roughly translated "road that guarantees you fill your pants"

filled my pants just looking at the photo's!

Been to Madera and the roads are similar. Bloody frightning going round in a coach on single lanes and seeing another coach come the other way.

could be fun , if the road was closed

I guess life is worth less in some places

Would make a cracking hill climb course with a bit of re-tarmacing, with the ultimate penalty for going off!!!
ATB
Phil

Sod hill climbing I would use it as a down hill mountain bike track

went to all that effort blasting the rock out to make it and just got sloppy and didnt bother putting a fence up!

Apparently it is a major trucking route from the capital.

There is a company that run mountain bike tours from the top to the bottom, their proud claim is that they havent lost a life yet!

HSE will go bonkers.

I don't do heights - there is a similar path in Carbes, N. Spain - a path cut into the side of a mountain - I walked rather than cycled it.

I've mountain biked that! And in pouring rain as well, making it very slippery... had a few 'little moments' on the way down. The smoothest line is right at the edge, so if your going fast then that's the place to be.

It's supposedly the world's most dangerous road. 70 km long, and a 400m to 800m drop on one side for much of the distance.

In one year 350 people died - mainly in mini buses that occasionaly plumet over the edge. The government dont bother recovering the bodies unless your family are rich enough to pay for the helicopter.

IIRC, 9 tourists and several guides have died on mountain bikes... but in almost every case it has been through dangerous showing off. One of the guys I went with nearly went over and he was boasting about how quick he was considering he'd never riddien a mountain bike before!

[Edited on 27/10/06 by AdamR]

linky

South America - Peru, Bolivia or somewhere. My son and his mates did the bike ride down. he said the worst part was the drive up in a bus.
Compared to the road, the hired bikes looked good and the ride was extensively videoed by the company, loads of people come down in the nude

Looks similar to the Swartberg Pass in South Africa.

That was fun, in a hire car! There were times when you looked up the cliff face and saw the underside of a coach swinging out over the edge of a hairpin directly above you!

Oh and for added madness on the Swartberg Pass, massive bits of it are constructed like a dry stone wall!

Mike

I thought they had made that one one way, 6 hours at a time, so it changes direction 3 or 4 times a day.

Still looks dogy, great for an over powered rear wheel drive vehicle with no ABS or traction control and no roof..

quote:

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Originally posted by greggors84

There is a company that run mountain bike tours from the top to the bottom, their proud claim is that they havent lost a life yet!

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Bugger driving, biking or probably even walking that! I though I could consider myself a bit brave having done some mionr waterfall jumping/gorge walking stuff, but that's just plain mentalist!

We have quite a few roads like that in the remote parts of New Zealand, in fact the scenery is remarkably similar to some of the high country areas over here.
There is very little traffic on them, no buses, but trucks (lorries) use them a lot for stock and forestry transport. Fun to drive on if you don't meet anything coming the other way.

End of geography lesson mate.

If I remember right its other name is 'The Road of Death' obviously in Spanish...