Mountain Biking in Peru: A Lifetime of Racing, Exploring and Adventure
Mountain biking in Peru has changed enormously over the years. Today, riders come from around the world to experience the Andes, but there was a time when mountain biking was almost unknown in the country and every ride felt like an exploration into something new.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down for a podcast in Lima and talk about those early years, my life as a mountain biker, racing at the highest level in Peru and, above all, something that has always been at the heart of my riding: exploring new trails and discovering Peru by bike.
Looking back, it has been an incredible journey.
The Early Days of Mountain Biking in Peru
When we started riding mountain bikes in Peru, there were no trail maps, GPS tracks or mountain bike parks showing us where to go.
We simply looked at the mountains and wondered:
Where does that trail go?
That curiosity became a huge part of my life.
We began exploring old trails, mountain passes and paths that had been used for generations by local communities. Some rides ended exactly where we expected. Others turned into much bigger adventures.
And those were often the best ones.
Over the years, mountain biking became a way to discover Peru from a completely different perspective.
Exploring Peru One Trail at a Time
Peru is an extraordinary country for mountain biking because of its geography.
The Pacific coast, the Andes and the Amazon create an almost endless variety of terrain. Huge mountains, deserts, deep valleys, ancient trails, high-altitude passes and tropical forests can all become part of a mountain bike adventure.
Over the years, we traveled around the country looking for places to ride.
Some became epic day rides. Others turned into multi-day expeditions through remote areas where very few — if any — mountain bikers had ridden before.
The objective wasn’t always to find the fastest or most technical trail.
Sometimes the real adventure was simply finding out where the trail went.
That spirit of exploration eventually became one of the foundations of what we do today at InkAs Adventures.
Racing at the Highest Level
Exploration has always been a huge part of my relationship with mountain biking, but competition shaped another side of my life on two wheels.
Downhill racing took me from local and national competitions in Peru to major international events.
Along the way, I became a 14-time Peruvian National Downhill Champion.
In 2001, I finished third in the Elite Downhill category at the Pan American Championships and second at the 2001 Bolivarian Games.
Years later, in 2010, I returned to the international podium with third place at the UCI Masters Downhill World Championships.
Those results are memories I’m very proud of, but racing gave me something even more valuable than medals.
It taught me how to read terrain, understand lines, manage risk and adapt quickly to different trails and conditions.
Those lessons still influence the way I ride — and the way we guide mountain bikers in Peru today.
From Racing to Mountain Bike Adventures
Eventually, racing and exploration came together.
After years of traveling, competing and discovering trails, I realized that some of the experiences we were having on our bikes were simply too good not to share.
That philosophy became part of InkAs Adventures.
Today, when we take riders into the mountains around Cusco, the Sacred Valley or other parts of Peru, we’re not simply taking them down a trail.
We’re sharing places we know as riders.
Many of these routes come from years of exploring, getting lost, returning, trying different lines and connecting trails until we found combinations that created truly exceptional rides.
That local knowledge cannot be downloaded from a GPS.
It comes from years spent riding the mountains.
Peru Is Made for Mountain Biking
After decades of riding here, I still believe Peru has some of the most exciting mountain biking terrain anywhere.
You can ride ancient trails high in the Andes, descend thousands of vertical meters in a single day, cross remote mountain communities and experience landscapes that change dramatically during a single ride.
And there are still trails left to discover.
That’s probably the part that excites me the most.
Even after all these years of racing, traveling and exploring, I can still look at a mountain somewhere in Peru and ask the same question we asked when we first started:
Where does that trail go?
And sometimes, the only way to find out is to take the bike and ride it.
