Welcome to Lesotho’s Wild West, china. If you trip into the Mountain Kingdom’s interior beyond Ha Ramashaba to where the Ramabanta Trading Post languishes within the rough-hewn mountains, you had better be ready for 100% proof African landscapes, thin air and gritty trails. If you have a donkey, saddle up. And if you can dress in a slit-eyed balaclava and a Basotho blanket, even better, because it gets damn cold. Or best you get on your bike and ride, making sure you don’t see your ass (and I don’t mean ‘donkey’) as you bomb down passes, blast across rivers and grind your granny up tortuous passes. Sounds hard core? Not so much. Sounds like fun? You bet your ass (or donkey, if you want). Bottom line, our visit to Elliot and his family at the LESOTHO SKY MTB CHALLENGE Community Project site, and the route further along the back roads to Ramabanta should be experienced first-hand. So – for a week in September – be brave. Forget about your cappucino’s and soap operas and designer jeans and first-world kak, and go ride the Lesotho Sky MTB Challenge. You live once, so do at least one kief thing before you shuffle off this mortal coil.

Click here to view the pics