It was advertised as the “no one said it would be easy’ ride and more about exploration than about covering distance. So people who had to get back home or get to work turned back at various points and eventually 10 riders 'went for it' and managed to plot the trail that connects Mangar to Lost Lake.
The route is some of the best off-road cycling territory we've seen. It takes the pace and crunchy surface of the Mangar trail. Mixes it with the rocky and technical sections of the Lost Lake trail and presents you with a private lake right in the middle of the ride to take a break and fix your bikes.
We took the usual route via Behrampur village and climbed up through Bandhwari on to the Mangar trail where we immediately hit the first set of punctures to Ram’s cycle,
And Manpreet’s new cycle started announcing it’s general presence through a noise it discovered it could make from the front disk brakes.
After about 3km on the trail we peeled of to the right towards the Hanuman mandir. There we were greeted by the same friendly Baba from the Mangar mandir. He's now taken up residence at the Hanuman mandir and is in the process of building a new mandir, guest house, man-made lake and all.
From here we back-tracked a little and got onto the trail that would bring us to the Lost Lake. The trail was much more easier than when we had tried it the first and only time about 2 years ago.
It may have been that the CRPF use the area for training so it's been cleared of scrub and thorns, or it may just have been that we had a Garmin to guide us. Which ever it was we crossed that area in less than 30 minutes and came out at the Lost Lake. As always the Lake welcomed us with punctures galore and that gave us an excuse to take a break there (and Ram,who had the first puncture, thought about throwing himself into the lake).
On the way back we saw that the CRPF battalion had set up camp on the plateau and were there in full force, hence very few photos since they looked like they may confiscate cameras from intruders in the middle of top secret military reconnaissance exercises.
Overall a very successful ride.
New trail discovered- check
Puncture fest - check
Got dirty - check
Went where no man has gone before - check
Wildlife spotted (wild camels!!!) – check
And in the end it wasn't that hard.
