Mountain Biking
Biking North West Vietnam 7 days/6 Nights
Tour details
Full Itinerary
Meet in Ha Noi, and your guide make a short briefing about the tour, then take the bike store to check bikes, then take a city tour of Ha Noi. The city with more than 1000 years of history and has become Vietnam's culture and political centre. Visit the Temple of Literature, Hoa Lo Prison, Lunch break in town. In the afternoon, visit the National History Museum, take a walk through the Old Quarter of Ha Noi, Watch the Water Puppet Show and have dinner before boarding the night train to Lao Cai in the evening with your guide.
The train arrives in Lao Cai in the early morning, and your drivers will load your luggage on the support vehicle for an hour drive uphill to Sapa. The transfer through stunning mountain views and lush rice terraces in beneath valleys. Arrives in Sapa, have breakfast at the hotel, drop your luggage at reception, and are ready to explore Lao Chai, Ta Van, and Su Pan villages. Explore the life of Black Hmong, Red Dzay. Enjoy a tasty at the local home of the tribe, and return to Sapa town by vehicle.
Check-in the hotel, have a rest, take a cable car to Fansipan. This is the opportunity for you to view the homes of tribes with beautiful valleys and the Heaven gate. At the Fansipan, you take a walk around, admire more sites and immerse yourself into nature at 360 degrees. The cable car is 6 km, and each turn takes about 15 minutes. Then you can enjoy breathtaking mountain views as long as you wish, finally, return cable car station and back to Sapa. Explore the Sapa town on your own in the evening.
After a hearty breakfast, we commence the ride from the hotel, undulating through the town a couple of km to get out the town, then pass the tea plantations and cycle uphill to the Tram Ton Pass/ Heaven Gate, the highest mountain pass in north Vietnam. We are here for a half an hour coffee break, enjoy the breathtaking view over the Muong Hoa valley and lush jungles stretching down to Binh Lu. Afterwards, enjoy a long descent ride to Tam Duong township, lunch break in town before a 25 km truly off the beaten track, explore scenic villages of Na Hum and Ban Hon. The routes are dirt tracks, and gravel roads are undulate through rice terraces, jungles, and small rivers.
The afternoon ride gives opportunities to visit tribes' homes along the ways and admire charming valleys' natural beauty. Make a stop at the community village of Lu tribes with a few Black Mong Ethnic people. Here we interact with locals, experience the culture and daily life of villagers and take a walk to explore a hundred preserving original wooden stilt houses. See how Lu tribes weaving their costumes and learn more about how the family to keep, store farm products for living until the subsequent harvest crops. Then we continue our adventures through vast rural farms, see buffalos working on fields as we cross through the verdurous vegetation to Lai Chau. Check-in the hotel in Lai Chau city.
Sin Ho town is situated in Hoa Lien Son Range, and it's one of the fascinating plateau regions in northern Vietnam that offers breathtaking mountain views, picturesque valleys, and colourful rice terraces. Sin Ho remote Dist is populated home to colourful tribes of H' Mong, Thai, Dao, and the best time to meet them in the Sunday morning market in town but less on the other days of the week. A wide variety of farm and handmade costume products are available here. The climate is pleasant, with an average annual temperature is about 18 degrees Celsius, an altitude of 900 to 1,800m, Sin Ho is one of the most pristine beauties for mountain bike lovers. The town is about 60 km from Lai Chau, and the roads are quite good and smooth through mountains, and we challenge long passes.
We depart early today and cycle from the hotel as the weather is fantastic for challenging mountain passes through forest jungles. The first 10km is undulating and allows us to warm up the body, then ride uphills to Seo Lang with many stops to admire the incredible scenery along the mountain passes. From Seo Lang village to Sin Ho town, the roads are winding through gentle hills descending the rural farms, passing stilt houses and rice terraces via many tiny hamlets. The sceneries are incredible to Sin Ho valley township.
After leisurely breakfast, and we ride from the hotel, stop off at the market in town, where local tribes gather here every morning but are more bustling and more attractive on Sunday. Afterwards, we ride to Chan Nua, and the ride is more leisurely, more downhill than up. We have plenty of time to get close to Thai Ethnic, visit the local homes, admire the solid wooden stilt houses, and learn more about the culture before we carry on our adventures to deep valleys and down the road 128 to Chan Nua with many endless photos.
Lunch break in Chan Nua village, then we continue the last 20 km to Muong Lay. The ride is undulating along the river and forest and green hills as the sun gradually setting down behind the mountain hills makes your ride more enjoyable. Cross Da River on the suspension bridge to Muong Lay. Check in the hotel, have dinner in town.
After breakfast, we start to rock and roll from the hotel. We cycle through the town, pedal along the river, just a couple of km, we get out of the town, past many small villages by waterways, enjoy a peaceful landscape along the river, cross the river to national road 12. Our day's adventure will be on this road to Dien Bien Phu. Enjoy the ride through the natural beauty of diverse mountain regions, winding road green grassy hills, rice paddies, lush rural farms, challenge Ma Phi Ho Pass called Heaven Gate, undulate along mountain jungle with a lunch break in the tiny town of Muong Cha.
Muong Cha market finds various products from tribes, bamboo baskets, colourful tribal costumes, fresh local products such as fruits and vegetables, and other simple household goods from different Ethnic groups. Following lunch, we continue the ride to Dien Ben Phu, undulate along the small river, through tiny towns, and colourful rice fields, and fruit orchards along hillsides. The roads are smooth and more down the up, allow us to enjoy watching tiny stilt houses and vast valleys alongside the rivers.
Spend a half-day to explore the De Castries Head Quarter Bunker, then to Dien Bien Phu Museum and former French Military A1 Hill Base. Return to the hotel to check out, and have a tasty enjoy lunch in town. Take the afternoon flight to Han Noi to catch your international flight home. Tour End!
If your travel planed is to continue in Vietnam? Please inform us, and our team will pick you up at Noi Bai airport and transfer you to Ha Noi city.
More Info
Two third of the mainland of the country are mountain ranges, tropical forests, remote hillsides, and valleys in northern Vietnam with sparse population. Most small towns, cities in the northwest and far north near the Laos border, and the Chinese are homes to hill tribes. Most rural gravel roads and dirt tracks are the primary means of transport for locals due to peak mountain ranges, slopes, deep valleys, and sparsely populated. Many roads are closed to traffic because of rivers, streams and high mountains, while the minor and high roads are less traffic. Mountain biking tours in northern Vietnam are on-road and off-road, and fewer off-roads in rural Districts where rural roads are unsafe and dangerous.
Hanoi and North Vietnam have two distinct winter and summer seasons. The relaxed but primarily dry winter lasts from November to April when temperatures average 17-22°C, the coldest months being December to February. With hot and humid, summer lasts from May to October, and the highest rainfall is from May to August.
In the Northeast, the rainy season usually occurs in May and will end in August with heat and low humidity, while the Far North begins from June to August. The rainy season is from June to August in the Far North, and the cold winter is from December to February.
North West and Far North Vietnam's agricultures depend on the wet season, particularly rice crops on terraces. Rice plants need plenty of water to grow and develop themselves. The yearly rice crop in North West and the Far North is only one crop and will begin after the first rainy month to make the soil more workable before seeding starts. The different times to seed the rice plants are from 2 weeks, depending on locations, high or low terraces, how much water is from raining or getting from streams and rivers.
The best time to explore North West & Far North Vietnam is the farming season, not at the beginning, with too many rains and young seeling rice plants only. From the early September to last October are the harvest seasons. Here are the opportunities for travellers to admire stunning colourful rice terraced fields, lush country farms, green rainforests, waterfalls, and vast vegetations. Travellers also meet hill tribes on farms and their homes.
Private Support Vehicles
We organize cycling holidays, cycling adventure trips and mountain biking tours. All are flexible with luxury, fully air-conditioned vehicles to support riders on the entire journey. It depends on how many riders are in the group, and the vehicle support services will be well-arranged to satisfy your travels. There are air-conditioned 16-seat van/minibuses to take up all riders, luggage, and a truck to hold all bikes during the trip.
Every morning, the vehicles will transfer you out of the bustling city, and then you will ride to explore the stunning countryside, and you will back on the vehicles to avoid traffic in town when the daily's ride ends in the late afternoon.
Every 20 - 25 km, the support vehicles will be waiting at the high road if you are tired and really would love to ride on A/C van. Your guide will escort you to vehicles easily because many country back roads are linked to the main roadways where keeping vehicles are on standby.
Then you can relax on a support vehicle when others in the group can continue cycling as long as they wish! You will meet the others at the next point/ destination where you love to re-join the group and continue to ride.
All your luggage/ suitcase and day bags are safe on the vehicles and well kept by the company's drivers and its team.
2 to 4 riders in a group
There is only one A/C 16 seater van to take up all riders, luggage & suitcases, and bikes. There are four rows of seating for passengers on the A/C 16 seater van. Two people sit on each row. The third row is for luggage and suitcases. The last row of seats will be folded up, so all bikes will be uploaded here.
A medium group tour: from 5 to 7 people
There will be two vehicles to support riders on the entire trip. One 16 seater van to take up all riders, luggage & suitcases. Another truck to carry all bikes, spare bikes, tool kits, icebox to keep cold drinks, and so on
A large group tour: 8 to 14 people
One minibus to take up all riders, including luggage & suitcases, and one truck to carry all bikes, spare bikes, water, cold drinks, and snacks...Iceboxes
A group has more than 15 riders and more than 20 people
We provide two vans and one minibus, and one truck to escort large groups of riders and help ensure their safety. Our pro guide will motivate a team with support vehicles to bring the best services to riders.
27.5 Giant MTB bikes & Trek Hybrid Touring Bikes
1. There are 60 pro MTB bikes and hybrid MTB bikes and available in store and they are ready for all cycling tours
MTB Bikes for kids: wheel size 20", 24" with suspension seatpost. Kid heights: 120cm, 130cm, 145cm
Pro Giant Mountain Bike - 650B/ 27.5" wheel size
27.5" Pro mountain bikes are use for off-road cycling; on dirt track and hilly single track narrow paths and also country back roads.
27.5" wheel size and MTB tires 27.5" x 1.95 is the best choice and suitable and good for challenge and technical mountain biking.
1 - Good quality and lightweight Alloy MTB 27.5" frames
2 - 27.5" Rockshox XC30 , 100mm travel, manual lockout
3 - SR Gel saddle - Very soft and comfortable for riding
4 - Deore Shimano Group set
5 - Shimano hydraulic disc brake
6 - Shimano Deore hubs - 32 holes
7 - 27.5" Alexrims disc brake rims - 32 holes
8 - Maxxis Cross Mark 27.5 x 1.95 - Good quality and suitable for both on road and off-road riding
9 - Soft grips
10 - FSA sealed bearing headset
11 - Cycle Track, massive MTB flat pedals with sealed bearings
12 - All bikes are well-maintained by Mr Van and his team
2. There are 25 Trek hybrid mountain bikes available in our store. Hybrid bike tires 700 x 38- Good choice for a long trip: Saigon to Hanoi and Hanoi to Saigon
Hybrid bikes are use for an off-road cycling through countryside, dirt track and but working on muddy road. Its really good for touring a long trip, it moves faster and easier. Hybrid bike gives you an easy to pedal uphills, smooth bicycle riding on quiet concrete paths and country back roads. The best choice to challenge mountain and serious hills
1 - Good quality and lightweight alloy hybrid frame
2 - 29" Rockshox XC30 , 100mm travel, manual lockout
3 - SR Gel saddle - Very soft and comfortable saddle
4 - Deore Shimano Group set
5 - Shimano hydraulic disc brake
6 - Shimano Deore hubs - 32 holes
7 - 29" Alexrims touring rims, disc brake - 32 holes
8 - Schwalbe CX Comp 700 x 38 - Good quality and suitable for both off-road cycling and touring a long trip
9 - Soft grips
10 - FSA sealed bearing headset
11 - Cycle Track, massive MTB flat pedals with sealed bearings
12 - All bikes are well-maintained by Mr Van and his team
