[Closed] BBC article on Bolivian road - scarey or MTFU

The accounts in the article are scary, along the lines of "I was crying because I was so scared, I don't even know how to ride a bike, but everyone says you have to do it so I did it."

I doubt it would be a problem for most STW'ers, most of us have ridden really dangerous stuff but most of us also have learnt how to handle a bike. But if you're going to throw completely inexperienced young try-anything thrill-seeker follow-the-crowd backpacker n00bs down a sketchy track and tell them to "overcome their fear" it's pretty much a recipe for disaster.

IMO.

: P

and I thought 'I'm braking too hard and might tip over.'

It concerns me most that theyre letting completely inexperienced people ride anything like that sort of trail.

your opinion may well be right.

Depends...to someone who regularly ride s abike offroad it probably isn't an issue as it will be very similar to things you ride reguarly (maybe not the 600m drop to your left).

To backpackers who probably don't ride bikes regularly (if they did they would be more likely to cycle rather than backpack (at a guess)) then it probably is a very scary thing to do...

The Top Gear episode that had it in made it look good fun...

It's a glorified Forestry Commission track with some big cliffs down one side. Nothing too exciting. The trucks and buses are well dodgy though.

Surely it's a fireroad with a big drop at the side?

As noted above it's the fact that people who've never ridden off road are doing it that makes it dangerous.

I mean... when was the last time anyone on here went over the bars on a fireroad because of over braking?

[edit] LJ beat me to it.

Dodgy bikes, dodgy guides and dodgy traffic.

This is worth having aread through

http://www.liebreich.com/LDC/HTML/Climbing/Mountain_Biking_Bolivia.html