Pokhara Epic Enduro Overnight Ride

Two days is all it takes to ride the best Enduro mountain biking in Nepal.

The Pokhara Epic Enduro Overnight MTB Adventure is a gravity-focused riding adventure built by local riders, for riders who want more than an ordinary mountain bike tour. Over two days, you ride Pokhara's finest technical singletrack, hidden village trails, jungle descents, dedicated Enduro race tracks, and flowing ridgeline trails, with experienced local Enduro riders leading and a dedicated 4x4 shuttle doing the climbing for you.

From the flowing trails of Sarangkot to the technical terrain of Chari, Methlang and Basbari, on to the World Peace Pagoda descent and Pokhara's race trails at Arba, this trip pulls the best riding in the Pokhara Valley into one Himalayan weekend.

You also sleep high. Day 1 finishes in a village lodge at Pumdikot, on the ridge above Phewa Lake, with the Annapurna range across the valley in the morning. That night is the reason this trip is two days instead of one, and it is the part a day tour cannot give you.

This is not a sightseeing tour. This is authentic Enduro mountain biking in Nepal.

Ride Facts at a Glance

Why Riders Love This Trip

This trip is built around one thing, and that is descending. The shuttle takes care of the climbing, the stops are short, and every stage is chosen for the way down.

• Maximum descending. The shuttle does the climbing, so almost all of your two days is spent pointing downhill.

• Technical singletrack. Roots, rocks, switchbacks, and stone staircases, on natural Enduro terrain rather than a manufactured trail.

• Progressive difficulty. The riding builds across the two days instead of arriving all at once on the first descent.

• Race-inspired trails. Day 2 finishes on the trail where local competition is run.

• Premium Enduro bikes. Full suspension with 160mm and 170mm of travel, plus a full-face helmet and pads.

• Small groups and personal guiding. Private or small group only, so the pace is set by your group and nobody else.

• Local trail knowledge. Your guide decides which stage you ride and when, based on the conditions and on how the group is riding.

• Himalayan culture, local food and hospitality. A night in a village on the ridge, and dinner cooked by the family who run the lodge.

The Uplift: How the Shuttle Works

The whole point of an Enduro trip is descending, so we take the climbing off you.

• A dedicated 4x4 jeep. The vehicle is yours for the two days. It is not shared, and it is not on a timetable. It carries you, the bikes, and the gear up to Sarangkot on Day 1, moves the group across to Phoksing on Day 2, and meets you at the bottom of every descent. If the group wants to session a stage a second time, the jeep is right there.

• The Annapurna cable car. Pokhara's cable car runs from Sedi Bagar up to Sarangkot and takes bikes on a separate carrier, so you and your bike go up together in minutes rather than grinding a rough road for an hour. It is included in both packages.

• What that changes for the riding. Because the uplift does the work, your legs are fresh at the top of every stage. That is why this trip fits nine trails into two days when a self-powered ride would manage three or four.

The Trails You Ride

Nepal's singletrack was never built for bikes. These are village paths, trekking routes, and trade trails, some of them centuries old, so there are no berms, no jumps, and no signage, just a surface no trail crew could imitate.

• Sarangkot. Fast-flowing jeep track and smooth singletrack, with Annapurna, Machhapuchhre and Phewa Lake in view the whole way down. Your warm-up.

• Chari, Methlang and Basbari. The step up. Tight switchbacks, exposed roots, rocky corners, and village pathway. They reward good line choice and punish braking late.

• World Peace Pagoda. Pokhara's signature descent. Roots, rocks, stone staircases, and jungle corridor in a single run, graded black diamond, and slippery in the wet.

• Margi Village and Pame. The longer Day 2 option, with Phewa Lake below you most of the way down.

• Damside Forest. The steeper Day 2 option. Tighter, rootier, and more sustained.

• Mayor Cup race trails, Phoksing. Local competition sections. Technical corners, fast transitions, and natural jumps.

• Arba Enduro race trail. The finale and the venue for the Pokhara Enduro Race.

Premium Enduro Bikes and Protective Equipment

The right equipment turns a good ride into an unforgettable one, and on trails like these, it is also a safety item.

Our Enduro and all-mountain fleet

• Scott Ransom, 170mm travel. The most capable bike we run. Built for aggressive Enduro riding, steep technical descents, and rough terrain, and the bike we hand to riders who came here for the Peace Pagoda and Arba.

• Trek Remedy 8, 160mm travel. Playful, capable, and confidence-inspiring on natural singletrack. A good match for a rider stepping up into gravity riding for the first time.

• Scott Genius 940, 160mm travel. Fast, versatile, and the best bike on the trip for mixed conditions, where a stage runs from flowing ridgeline straight into technical forest.

Every bike is serviced in our own workshop, suspension is set to your weight and riding style on the morning of Day 1, and each one is safety-checked before every ride. Mechanical support travels with the trip.

Protective gear, included in both packages

• Full-face helmet

• Knee protection

• Elbow protection

• Riding gloves

Full-face helmet, knee and elbow protection are required on all technical descents. They are not optional.

Bringing your own bike. You are welcome to. Tell us in advance, and we will match the shuttle and guiding to it. Bring a spare hanger, spare brake pads, and a casing you trust, because spares for high-end Enduro bikes are limited outside Kathmandu and Pokhara.

The Night in Pumdikot

The night is as much a part of this trip as the riding, so here is what it looks like.

Pumdikot sits on the ridge across Phewa Lake, above the World Peace Pagoda, and it is the reason this trip runs over two days instead of one. You arrive with the light going, straight off the Peace Pagoda descent.

The lodge is a village lodge, not a hotel. A handful of rooms, one dining room, and dinner cooked by the family that runs it. Bikes get washed and checked while you eat. Then the valley empties, Pokhara turns into a spread of lights far below, and in the morning Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, Machhapuchhre, and Lamjung Himal are lined up across the valley before anyone else is awake.

Bring a warm layer. The ridge is well above the lake, and the evenings are cold from November through February, even when Lakeside is mild.

On the Premium package, the night is a five-star hotel instead. Both packages ride the same trails with the same guides, so the choice is purely about where you sleep.

The Race Trails: Arba and the Pokhara Enduro Race

Day 2 finishes on the Arba Enduro race trail, and that deserves to be said plainly rather than buried in a bullet list.

• Arba is the venue for the Pokhara Enduro Race. The race is held in the Arba hills at Mahaprabhu Dham, around 1,360m, roughly seven kilometres east of Pokhara. The format is a practice day with uplift to all six stages, a prologue seeding stage, then two days of racing over six timed descents with untimed liaison climbs. It draws around 120 riders and families from more than eight countries, across Youth, Junior, Elite, Open Female, Masters and Veteran categories. The wider Nepali gravity scene is covered in our guide to Himalayan enduro MTB trips in Nepal.

• Why that matters to you as a rider. A trail that holds a race has been ridden, cut, cleared, and argued over by riders for years. The lines are proven, the fall-line sections are deliberate, and the trail is maintained because a race depends on it. You are not riding a path somebody thinks might work on a bike. You are riding a stage.

• The Mayor Cup trails at Phoksing are the same story on a smaller scale. Sections of local competition course, ridden by the people who race them.

Riding a race venue on a normal booking, with the people who ride it every week, is a rare thing to get to do. It is the reason Day 2 finishes here.

Want to ride the race itself? The Pokhara Enduro Race runs in December. Tell us when you enquire, and we can build the trip around it.

Estimated Ride Statistics

Nine named trails across two days. Six of them are graded Advanced, in the sense set out in our guide to mountain bike trail grading in Nepal. Read that table before you book, because it is the most honest thing on this page.

What the Trails Ride Like

Across the two days, you ride hard-packed dirt, forest loam, loose gravel, root-covered singletrack, natural rock gardens and stone staircases, and a single descent will often put three or four of those in front of you in a row. Autumn is dry and dusty, and the wetter months bring mixed grip, so the same trail can ride like two different trails depending on when you come.

Each season rides differently, and none of them ride badly. Your guide picks the trail order around the conditions on the day.

Who This Trip Is For

• Book this trip if you are an Enduro rider, a downhill rider, an experienced trail rider, a gravity-focused mountain biker, or an adventure traveller who already rides off-road. Descending is almost all this trip does, so you will get the most out of it if that is the part of mountain biking you enjoy most.

• Do not book this trip if you are a complete beginner, have no off-road experience, ride casually, or are uncomfortable on technical terrain.

Riders who recognise themselves in that second line should not book and hope it works out on the day. Our easy guided Pame Valley ride is a genuinely good day out and a much better place to start.

Fitness, Experience and Safety

This trip is built around real Enduro and gravity riding, not a sightseeing ride. Please read this section before booking.

Recommended fitness and experience

You should be comfortable:

• Riding for several hours across two consecutive days

• Holding an attacking, out-of-the-saddle position on steep technical descents

• Braking and cornering confidently on loose, rocky, or root-covered terrain

• Riding technical singletrack without significant hesitation

Note what is not on that list. You do not need climbing fitness, because the shuttle does the climbing. What you need is descending skill and the strength to hold a position for two days running. That is a different kind of fitness, and plenty of strong road cyclists find this trip harder than they expected, while a club-level trail rider is fine.

Altitude

There is no altitude concern on this trip. The riding sits roughly between 800m and 1,700m, which is low enough that acclimatisation is not a factor. If you have just come off a trek in the Annapurnas, you are already well adapted.

Trail permits and local access

Riding in Sarangkot, the Peace Pagoda area and the surrounding foothills falls inside the Annapurna Conservation Area, ACAP. The relevant trail permits and local logistics are arranged for you and included in both packages, so there is nothing for you to sort out yourself.

Safety on the trail

• Full-face helmets, knee and elbow protection are provided and required on all technical descents.

• Your guide assesses the group's ability on Day 1 and adjusts trail selection, line choice and pacing to match. That is why Sarangkot comes first, and Arba comes last.

• Walking a section is always an acceptable choice. Stone staircases, steep chutes and rock gardens can be walked on any trail, on either day, with no comment from anybody. Nobody rides everything.

• Mechanical support and first aid support travel with the trip. Gravity riding carries real risk, and we recommend travel insurance that specifically covers mountain biking, because standard policies often exclude it.

Standard or Premium: Which Package

Both packages ride exactly the same trails, on the same bikes, with the same guides, the same shuttle, and the same gear. The riding is identical. The difference is where you sleep and how much guiding support travels with you.

• Choose Standard if you want the mountain village night, the family kitchen and the ridge in the morning. It is the more memorable of the two, and most riders pick it.

• Choose Premium if comfort after a hard day matters more than the village experience, or you are travelling with a partner who is not riding.

Best Time to Ride

Pokhara is a year-round destination, and this trip runs all year. Every trail sits roughly between 800m and 1,700m, so nothing closes for snow and no month takes the trip off the table. What changes is the grip, the light, and how far you can see.

October to May is the prime window and what we suggest when your dates are flexible. Every other month still rides. For how the seasons work across the rest of the country, see our guide to the best time to mountain bike in Nepal.

What to Bring

We provide the bike, the full-face helmet, knee and elbow protection, and gloves. You bring:

• Riding shorts or trousers and a riding jersey

• Sturdy closed shoes with a flat, grippy sole, or your own clipless shoes and pedals

• A warm layer and a light waterproof for the Pumdikot evening

• Sunglasses or clear lenses, sunscreen and lip balm

• A small hydration pack if you prefer one to bottles

• Personal medication and any small first aid items you like to carry

• A change of clothes for the evening, which travels in the jeep

Bring your own pads, body armour, or neck brace if you ride in them. Riders bringing their own bike should also pack a spare mech hanger and brake pads. Our full Nepal mountain biking checklist covers the rest.

Why Ride with Nepal MTB Adventures

Nepal MTB Adventures is one of Nepal's pioneering mountain bike companies, guiding riders across the Himalaya since 2004, with more than 20 years on the dirt.

We ride these trails ourselves, and we know the conditions, the weather patterns, the technical sections, and the trail combinations that suit each rider level, because we are on them every week.

Our difference

• Local Enduro riders and guides

• Professional workshop and mechanic support

• A premium bike fleet, serviced in-house

• Flexible riding itineraries

• Deep local trail knowledge

• Authentic cultural experiences

• A rider-first philosophy

• Small groups and personal attention

When you ride with Nepal MTB Adventures, you are riding with people who genuinely love mountain biking and the mountains we call home.

How This Compares to Our Other Pokhara Gravity Trips

The full range sits on our Enduro and gravity tours page. Not sure which one? Tell us what you ride at home and how long you have in Nepal, and we will tell you straight.

From the flowing trails of Sarangkot and the technical terrain of Chari, Methlang, and Basbari to the iconic World Peace Pagoda descent and Pokhara's famous Enduro race trails, this trip combines the very best riding in the Pokhara Valley into one unforgettable Himalayan adventure.

This is not a sightseeing tour. This is authentic Enduro mountain biking in Nepal.

Tour Route Map