Azerbaijan: A New Destination for Mountain Biking?

^{All images by Nailya Bentley}

My husband has a very serious (and expensive, I suspect) hobby these days. He loves to mountain bike. In Qatar, where we live, there aren’t many mountains. In fact, there are none. He still manages to go out on his bike every weekend, but the only choice is a desert. Or another location with another desert. So, he and his friends started travelling abroad to explore other locations. So far, they have visited Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Georgia—and finally, they decided to go to Azerbaijan.

They discovered that they could take the bikes with them as oversized luggage on Qatar Airways. They bring minimum clothes in their backpacks—and off they go.

I met my husband in Azerbaijan over twenty years ago. However, after marrying me and whisking me away, he has barely been back. So, I was quite curious how this trip would go as twenty years is a very long time, and Baku has changed dramatically since then. Moreover, regions outside of Baku, the capital city, have developed in the most amazing fashion.

During their trip, a local guide called Abdulla created a sleek and professional PDF describing their daily itinerary. After the first day in Baku and after dinner in my favourite restaurant, Marivanna, the guys woke up early and headed towards Khinalug village. According to the guide’s brochure, the altitude in that area is around 2600 meters. They took an ancient caravan route for biking the next day towards Shahyaylag. They then continued through Alik village and towards the village of Habit, along the Alik River. 

The next day they continued to the historic village of Griz, located in the heart of the mountains. Their destination was the village of Laza, where, with the help of 4x4 vehicles, they reached Mikhantoken Ridge with an altitude of 2700-3000 meters. Eventually, they finished the tour descending to the village of Kuzun, from where they safely made it back to Baku to enjoy more good food and nice weather, sitting outside Sirovaryna restaurant and people-watching for hours. 

As I will let you judge for yourselves, the photos are stunning. In fact, the mountains were so gorgeous that even the guy from Switzerland was impressed. And he, of course, knows what beautiful mountains look like. 

Abdulla, the local guide, to whom I am immensely grateful for keeping my husband alive throughout this journey, reckons that no mountain biking has been done in some of the spots that they visited before. The routes Abdulla chose for this trip are mainly used these days for trekking and local shepherds. So, perhaps this is the beginning of something bigger that could potentially turn into a fabulous opportunity for my home country. Will Azerbaijan become a new hot spot for mountain biking?

The Azerbaijani people, as my husband noted, were incredible. Friendly, generous, and with a good sense of humour, they made their journey even more pleasant. 

There were, of course, some challenges for Westerner visitors, such as unfamiliar outdoor squat toilets. Or the fact that on many occasions, they were in the middle of nowhere and simple things like finding a shop that sells beer was difficult. However, the local men working on construction next to the guest house were able to help by offering to take a Lada down to a nearby shop to bring them a box of the local Xirdalan. Moreover, another night the local owner of the guesthouse slaughtered a sheep to make some delicious fresh shashliks. Some things had to be clarified due to the cultural differences. For example, when making Baku room reservations for the travelers, Abdulla didn’t automatically think that they would require separate bedrooms. 

But, all these small quirkly details were insignificant to people looking for a fun adventure. What mattered was the hospitality of the people, the food, and the beauty all around them. They said they would definitely be back. 

“How come I don’t go to Azerbaijan more often?” My husband asked me, and I said, like a typical wife would,  

“Well, I told you so!”