Video | Slow Down – Escaping The Pressure of Modern Day Life
Fast food, fast cars, fast tracked, fast bikes… Everything and everybody nowadays has to be fast. I still wonder why in our society we always apologize for our lack of speed?
I don’t consider myself a lazy man but I like to take my time. When I am in a rush I usually make a lot of mistakes, in life and on my bike…
To escape the pressures of modern life I like to take my bike to the mountains, alone or with friends, and enjoy time without keeping any record, without a watch, back to basic needs, and simple pleasures…
My playground for my adventures is the Himalaya, east Nepal: Solukhumbu to be more precise. An ancient land still untouched by mass tourism and definitely the best place that I’ve ridden. When you ride the trails you can’t help thinking that the people who built them thought that mountain bikers would come here one day, they are so much fun to ride.
The ultimate place on this trip is Pikey peak, 4050 meters high. Here you can enjoy the view of 8 summits over 8000m high : Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest), Makalu, Kanchenjunga, Annapurna, Lhotse…. they are all here and just for you.
Standing there in front of these giants, admiring the sunrise gives you a priceless feeling of immensity, a simple pleasure that cannot be measured by time.
To reach this summit takes 3 days, pedaling 3 days for a downhill!! I’ve already heard many riders used to lifts protesting about the practice of this kind of torture. Quantity and quality are two very different and separate things.
On this journey we pass through local villages where you can see that the use and value of time is very different than the one people experience in our modern societies.
The rhythm of the day is still dictated by the sun, by the season, and a watch is a very small insignificant object. Here time is flexible.
These trips to the mountains really make me realize we need to slow down.
For More Information about Enduro in Nepal, visit: enduromtbnepal.com.
Text: Tangi | Photos: Ang Thsering