TR: Bikepack Racing in Morocco

[springsproject]

Atlas Mountain Race - 720 miles/54,000 ft



First bivvy of the trip - Edinbrugh Airport Starbucks





My first pay-to-enter bikepacking race, I’m not really sure how I feel about paying money for these events. On the one hand; it’s somewhat reassuring to know that there will be familiar faces out there keeping watch to make sure everything will be ok, and hopefully you don’t die. On the other; I have grown to appreciate the lack of organization in a lot of bikepacking races and being way out there, completely on my own. I don’t have a problem supporting the promoters who are trying to make a living by offering these experiences to us, but it does create a different atmosphere than other events that I’ve done in the past.

















We spent four days in Marrakesh prior to the race. That is a very hectic place! It was fun to try and blend in with the local traffic as best as we could. Somehow the chaos of the roads worked, no one from our group got squished.











The anticipation grew with each day leading up to the Saturday start. The night before I had an especially high amount of anxiety. It’s funny, I don’t really know what I was nervous about, probably just the unknown of what I was getting myself into. Races never fails to bring out all the feelings.









Everyone we met was so welcoming and nice.










Time to start. Finally.






















Day one had about 70 miles with 10k of climbing to reach the high point of the race. The descent off the pass was a really fun singletrack that we were warned to walk down. Most people were walking, I stayed on the bike for most of it, riding down with one other guy. It was really fun.










A storm started to close in just as it was getting dark. It was very windy with intermittent showers. The route went into a wide canyon, every 20-30 seconds the whole valley would get illuminated from lightning. It wasn’t too cold, the rain was on and off. I kept cruising along, there were 4 or 5 others following me, probably spread out by about 10 minutes. Every once in a while I would see their lights as they crested a hill or came around a corner.





At midnight I stopped at a rather fast flowing river, the track headed upstream, on what is usually a dry riverbed. The water was pushing up a few feet onto the trees in the middle of the river and the level was rising. I saw someone’s head lamp on the far side of the river, the current was so loud that we couldn’t communicate. Luckily, as forecasted, the rain had started to stop. There were 5 of us stuck at the river thinking about what to do. I cooked up some hot food, decided that I would bivvy there for the night. 2 others decided to push on after about 30 minutes of evaluating the water level. I watched them set off through the river that was about knee deep, the current was easing off.







I woke up a few times to other riders passing. I would listen to hear what they were riding through. The first few were splashing through water. Eventually, I heard one of the others that had slept nearby set off, she was able to ride right through. When I got up I had a look around, the water had completely subsided. I found a riding pack with a SPOT tracker, it was in a bush that had been under water when I arrived the night before. Turns out, someone (I assume the person with the light that I had seen on the far side of the river) decided to sleep in the dry wash before the storm had really hit. A flash flood came through while he was sleeping and washed his stuff away. He lost his bike and his pack. He ended up walking out to the nearest town and was able to recover his stuff the next day.















After the floody first night, the ride started going smoothly. I found a nice rhythm and was able to cruise, mostly uneventfully, through the rest of the route. My intention was never to finish as fast as possible, I wanted to push myself, but not to the point where it wouldn’t be enjoyable. I slept between 3 to 4 hours per night.






I leap-frogged with my buddy Marcus that I flew down with. We didn’t ride together for more than a handful of minutes but we bumped into each other every day at resupply points.

[springsproject]

A few times I got a bit tired of riding double-track all day, I had to remind myself of how special of a place I was in, that made the boredom go away. It felt like an overlanding bicycle trip. Ride through remote sections of deserts and mountains of rough roads, resupply when you get to a town.












Checkpoint 2








This town wasn't on the cuesheet, I was happy to find a shop there to top up on water.




















Omlettes for days, literally.









This guy, Claus. He's so rad.













The start of the final night. I toyed with the idea of riding straight through but ended up stopping for 4 hours. Was glad that I did.















The last 40 miles appear on the elevation profile to be all downhill. While that may technically be true, the profile does not show environmental conditions such as riding through industrial produce farms for 4-5 hours on narrow, sandy lanes. Eventually, the outskirts of town were reached. Traffic was heavy, navigation frustrating. Lots and lots of poverty on the edge of town. Finished at a hotel, anticlimactic, no fanfare. That was cool. The last day of riding really made me appreciate the things that I have and how privileged I am.







I'm happy to have done the race and would consider giving it another go sometime, I highly recommend it. Overall, I had an amazing experience.

[TBS]

Well, that was pretty amazing.
What proportion of the riders were local/Africans vs euros?

[criscam]

Wow! Nice work.


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[Norseman]

Outstanding. Thank you for taking the time to share.

Excellent, thoughtful photography.

[Iowagriz]

Great TR, thank you

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[Core Shot]

Wow.

[Peruvian]

Thank you for sharing.

[chaka]

Love this springsproject. thanks for capturing so beautifully and sharing. what gearing did you settle on?

[geomorph]

Fantastic pictures

[MarcusBrody]

Wow, that is amazing, thanks for sharing.

It very much falls into the category of "I think it's so cool that I'm really glad someone else did it."

[406]

very cool, thanks for the TR

[springsproject]

Well, that was pretty amazing.
What proportion of the riders were local/Africans vs euros?

I think it was about 5% Africans. Lots of Brits, Italians, French, Germans. A handful of Americans.

Love this springsproject. thanks for capturing so beautifully and sharing. what gearing did you settle on?

Thanks. I rode 32x18 with fast rolling 29x2.4 f/r

[frorider]

Nice work, great pics

[Dantheman]

Stoked to see this in TR form. Amazing stuff. I can't comprehend sleeping 3-4 hours per night for days on end.

[bagtagley]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing!

[toast2266]

This is awesome. Great pictures. Looks like an awesome experience.

[east or bust]

Thanks for documenting your race, seems like an experience of a lifetime.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

this is sweet!

[Dumbest Known Time]

Man that race looks cool as hell. Silk Mountain race, which I think is put on by the same group, is another one that looks like it would really be something

[babybear]

Great TR and what a BA for doing it single speed

Atlas Mountain Race - 720 miles/54,000 ft




We spent four days in Marrakesh prior to the race. That is a very hectic place! It was fun to try and blend in with the local traffic as best as we could. Somehow the chaos of the roads worked, no one from our group got squished.

when we were in Morocco we saw a family of four on a small motorcycle

ps I wanted to quote your traffic picture above but got the moroccan tea instead. which is also pretty great

[bennymac]

this is incredible! Thank you for going to the trouble of uploading and reporting all that.

Inspiring

[joetron]

Yes man! Nice work! Thanks for the recap and the beautiful pictures


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[zion zig zag]

Very cool!




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[evdog]

Very cool Mike, thanks for the TR. Looks amazing!

I'm with you on preferring the free/no prize/unorganized/unsupported style of bikepack events. But I'd still like to do events like AMR or Silk Road Mtn Race at some point. Given the lack of biking info on these regions there is a lot of value in having the route and route info provided. It's not like I could easily piece an awesome route together from Trailforks or other apps. I'd treat these races like a paid tour, but much harder and with minimal hand holding.

My bigger issue with these events is the time limit. I'm consistently half the speed of the fastest riders so might not meet their cutoffs. So it might depend how they treat stragglers. If they think they're going to pick me up off the course and not let me finish, F that. I'm finishing my coffee.