Mountain Biking 1 - Ulaanbaatar - Mongolia

First things first: assembling our bikes!.The plan is to ride up past the Zaisan monument and explore the hills behind it.

We headed south from our hotel to a place called the "Bod Khan Uul Strictly Protected Area" -- basically a huge hill south of Ullanbaatar with walking and cycling tracks running through a forest. 

 

The traffic was horrendous, so we rode on the footpath where we could.

Camel sculpture on road side.

 

Pete even found some urban mountain biking.

Our first Ger, or Yurt (Mongolian traditional dwelling).

Greg said "Let's go up to that rock and check out the view". It got insanely steep, around 25%, and we all ended up walking. It took us about half an hour to get up the side of the valley

We'd already climbed quite a bit before it got really steep.

The view from near the top, looking towards Ulaanbaatar. You can get an idea of how steep the track was -- no switchbacks here.

The singletrack was great as we headed along the ridgeline, though there were lots of fallen trees we had to clamber over.

A purple dandylion?

It's hard to tell from this photo, but the descent got really steep in one place -- so steep we ended up walking for a bit.

I really love these pinecones, and I noticed a wild strawberry plant hiding as well.

We left the trees behind, and began to cycle back towards the city.

On the way back, we detoured to check out this amazing 16-metre tall golden Buddha, it's close by the Zaisan monument.

The grounds around the Buddha had these goats, deer, and a bell.

All up, the ride was 17km and took 1 hour 45 minutes.