Gravel Route: Desa Langko, West Lombok
A short singletrack descent for a nice stroll on a weekday.
The idea to find this route started when my friend Tusan invited me to join a group ride with his colleagues. “It’s just a few kilometers climb through a village, good for beginners like us.” he said.
It was comfortable because I like riding without pressure, and no one else seemed to be struggling with the climb. For me, the discomfort probably didn’t even exist in the first place because instead of thinking about the climb itself, I got distracted looking around the village.
”Surely there are gravel roads around here”; I kept repeating that in my head until the climb was over. After that, smooth sailing; and the way back was fresh and fast.
Since then, I came back three times; the first one was to look for gravel roads and found one enjoyable single track, the second one was to map it, the third one was for the final taste which I did by myself (the first two was with Tusan).
Let’s go straight down to business.
The first thing to do is to find the turn to the gravel path on the left side of the road. It could be a little bit tricky because you’re gonna pass several turns, so the easiest thing to do is to follow the Strava or Komoot route.
If you find a puddle (it’s always there even in a dry season) that leads you to several houses, then you’re on the right track.
To see what comes next, I’ll let these photos speak for themselves.
At the end of the journey, you have two choices: a) find the left turn that’ll lead you to a concrete road, and b) if you can’t and you keep on going, you’ll probably find yourself stuck in a muddy section of the singletrack, which will lead you to the same concrete road.
Either way, I do hope you find this singletrack as fun as I do.
