit moment and the long way down.

Photo selects: curated from the Day 1–3 shared albums. Full-res originals live in the Google Drive trip folder; a larger lightbox gallery can come later.

What future riders should know

This is the useful bit: not glossy, just honest.

Don’t trust the distance

Seventeen kilometres can be a very big day when it includes altitude, hike-a-bike, rough terrain and weather that changes its mind every twenty minutes.

Waterproofs matter

A leaky jacket became one of the hairiest moments of the trip. Wet down above 3,000 metres is not character-building fun.

Hike-a-bike is part of it

This is not just riding uphill slowly. Some of the best adventure comes when the bike is beside you, above you, or actively annoying you.

Altitude changes the maths

Climbs that look manageable at home feel very different when the air is thin and you have already had a few big days.

Use local support

Guides, tea houses, lodges and the occasional jeep are part of the experience, not a failure mode.

Would we do it again?

Yes. With better waterproofs, tighter photo organisation, and a healthier respect for “only a few kilometres more”.