Asia Update #34 - Mountain Biking in Korea

Finally brought my camera on some mountain bike rides. I reported in my first message about a web site on biking in Korea (address ishttp://www.angelfire.com/ga/achamtb/). I have ridden with the author of the web site a few times and definitely agree that there are some fun trails.

They don't have any of the trail access issues we have in the States. Biking in Korea is in a much earlier stage. In my half dozen or so rides here, we have only seen 2 or 3 other people mountain biking. But you will see hundreds or thousands of hikers (as I reported in some of my write-ups on hiking). The hikers are generally amazed to see a bicycle out on the trail, and have nothing against you being there. On the contrary - Koreans like athletic endeavors, so are excited to see bikers on the trails. You can almost run a hiker off the trail, and they will still cheer you on. I guess it comes from the general lack of consideration towards pedestrians in Korea (such as the motorcycles driving on the sidewalk, cars parked blocking walkways, etc.). Why should it be any different on the trail? The hiker in the picture below thought nothing of waiting for the four of us to go screaming by - definitely not something we could do in the states.

Of course, there are some trail access issues here. Just different than what I am used to. One example is when the Korean army bulldozed some singletrack into roads (had to get their tanks up there, I guess). And you definitely want to stay on the trail, as the land mine signs you often see remind you (I need to get a photo of them). Upside is that where else in the world can you bike down a military trench…

There seems to be three general types of trails that I've seen in Korea - loose rocky stuff, feral trails in the trees, and some slickrock. Most of the stuff is pretty steep - any land that isn't steep they've stuck a building on (we are in a city, after all). The picture below shows Steve (the achamtb wed site author) riding over a rocky stretch, with Seoul in the background…

Below is one of the feral trails. That's Jakub. This was his second try - he biffed on his first run through. Just like when I was taking shots of the motorcycle courier in the snow, I once again didn't take any crash photos…

There is some good riding in and around Seoul. Does take me an hour to hour and a half to get to the dirt from my apartment. Not all that safe to ride among the cars, so thankfully much of the ride to the dirt can be done on the Han River bike trail.

Team Wrong Way folks will be glad to hear that I wear the colors when I ride. But you don't get to see it in these photos because I generally stand on the wrong side of the camera.

Off of mountain biking, but still on photos - I have placed a variety of the better photos on a web service called Shutterfly. This service lets you view and print the pictures. Check it out at http://www.shutterfly.com/my/os.jsp?i=67b0de21b316c22a6534. If you sign up as a member (which is a bit of a hassle, but doesn't cost anything), they will give you free prints of any pictures you want (plus I think they give me free prints also...). And let me know if there are other pictures you'd want me to put on here - I chose the ones I thought were best, but others may prefer different ones.