Rapha Yomp Rally: these 38 hours in the saddle changed my perspective on biking forever

A rally, not a race: This five-day adventure was the ultimate bikepacking experience

The iconic Gibraltar climb seen from a drone
(Image credit: Gretchen Powers)

We’d gone off course. My Garmin was stubbornly insisting otherwise but even in the dark, we could see by the shoulder-high grass and rutted out singletrack below that no bikers had gone this way for a very long while.  

After what we’d gone through in the past six hours, this section of bike-pushing, weed-clearing and technical riding had initially seemed par for the course. After the snow and creek crossings, cattle-ruined fields, sheer cliff faces, rockfall and small boulder obstacles, what was a bit of singletrack? 

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