Do go check us out, the funkiest cycling tour company currently in operation straight outta… erm… Singapore…
Well that’s where we are registered but in fact it’s kind a combo of Taipei and Onomichi, in Hiroshima, which sounds slight sexier.
If you don’t know what we do, well, we do proper funky cycling tours!
Just got back from an 8 stage, 900km, 17,700m BEAST of a tour up above Hanoi. If you’ve been to Vietnam and thinking it’s kinda flat, and not been north of Hanoi – think again. It’s achingly beautiful, and I’ve cycled in some incredible places, Sumatra, East Java, Oman, Mongolia – this is up there with Mongolia – different, but as humbling.
Our website is http://www.kojocollective.com, please check us out if you haven’t yet, we just got started and this was our first tour, and it went better then we could have hoped for.
Here’s a comment left by one of our guest riders:
‘Snapped back to reality yesterday for a full day in the office, ugh…
I wanted to say what a pleasure it was to meet you all and spend time on and off the bike with you in a foreign land. I learned so much about the local culture, myself and all of you. I have done many different tours and as much as I look for the experiences on the bike, I also look for the human connections, camaraderie and broadened horizons. This tour fully fulfilled all of that and I am thankful for the time and this experience with each of you.’
How nice is that? I’ll tell ya – damn nice!
Here are a few of my Strava entries logged on the trip, and some images, hope you enjoy – and we have spots still for our JAPAN tour – Tokyo to Kyoto on roads way less traveled, check that out here!
Day 2 KOJO Hanoi Tour 2025
Writing this laid out on my hotel bed after 9+ hours out on the road today, knees aching and belly full after a good at a local restaurant just a stone’s throw from our hotel in Lang Son, some 280km north east of Hanoi and just 14km from the Chinese border.
We arrived at 5:40pm, absolutely filthy, covered in mud and clay from head to foot. The bikes were clogged with the same, our drive chains creaking and groaning from the debris clogging them up… and yet we were smiling and laughing the whole last 5km, because we’d just had one heck of an adventure…
More to come on the www.KOJOcollective blog post trip, but let’s just say that this one had it all: our filmmaker getting dragged into a local wedding and ‘forced’ to down several whiskey shots, the lot of us invited into a random stranger’s house for tea and cake half way through the ride, and an off-road singletrack section that lasted a good 20km that should not have been on the maps but somehow was – and that, as well as the other occurrences, made for the best first day of a tour I’ve ever hosted!
Day 3 KOJO Hanoi Tour
“You’ve done it – I don’t believe that you guys have done it, but yeah, today is actually even better than yesterday…’.
And my heart fluttered a little. This is exactly what I experienced last year when I recce’d this route with Minh. It actually does get better each day, and we are only on Day 3 of 9.
Today we rode from Lang Son to Cao Bang in thankfully less rainy conditions than yesterday, and from the off it was a fast (and muddy) start. We flew along the wide rolling roads out of the provincial capital, Lang Son, with several bug trucks honking their way past us, and the usual and always awesome locals shouting us encouragement along the way.
After a few tough kilometers climbing we then turned off these main roads and got into the smaller lanes used only by farmers and other locals, dotted with small villages and surrounded by karste limestone hills, springing up from the rice paddies and tobacco fields like a figment of Roald Dhal’s imagination. We swished and we swayed down hillsides with the most stunning vistas before us… and what an absolute joy to be guiding these people through an environment like this, one I rode through last year and knew I had to bring people to – the seed of what our KOJO Collective became.
One guy, the affable Skip, asked if he could go on ahead to do the remaining 40km to the hotel alone, as I was waiting for riders behind, and I said, ‘Of course – go, this will be your best memory…’
He got lost on the way back but still arrived with a smile on his face.
The last 15km of the route has 12 km of proper wicked (yes i just used that word) descending that no cyclist could fail to love…
Proper. That was proper.
Next, 105km tomorrow, to Bao Lac, up some very serious switchbacks and then down a stunning descent with another big dollop of hairpins, before a final run in to the small town near the Chinese border.
KOJO rising, baby!
Day 4 KOJO Hanoi Tour
Can a ride be delicious? If so, this was Michelin starred. Riding from Cao Bang to Bao Lac, the first 60km are a combo of flat and light rolling, all very gentle and quite sweet really… until you hit the 62k mark, then it’s 15km of steep almost alpine slopes, featuring long sweeping curves and a landscape reminiscent to Ali Shan and the west ascent of Wuling in Taiwan.
A beautiful flowing set of minor switchbacks takes you to the valley where you just keep picking up speed as you carve around turns cut through the limestone karst hills, which by now are massive – they make the ones from Day 2 and 3 look like cupcakes.
After that we were faced with a viciously steep hill with more switchbacks, with each bend surfaced with loose pebbles, for who knows that reason, making traction more and more difficult as the incline rises. But on we pedalled, because what else is there to do?!
At the top we regrouped, the heat and humidity having risen and left us a proper soggy mess, but the breeze coming up the valley cooled us off.
After that we had the Nah Tenh Pass, which demands your full attention, its curves at the nastiest coming at something over 20%, and rolling up like a wave of tarmac. The big trucks that use the pass swing out so far to get round the bends as they climb that there’s only about 2 meters left for the driver/rider, and it’s a tight fit at times.
One more climb jabs at the thighs and then we had the ginal descent left, a ribbon of a road almost misplaced along the side of the mountain, making it alll rather orgasmic for the seasoned cyclist, as we pelted down at over 80km/hr, giddy and giggling, whooping and a-hollering…
In the hotel now, a nice place by the river, and off next to get those carbs in and a little protein for these damaged legs.
KOJO cranks on!
Day 5 KOJO Hanoi Tour
Hot day today, we felt it immediately as we rolled out of Bao Lac, but thankful to be on the road again. Ahead lay a relatively short route to Dong Van, a bustling little farming town revitalised by tourism thanks to the popularity of the Ha Giang Loop. We were also thankful to be away from some obnoxious dirt bike riders who were staying at the same hotel, and who wasted no time, after aggressively revving their bikes at us as they rolled up the day before, in telling us they were supporters of Agent Orange.
Anyway..!
Another beautiful day on our KOJO tour here in north Vietnam, rolling through Hmong villages, through small towns along rivers and tea terraces, and finally up what is really quite a tough first climb. The soil is not as rich here and the trees start to thin as you climb higher along the now-giant karst peaks, wondering how anyone can forge a living up here.
It’s strikingly beast-like, this terrain, and there’s not much more you can do as you suffer through it but shake your head in wonder.
We then headed through Mio Vac on the way to the last climb, but not before stopping for a chicken burger and some great coffee – lots of that in this part of the world.
One more 12km climb added another 1600m to out tally for the day, and we then only had to speed down the thrilling descent and into Dong Van, for a shower and then an Italian feast at Romeo’s Restaurant – recommended!
Tomorrow is a big old day again, 134km and 3580m. WhoooP!
Day 6 KOJO Hanoi Tour / The Queen Stage
‘How’d it go?’ asks Strava…
PFFFFFFT… is the answer.
The body, smashed and battered, tells one story, whereas the head, filled with things and emotions I still can’t get a grip on – tells another.
The previous two stages of our Ha Giang KOJO Collective tour are the shortest of the tour, yet they are the ones that wear at you. The climbing in each is all crammed into a relatively short space, so it’s a lot of UP. The weather improved which means more heat, and the fast pace of Day 1 & 2 started to catch up to all of us.
So Day 6 came along, 134km and 3500m, what you could call the Queen Stage, and it kicked all our arses. For once though I felt great out of the gate, and we all entered a mood of blissful thankfulness as we rolled up and over what I reckon is the most stunning scenery of an already stunning tour. I won’t try to describe it cos I can’t – so see the video (coming soon) or, even better, just come out and do it!
Our filmmaker, Kev Merrey , rated it as the best ride he’s ever done. Our mountain goat, David Bowman, rated one downhill as the best he’s have ever faced.
Personally I was hovering between rapture and pain all day – just as I like it…
There was the joy of seeing us all in our custom KOJO Collective kit for the first time (thanks to Pedal Mafia and Shane ~ ), and turning at the top of one pass to look back across the valley to see two of our guys riding side by side down the hill – I just thought ‘wow, this is what I’ve been dreaming of, making this, now. seeing it come alive’…
We almost collided with a huge pig all trussed up in the middle of a 2 metre wide road, being delivered to someone’s house for a feast, one of our guys crashed at a later point and lost his phone, we got battered by the hotness and fleeced by some cute little kids by the roadside for our energy gels and some pennies, and we fought nail and tooth to get through those last kilometers to Ha Giang and though it drained us, almost totally, of our energy, our spirits remain undimmed, and we will ride to suffer again.
Cos that’s what we do…
No rhyme nor reason.
‘Solitude is right there, and tranquility is very near.’ Quote by Joss Naylor, champion fell runner, see this short doc here.
KOJO HANOI Tour / Final Day
This is a fittingly big end to a huge tour, and we set off from the quietness of the countryside, deep in the jungle, slowly making our way from the ‘escape’ of the previous seven days of riding, edging ever closer to the modern world.
Gravel yet again reared its beautiful head as we took a right turn just after Lang Qua, and though we were cycling in the dry (indeed we hardly had any rain falling on us all week), the road below was quite muddy. To our right was the mountainside, to the left a beautiful slow river, wide and dark, with swirls of mist playing upon it.
We climbed higher and then were faced with a motorcycle driver coming towards us, waving his hand as if to to signal that the road ahead was not good. We rounded a corner and understood what the issue was. The heavy rains overnight had caused a mini flash-flood that had washed away the outer edge of the road and dumped a ton of thick mud all down the mountainside.
We had a quick look, assessed the situation, I asked the guys if they were good to go – ‘yep!’ came the reply – and off we went. I’ve never seen mud like this, it was more akin to cycling across a huge wet chocolate cake, out rims disappearing into the mud and leaving no trace behind. Quite trippy!
We stopped for a bite to eat and to wash off the bikes, then it was on through the town of Lao Cai to make the right turn up to the climb to Sa’Pa.
1,370m over 24km, this climb is not as spectacular as those we had gone over previously, but it’s still a really cool climb, starting off in the jungle and then heading up to the alpine-like higher slopes. We separated early, each of us going at our own pace. I put my headphones in and played my ‘Ride’ playlist. As I got to about 4km from the summit, my favourite, super uplifting house tune came on, all 14 minutes of it, and I went off with the fairies for a while…
I started thinking about my initial idea for this new tour company, about getting out on this exact same route, alone, 12 months ago – and now here I was with other riders, guiding them. I thought about how lucky I was that this is my actual job, what a privilege it is too to be healthy enough to do this, and how we had to work to make it happen. It was like a little bath in the warm light of something akin to joy…
When I met one of the riders who came up behind me, at the hotel, I aksed him how he went on. the climb – “Oh man! There was one point where I felt like I was high on cocaine!”
I would have said a mild dose of psilocybin, but there you go, horses for courses…
And yeah, Sa’Pa, once this quiet little tribal hillside town, is now awash at night with neon lights, shops, bars and nightclubs – even a goddam Starbucks! But it’s a perfect place to end the tour and Return to the World!
Got a comment the next day from one of our guest riders….
‘Snapped back to reality yesterday for a full day in the office, ugh…
I wanted to say what a pleasure it was to meet you all and spend time on and off the bike with you in a foreign land. I learned so much about the local culture, myself and all of you. I have done many different tours and as much as I look for the experiences on the bike, I also look for the human connections, camaraderie and broadened horizons. This tour fully fulfilled all of that and I am thankful for the time and this experiences with each of you.’
This is our KOJO.
For our upcoming tours head to our website or message us here, and we will hold the amazing Hanoi Tour in north Vietnam later this year.
Oops only have photos of me so far – I’ve added a few from Hanoi as well!
Many thanks to our sponsors, Haro Bicycles, Pedal Mafia, 720 Armour, and to our a e photographer from SkyRise Productions (all cool shots are his, the others, not so cool, are mine), Kev Merrey, and to our Mr. Hanoi, Minh Ha, and my partner in crime, Mike McCreesh!
コメントを残す