That, my friends, is Dinkum. I do a lot of mountain bike events, rides and stage races around the world, but the #DK Experience comes damn close to the best time I’ve had on an MTB in at least a million years.

There is a certain something – I can’t get myself quite so far as to call it the ‘je ne se quais’ – that symbolises #DesertKnights that cannot be captured in words or even photographs, really. I’ve come to the conclusion that this unquantifiable USP is the heart and soul that comes packaged with a week of riding within one of the oldest deserts on Planet Earth.

Sure, there’s the cameraderie, and the mind-expanding landscapes, and the adventure of crossing borders in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and a day of white-water kayaking that morphs into somewhat of a Bear Grylls mission, and the hidden secrets of the Ai-Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park.

All those components undeniably contribute to #DK – as I expected them to – but even the sum total of these does not fully set it apart as a unique mountain biking adventure. However, the one thing that does this is the serene soul cranking across hallucinogenic plains at night.

No other event offers this kind of transcendental cranking, in a space as safe and remote and unique as the Ai-Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park. It is a mind-ride of note, and as close as(most of) you will ever come to main-lining on a serious dose of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds … just you under the full moon, duelling with desert jinns and soaking up the tranquility of what seems to be a parallel universe.

I will write more. A lot. Right now, let me share a small selection of images with you, just as a little taster of the magic that happens every year up at #DesertKnights. Go check out www.desertknights.co.za for more info.

Click here to view the pics