Ba Vi by Bike

It has been quite awhile since I went to Ba Vi, like five or six years I think. So I thought I should go again, and that I should pedal, since what's the point of having a MOUNTAIN bike unless you ride it up a mountain sometime? So Ba Vi National Park is a mountain. Basically just one road goes into the park, climbing from the entry gate a distance of about 12 km to the end of the road, from which it is a short hike to either of two peaks, both with small temples on top of them. The road climbs to a point just shy of 1,100 meters altitude. That's a much bigger hill than I've done before on a bike, but it is a road not a trail (therefore smooth-ish not too steep) and - at least on this particular Saturday - well traveled. Rather too well traveled for my taste, but anyway.

Leaving Hanoi it took quite awhile until my legs really felt warmed up - I could try to blame that on the cool weather recently which I've been enjoying so much, but in fact it would mostly be due to me not riding any distance for a long time. I rarely ride west of Hanoi, and the distance to reach Ba Vi is a good part of the reason I hadn't ridden there earlier. Getting near the park, I stopped at a roadside shack for a bowl of phở, I've learned to really appreciate road-side phở when I'm riding bike. (In fact I don't eat phở very often in my normal routine.) It is light enough to eat a big bowl without feeling to heavy in the stomach when I get back on the bike, and it seems to give me some energy to work with too - beef and beef broth to keep me going!

Just before the park entrance I stopped to get two bottles of chanh muối to supplement my bike bottle of combuja. Good thing too, because they were all empty before I got to the top. The traffic back-up at the park entrance surprised me, but I didn't actually have to wait in line very long, it was just crowds of people milling around aimlessly and parking cars in the middle of the road before going through the entrance.

Once through the gate and past the tour bus parked right inside, I started up the hill and the crowd thinned out. Or at least stretched out. At numerous wildflower beds along the road on the first section, lots of people stopped to take pictures. It seemed busy, groups of young people mostly, passing me in packs of motorbikes, yelling out encouragement as I pedaled oh so slowly upward. I saw two cyclists coming down the hill - they looked like pros with all the fancy kit and nice road bikes, but then, even I look slightly less foolish when I am going downhill! I did see one other cyclists, coming down when I was near the top, who slowed down to tell me that I was almost there.

There is a "resort" at about the 400 meter mark, and there was a wedding being held there and crowds of folks wandering around the pine forest and taking selfies in the middle of the road. I kept on going, in the hope that I would find a quieter and more scenic spot for a break. One friendly fellow, who passed me three times on his motorbike on the way up, kept asking if I was going all the way to the top, the answer to which I didn't really know. The plan was to keep going until I decided to stop, whether it be at the top or at some breathless, cramped-up-legs spot along the way. I stopped for breathers frequently and had something to drink, almonds, boiled eggs with salt .... But I didn't stop for long because I knew, in that case, I wouldn't get started again! So I got to the top - after probably 11.5 kilometers in granny gear, I got to the top :D

There was a gusty cool breeze up there which was indescribably refreshing. Since I was last up there, they built a biggish car parking lot there and some more buildings for selling snacks, food and đồ lễ to take up to the temples, but it remains mostly tree-covered, and since it was indeed the end of the road, I got off the bike and told my legs that it was time for them to do whatever cramping and collapsing was necessary, and be done with it, cause we're only halfway!

To make up for having run out of chanh muối, I got six bottles up there and sat on the wall at the edge of the parking lot, relishing the breeze and the view (though it was fairly hazy, you couldn't see that far), and ate almost all the food I had brought along. It was brilliant. I did not hike up to either of the peaks, I can do that next time.

It took me over two and a half hours (in granny gear) to get up there; and after eating, drinking, communing with the breeze, and recovering up there, it took like 45 minutes to get down - including two side roads, one of which was just a dead end and the other going through and old French colonial era village of sorts - atmospheric ruins but on that day packed with people, motorbikes and trash everywhere (I have to go back, on a weekday, to recover my sense of wonder about that place!)

The ride back home was surprisingly uneventful. Still windy, still kind of far, still all flat. Had two cups of mia đá, the rest of my food, and another chanh muối. I like the idea of riding up a mountain like Ba Vi, but oddly enough, the rides on which I've done the most climbing remain shorter rides to another area where the hills are a mere 200+ meters high, but the roads/trails are dirt and go up and down and around, adding up to more work in the end. In any case, it was a lovely day out on the bike, and now I know where to go when I have the urge to spend two and a half hours in granny gear.