Four is Better Than Two

Mongolia, the land of the horse. If Wikipedia is to be trusted, it’s the land where horses outnumber people. Ever since the country’s formation in the early 13th century by chief Temujin, later immortalised as Genghis Khan, horses have been intertwined with the Mongolians. The clichéd image of wild horsemen roaming the great, empty steppe still holds true for much of the land, and the cultural significance of the horse remains as strong as ever. It’s a common thread connecting generations. I found that conversations with men in Mongolia often included the phrase ‘we are strong like the horse,’ and, given their prowess in wrestling, I wasn’t about to argue. But Mongolia is still a country of the modern age. It holds huge regional, and perhaps global, significance, a result of having two very powerful neighbours. The end of Mongolia’s communist chapter in 1992 led to an incredible land grab, as mining companies from around the world sought to gain access to its rich natural resources. In the face of this modernity, it is all too obvious that the horse is slowly being overtaken by the 4x4 and trusty Honda motorbike.

Written and photographed by Ben Page

My trip was a simple one, cycling westwards across Asia with three friends. Mongolia was hot property on our map of places to explore, and we wanted to go traverse the Khangai and Altai Mountains. The plan was to find some exciting, unridden parts of the country, and in the process make a film while mapping a route that would put the lowly bike on a level pegging with our four-legged friends. We cycled here from Beijing with no knowledge of the land, putting our faith in the hands of trusty old Soviet Military maps, connecting up a series of dotted lines that indicated footpaths. But, as we later found out, a dashed line on the map often means nothing out here.

If the motor is really overtaking the mare in Mongolia, it’s only so in the lowlands and the steppe. Enter into the mountains and the horse still holds top spot. The four of us on bikes, however, had a little more difficulty. The summer rains swelled small streams into raging rivers, torrents of water that would need crossing multiple times a day. We’d shuttle gear and bikes across, hoping we wouldn’t lose our footing. Each time we were successful, we’d take a greater risk on the next one. Eventually, we met our match and had to accept the help of two local guys and their horse. Clearly, where rivers are concerned, horses trump bikes.

We pushed our bikes for three full days, too stubborn to turn around and naïve enough to keep on trusting that the elusive line on the map we’d been seeking could be found somewhere in these mountains.

Away from the water, the great steppe and valley floors were easy, smooth two-track connecting one yurt to another. Bikes skipping along, affording a chance to take in the surroundings of the world’s wildest country. The culture in Mongolia is to welcome in all travellers, a tradition that echoes the history of nomadic living in the region. Father and son will travel for days to reach small villages, getting supplies and sharing conversations. As oddities here, we were similarly welcomed into people’s homes and presented with the traditional brew of kumis, fermented mare’s milk, aaruul, solidified milk curds, and some high percentage Mongolian moonshine. Three or four yurts into the day and we’d begin to feel a little worse for wear, particularly since three really is the magic number here.

We’d use broken Mongolian and games of charades to ask families if bikes could continue over the terrain ahead. Perhaps we mistook their exuberant responses as signs of encouragement, rather than warnings of the route ahead. Either way, as the final yurt turned into a white spot in the distance, we discovered that there was a reason why bikes hadn’t been taken here before. Over time, tracks had faded into faint paths, eventually fading into nothing. Pedalling ceased and pushing began.

We pushed our bikes for three full days, too stubborn to turn around and naïve enough to keep on trusting that the elusive line on the map we’d been seeking could be found somewhere in these mountains. Down steep river valleys, through boulder fields, and over tussocky moorland, we pushed and pulled, cursing and carrying our bikes onwards, wishing we’d just stuck to the lower routes. It felt as if we’d gone on a walking holiday, opting to carry bikes instead of rucksacks to haul our equipment.

There were fractions of fun, however. After a couple of days of non-stop pushing over passes, gravity ceased to be our enemy, quickly becoming our friend. Vegetation in Mongolia is pretty friendly to the big tyre and we found that with a little bit of momentum we could roam free, chasing each other down mountainsides, each of us trying to find the best line. We rode through wildflower meadows, finding the lines of least resistance, even stumbling on segments of fractured singletrack that buoyed our spirits.

It’s rare to feel truly free on a bike. The nature of cycling means we are confined to trails, tracks, and roads, following GPS routes like they’re the Holy Grail. But out in the vast Mongolian steppe, we found that rare chance to truly go wherever our wheels took us. Setting our sights on the far away horizon, we would let our bikes roam free, thrilled by those occasions of pathless riding. But were these rare moments of freedom really worth the pushing, the hauling, and the multi-day hike-a-bikes? Probably not. We certainly proved to ourselves that bikes can indeed take you to the remote corners of this incredible country, but I don’t think that Mongolians will be swapping four hooves for two wheels any time soon.