Lost in Patagonia: What 200 Miles on Horseback Taught Me About Mountain Biking

James Moore · 2026-08-28

Knee-deep in mud, somewhere in the middle of Patagonia, I asked myself: how the hell do I get out of here? I'd strayed off the trail and tried to force my way back through the undergrowth. Panic was starting to creep in. My horse and I already had 125 miles of Patagonian wilderness behind us. At the start of 2026, I swapped my bike for two horses and, just seven months after my first riding lesson, set off for one of the toughest horse races in the world: ten days self-supported through Patagonia. Across bogs and rivers, past glaciers, over the Plateau of Death, through dense forests and along sheer cliffs. And as I stood there in the mud, trying to get my horse out again, a fairly absurd thought crossed my mind: this feels like mountain biking. Or at least like the part of riding I'd been missing more and more lately, without even realizing it had disappeared. That is exactly what this issue is about. We haven't reinvented mountain biking for it: quite the opposite. We asked ourselves why we started riding in the first place. Whether we've become trapped in our own biking habits and routines. Whether our hobby has become too expensive and elitist. And why the end of the Enduro World Cup could, of all things, be the biggest opportunity the sport has had in years. Because the most dangerous changes are often not the dramatic ones, but the gradual ones. Habits and comfort zones that feel so normal we barely notice them creeping up on us, until one day reality hits us and we wonder: How did I end up here? And when did I forget what this was all about for me in the first place? Sometimes you need some distance to see it. For me, that meant 125 miles through the Patagonian wilderness on horseback. Sometimes you need a wake-up call. For enduro racing, that wake-up call is the UCI's announcement that it is ending the Enduro World Cup. ### The Real Issue: More Than Just Racing The issue behind all this is bigger than one racing discipline, or even mountain biking itself. More and more elements of our lives are becoming organized, staged, curated and optimized to remove as much friction as possible. We know what to expect before we've even set off. Mountain biking is no different. Perfectly constructed trails, shuttle schedules, setup guides, trail apps, and bloody good bikes that do more and more of the work for us. Much of that is brilliant. The danger comes when, without even noticing, we go from being adventurers to becoming consumers of trails. Patagonia, of all places, showed me just how far we can drift from that. Out there in the middle of nowhere, nobody could come to my rescue and tell me what to do next. I was responsible for myself and for my horse. For the route, my decisions and their consequences. For whether we carried on or turned back, tried to cross a bog or looked for another way around, and whether my horse ate and drank enough to be ready to go again the next morning. No excuses. Plenty of fear and doubt, though; sometimes bordering on despair. But that was exactly what made it so damn good. It was raw, completely exposed to the wilderness, and without a safety net. I had to stay incredibly alert, improvise and learn to take full responsibility for every step. ### The Adventure We Risk Losing The challenge wasn't the problem. It was the adventure. And that is exactly what we risk losing. Over the past few years, we've perfected our sport. Bikes can do things today that would have seemed absurd 15 years ago. Suspension is better, brakes are more powerful, tires have more grip and trails are more professionally built. Apps tell us where to go, setup guides tell us what pressures to run. Thanks to YouTube, Trailforks and Instagram, we often know. But in that perfection, we might be losing the raw, unpredictable essence that drew us to mountain biking in the first place. The mud, the fear, the uncertainty—they're not obstacles to avoid; they're the very things that make the ride unforgettable. So next time you're out on the trail, maybe leave the app at home. Get a little lost. Feel the mud. And remember why you started riding.