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Mountain bike
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Mountain bike. If you have your own quality bike, instead of a junker they rent, consider these two fun bike workouts. Sarankot/Naudada/Hemja loop. 3 hours hard from Lakeside is a fast time. Go towards downtown (Mahendrapul) from Lakeside, turn north at "Zero Kilometer" along the main road to Baglung. (be careful, its crowded.) Ride about 5-6km north, slowly up, past the nasty old buspark, to the Sarankot Road junction, turn left (west). The climb time starts at the fork 50m further. Follow paved road up incredibly steep climb, 1st gear almost all the way. You'd rightly doubt a rental bike could do it. Good pavement mostly, climb zigs past houses, up, up, you can ignore ticket taker guys, up up, pavement ends at a small village on a saddle, where you can stop my watch for the climb. (Perhaps about 40 minutes from bottom.) From here you can park bike and hike up old ridge trail to Sarankot, but for this loop continue west along rocky jeep road along mountains south slopes, past parasail place and onwards, rolling ascent to Kalipani village and after and hour or so jeep road hits the "hi-way" at Naudada village on ridgetop. From here good pavement zigs steep down to valley bottom, then its a long gradual decent to Hemja village, and back into Pokhara. Dobindy Pass ride. A fun up and back hillclimb to a pass on pavement southwest of Damside. Take paved road south from Damside to Birota area then turn right (west) along main road, the "hi-way to Syangja and Tansen, gradually down towards Devi's Falls, continue west thru Chorepatan area to base of climb. The steep zigs begin here, road climbs steadily, though not too steep, along south side of Peace Pagoda ridge, up to a few villages, then after a short steep decent into a forest for last climb up to the pass at Dobindy village. At least, it'll take just under an hour from Lakeside. From here you can continue west through scenic rolling country towards Syangja town, but it's usually possible to zip back down to hotel in about 35 minutes. BEWARE; this road is getting more crowded each year, sometimes lots of buses/trucks often in wrong lane. Still a fun ride however. Wear a helmet. Take water.
