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dventure means different things to different people. For any mountain biker, hiker, or climber the definition probably tends toward the extreme – perhaps a sevenday mountain bike race over 565 kilometers with a vertical gain of 50,000 meters through the Himalayas. It’s the Hero MTB Himalaya mountain bike challenge. “It has been called both the most difficult and the most meaningful of riding events by 30
participants in the past. There must be something to it as 60 percent of those who ride it once return to ride it again, most notably the barefoot soldier, Datta Patil. He [has] ridden every year with bare feet. No shoes – that’s another full story,” says Ashish Sood, one of the event’s organizers. The Hero MTB Himalaya mountain bike challenge got its start in 2005 when Mohood Sood, a car rally racer, had a chance meeting with a traveling English mountain
biker who was dead reckoning his way from village to village. Mohood was already considering ways to increase adventure travel in the area and so was inspired to make mountain biking his focus. Since then MTB Himalaya has become a premier crosscountry endurance event which draws bikers from all over the world, profesional and amatuer alike. The course runs from Shimla to Mamali in Himachal Pradesh, through bustling
