Cycling the Atlas Mountains in Morocco

Cycling the Atlas Mountains in Morocco offers mixed terrain riding. It is filled with endless climbing, sweeping descends and epic switchbacks in harsh environment of heat, altitude and dryness.

5 great days on the bike! Have you ridden in Morocco?! If not, I hope I inspire you to do so!

In my previous post, I shared my experience and photos of my Marrakesh exploration. Now, it’s time to move to the main event of my trip – Cycling the Atlas Mountains in Morocco!

The trip was organized by Eat, Sleep, Cycle, A Girona company whose co-owner I met while visiting Girona in 2018. It was organized in collaboration with local guides MTB Morocco, who were absolutely fantastic and gracious hosts. The trip was supported, point to point (self selected pace) with regrouping breaks for mint tea / snacks & lunch. The ability levels varied, and a few people had e-bikes, which evened things out.

Tip – The post below has a lot of photos. For best viewing quality, click on each one. Or better yet, I linked to a dedicated gallery with all of the photos at the bottom of this post.

Day 1 – If it’s up, then it’s up, then it’s up

84km | 2009m elevation = Ouch.

Our day started at ~800m elevation and ended in Telouet, at 1800m, with a peak of 2260m at Tizi n’Tichka.

We drove for a bit over an hour from Marrakesh to I’m not really sure where and started with a gravel climb for approximately 13km. My kind of a start to a cycling trip! Nothing steep, just gradual, chill climbing through sparse villages. The gravel was smooth with nothing but blue skies and big smiles before a quick stop to regroup, for mint tea, coffee & snacks.

A bit more up, down for 10km, a break to let goats go by (yes, that’s right), then lunch by a river. After that, we found ourselves on the road, riding up, up and more up for about 39km.

It started fairly mellow and got steeper and steeper as we rode up a million scenic switchbacks (my favorite) to Tizi n’Tichka. To be fair, it was a bit of slog climbing on the road with my 650b wheels / 48 tires. I really wanted my road wheels for that climb. It is certainly not an easy one with a few pretty steep sections.

After a sweeping downhill and some undulating climbs, we rode into Telouet right before sunset. Our accommodation was modest but sufficient and the Tagine we had for dinner was delicious. Sadly, the bed was as hard as a rock, so I didn’t sleep all that well, but that is okay.

Day one was hard. The second hardest day of the trip for me. It certainly gave us a taste of what is to come. Altitude, dry mountain air, heat, a lot of great food, endless cups of mint tea, bad sleep and a lot of climbing, descending and switchbacks on mixed terrain of gravel & road.

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Day 2 – A long way to go camping

84.7km | 1008m elevation

Telouet village and Kasba

Telouet is a berber village of ~14,000 people. The attraction there is the Telouet kasba, which we visited in the morning before starting our ride. Apparently, the Kasbah is on the historic caravan route over the Atlas mountains to Marrakesh. It is not very touristy, maybe because Ait Benhaddou is fairly close. Or maybe because it was seized by the state and left untouched after the pasha ruling it turned out to be a traitor?

The story behind that is full of drama about the fall from grace of one of the wealthiest and most influential families in Morocco. The El Glaoui family dominated the olive, saffron and salt trades that passed through the area and started construction of the kasba in 1860, which took 5 years to complete. The families dominance ended after Thami El Glaoui (aka Lord of the Atlas) joined forces with the French colonialists to try and oust Sultan Mohammed V from power. In 1955, when the sultan returned from exile in Madagascar and declared independence for Morocco, El Glaoui was declared a traitor, leaving the Kasba Telouet abandoned.

Okay, back to riding. Day 2 was fairly mellow uneventful on the riding side of things, full of touristy things.

It was a mix of road and gravel again. A bit of up to start, but mostly downhill with some undulation for the first 50km, then the remainder was mostly up with some downhill sections mixed in to break things up a bit.

This ride was breathtaking as we rode through villages and took a small detour to visit Aït Benhaddou.

Aït Benhaddou visit

Aït Benhaddou is historic Ksar (village) along that same caravan route as Telouet and was once a major stop point between Marrakesh and the Sahara, now mostly full of tourists. It is considered an example of Moroccan clay architecture and is a UNESCO world heritage site. If it looks like something out of a movie, that’s probably because you might recognize it from Game of Thrones, Laurence of Arabia, and Gladiator. You can read more about it here if you are curious.

The campsite set up was great – We had a generator to charge everything, the shower set up was surprisingly solid and the tents and sleeping bags were warm and comfortable.

Sadly, I barely slept again that night as I got pretty sick with what seemed like a very bad cold. At the start of day 3, my Oura ring quantified how crappy I was feeling and that my body was hating me (very elevated HR and breathing rate). From previous experience, I knew my body is not a big fan of altitude, so I figured that was a contributor, as we spent the night at 1600m above sea level.

I debated if I should take the day off or keep going, but obviously I got on my bike. I didn’t come all that way not to ride… Days 3, 4 & 5 were my favorite, despite being sick.

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Day 3- Insert a clever title here

69km | 1188m elevation

My night after day two wasn’t great & according to the data from my Oura ring (and how I felt), I should have stayed in bed for days. But I decided to carry on and see how I felt as the day went on.

The first part was mostly on gravel. It started out okay, but after about 5km, there was a pretty steep section that blew me to pieces, which is not typical. I felt like I was getting punched in the lungs, so I decided to put my ego aside and jump in the car for a bit to make sure I am not being a complete idiot. I was in the car for less than 5km before I was back on my bike: The gravel was inviting!

Riding to the heart of the Atlas Mountains

It was the first day that felt like we are getting close to the high Atlas mountains and as you can see from the map above (and the photos). The mountains were in reach and we rode along side the foothills for most of the day. I guess ‘foothills’ is a bit misleading though, as we were at altitude of between 1400-2200m above sea level for the whole day…

It was a hot one and the air was super dry, which is probably better than it being a hot and humid day! The accumulated dryness from the last few days did mean that there wasn’t enough chapstick in the world to salvage my dry lips.

Despite feeling pretty crappy, I really liked the route as there was more gravel compared with day two. I really like long gradual climbing, especially when they are on gravel. Lucky for me, most of the uphill was on gravel, while the downhill on the second half of our day was mostly on road. That downhill section was fun because there were a lot of twists and turns, which seems to be the norm in Morocco, and the route still had some undulation to keep things interesting.

I felt okay as long as the grade was under 6-8%. Anything over that lead to hyperventilating, which sucked because my legs felt pretty good. There wasn’t anything too challenging after that initial climb, the scenery was so unique, changing throughout the day, providing a much needed distraction.

Moroccan Hosts

We finished the ride in the middle of nowhere (not surprising) and jumped in the cars to get to our homestay. It was a 14km climb to get there, which was optional. I was planning on riding it (I rarely say no to climbing), but since I was sick, I decided to opt out.

Two others plus one of the guides did ride up and the FOMO was real for me, although it was definitely the right choice. It was a road climb anyways, and those aren’t as fun on my big fat gravel tires! Or that was what I told myself to feel more at peace with opting out.

We were hosted by a large extended Moroccan family, as several generations live under one roof. The house was basically built into the side of the mountain with absolutely nothing else for miles. There was no indoor plumbing and the shower was a traditional hammam, where you use buckets with water in a small room that is heated with firewood under the house. It was really nice, kind of like a sauna in there.

Having us there, was apparently an excuse for a big celebration with a massive meal, singing and dancing.

Day 4 – Strugglefest with a view

102km | 2410m elevation

The title, with distance + elevation clearly say it all, no?! Day four was pretty hard. We started and finished deep in the high Atlas Mountains: We went up, down to the valley, then up again. Who’s bright idea was that?!

When we left our homestay in the morning, it was either down to where we came from or up, so in reality, the only way to go was up.

We started with a 16km climb, from ~1700m elevation to just over 2500m.

The view was incredible, surrounded by mountains. It was also crazy windy in some sections, and at one point I had to stop and get the support car to block the wind for me until we got to a section where the mountains blocked the wind, as it was cross wind, on a pretty narrow road, with no barrier to break the fall if I get blown over (yes, it was that bad).

The view made up for the fact that I was barely dragging myself up the climb… I was still sick, the altitude was getting to me, and riding the gravel tires on the road felt sluggish.

Needless to say I was not my best cycling self, but Tom kept me company and took a bunch of photos and video (because… Content). It made it a lot better. Once I got to the end of the climb, I decided to get into the car for ~5km. I felt it was the best way forward if I actually wanted to ride for the rest of the day, as I was definitely a bit out of it.

The downhill section you can see on the elevation profile was almost all on gravel, going down the side of the mountain towards the valley. It was extra twisty, steep in sections, and pretty awesome. It was a bit hard to build speed because of the surface and the switchbacks, but it was spectacular.

Up to Imlil

After lunch by the river, the rest of the ride was on the road all the way until we got to Imlil. The road was smooth, but it was bit too busy for my liking until the turnoff from Asni towards Imlil: We were passed by so many darn Buggies, going way too fast. And then, there was more climbing. This time, it was 25km of mostly up to Imlil, which is at approx. 1800m elevation. It was pretty cool riding towards those snowy mountain tops!

Imlil is a bigger town relatively speaking, and it is deep in the Atlas mountains. We finally got to take a real shower and sleep in an actual bed. Washing my hair was glorious! Our bikes got a wash too, which was much needed.

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Day 5 – And… Fin.

69km | 1076m elevation

The final day! From Imlil, back to Marrakesh. Or, somewhere ~20km outside of Marrakesh, to avoid the highway and traffic into the city.

Despite the fact that we were riding from deep in the mountains back to close to sea level (Marrakesh is at ~600m), there was a surprising amount of elevation for the duration on this ride. Since I was still sick, some of the steeper sections that nearly blew me to bits – anything over 8% lead to hyperventilation. Not a heck of a lot of fun, but this ride was absolutely unreal non the less.

Of course, we started by going up again… How else would you start a ride in the mountains, in Morocco? The terrain on day five was a nice and balanced mix of road and gravel and the trend of insane switchbacks was still true. Not as many as day 4, but still so many switchbacks!

I swapped lenses with Tom for a portion of the ride too, which lead to me playing with my camera a bit more compared with previous days, which was nice and about time I did that too, as it was the last day of riding!

I saw more goats on day 5 than the other 4 days combined and got more puzzled looks from the locals compared with the previous days, I’m not sure why. It was pretty amazing and unique how much the terrain and view changed in the duration of a relatively short ride – From seeing nothing but mountains, to open, more desert like scenery as we got closer to the outskirts of Marrakesh. The gravel bits were my favorite (obviously), even though my breathing was still pretty challenged.

I hope the photos are doing a good job telling the story better than my words – Remember to click on each one to see the full photo!

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Go ride your bike in Morocco

And just like that, we were done riding in the Atlas mountains, Morocco.

Five days, 412km, 7715m elevation on mixed surface of road and gravel. I highly recommend you go and ride your bike in Morocco. The views, challenging terrain, hospitality, food are all top notch. I do not recommend riding your bike over there (or anywhere, really) while being as sick as I was though!

Have you been to Morocco? Does this inspire you to go riding your bike there? I sure hope so!

I took almost all the photos above. That said, the photos I am in were taken by another cyclist / photographer on the trip @tomaustincycling.

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