Background

I've always enjoyed cycling and I love Sri Lanka. I spent a few years living there when I was younger and I've re-visited the country many times since. However for various reasons I never managed to combine these interests and do both at the same time, i.e. cycle in Sri Lanka. Until recently, that is.

 

A Knuckle

In the Summer of 2017 I finally managed to organise myself with a half-decent bike, a convenient base in the town of Matale, and enough time and fitness to explore a small area of the island by bike. This blog is a record of that, largely to remind myself what I did, but also hopefully to provide useful information for anyone else wishing to cycle in what is a beautiful but relatively unexplored area.

The Knuckles Mountains

The Knuckles Mountains are a range in central Sri Lanka. The nearest towns or cities are Matale and Kandy, which was the capital of the last independent Sri Lankan kingdom. Kandy is a popular tourist destination but most visitors don't venture out into the mountains, possibly due to lack of time and lack of places to stay.




The name of the range in English derives from the shape of a number of peaks in the central section of the range which resemble the knuckles of a clenched hand. In Sinhala they're called Dumbara, or Misty Mountains. Apart from sounding rather Tolkien-esque this also describes how they often appear from nearby areas.

Victoria Dam and Reservoir on the Mahaweli River, the Southern boundary of the Knuckles

The Roads

The Knuckles are separated from the main Sri Lankan Hill Country to the South by the valley of the Mahaweli - the longest river in the country. Their location means that they're often overlooked by visitors, partly because the few roads in the area are small and winding and don't really go anywhere except to tea estates and isolated villages. In other words they're ideal for cycling, as long as you don't mind climbing. And more climbing.

Plenty of people tour Sri Lanka by bike, but most seem to avoid the Knuckles. I can understand why: these mountains are not really on the way from anywhere to anywhere else. Accommodation options are limited but slowly improving. However you'd still need to add a few days onto any tour if you wanted to explore the area properly. I suppose it's a bit like adding a circuit of the Lake District or Cambrian Mountains onto an end-to-end tour of the UK - nice, but most definitely optional if you're short of time.

The Traffic

The big bonus of small roads that don't go anywhere significant is that there isn't much traffic. Sri Lankan driving can be - let's say alarming - for those not used to it. I am used to it, but I still won't cycle on anything even resembling a busy road. It's just not worth the risk and stress. However small mountain roads are a different world, and I find that people normally drive slowly and with consideration.

Rush hour on the B257

But perhaps they're just startled by the unusual sight of a foreign cyclist. Or any cyclist on these roads. Just don't forget that you still need to be vigilant all the time, because even on a single track hill on a steep gradient there could be a bus about to come round the next corner heading straight towards you. Sri Lankan buses seem to be able to go almost anywhere, and are not inclined to stop for anyone.

A bus about to go round an impossible bend

Horns are used a lot, but not normally to mean “get out of my way”, more commonly it’s “careful I’m coming” or “thanks for letting me past”. You should use a bell similarly to warn pedestrians of your approach.

The Heat

This is one reason why I've never cycled much in Sri Lanka. I'm from the North of England. I'm not used to hot weather. Anyway, in parts of the Knuckles you could almost be in the uplands of the UK. Not the uplands of the UK in the middle of the winter, I'll grant, but in some places the temperature does drop to a chilly 20C. Not quite cold enough to need an extra layer, but pleasantly fresh at times.

Typical cloudy day in the Knuckles. Above Pitakanda village, looking towards Riverston

Having said that, most of my rides started in the Matale Valley which is only about 300m above sea level. Obviously the trick is to set off early - soon after dawn if possible - and get your climbing out of the way before the sun gets too high in the sky. I found the heat much less of a problem than I expected, partly helped by clouds and some heavy post-monsoon showers on my first couple of rides.

The Wildlife

Snakes. I have a phobia about them. I justify my phobia by the fact that they’re horrible slithery things that can kill you.

I didn’t see any snakes during my rides, but when I did venture off-road I saw plenty of little holes dotted along one particular section of singletrack. I was high up in the mountains, I was alone, and I was a bit lost. I turned back.

Sri Lanka is justifiably famous for its wildlife, but most Sri Lankans think you’re a bit mad if you go cycling or trampling around in the countryside. They’re probably right. Going off road on a bike has various hazards including the strong possibility of getting lost but also encountering wildlife at closer quarters than you may like.

Probably the most dangerous animal a cyclist will meet

In fact the scariest thing I saw was a big black scorpion just outside the back door of our house one day. I was expecting leeches at the higher altitudes, especially in wet undergrowth, but I was lucky.

Apparently elephants sometimes move up to the Northern end of the Knuckles range in the dry season. Like horses, elephants seem to be easily spooked by bicycles, so need to be treated with extreme care.

Wild boar are quite common all over the hills in Sri Lanka and are known to be dangerous, but my closest encounter was with some sort of civet cat (I think that’s what was) that ran along the road in front of me for a bit.

Oh and local dogs which react in different ways from a growl, a quick chase, to an unconcerned ramble across your path. I haven’t been bitten and got into the habit of talking gently to any dogs which seem to be guarding their territory. You might seem a bit crazy, but any people listening probably think that already.

 

The Bike

This is the other reason why I've never cycled much in Sri Lanka. Several times I've hired bikes locally and many years ago I did actually own a "racing" bike in Colombo. Locally bought bikes are fine for getting around on flattish land and covering short distances. They're not fine for climbs that gain hundreds of metres in altitude and go on for 15km or more. So either you stay on the flat (where it's hot and humid) or you need to get hold of a bike that's good enough to tackle serious mountains.

Me and my bike

So I bit the bullet, bought a bike bag, and packed my 15 year old mountain bike up for a long haul flight. It arrived in one piece apart from a broken spoke, which luckily is the sort of thing that is easy and cheap to fix in Sri Lanka.

Did I really need a mountain bike? Probably not; a traditional tourer or new-fangled gravel bike would have coped with most of the rides. However road surfaces are quite poor and gradients quite high, and the mountain bike did allow me to go “properly” off road on a couple of occasions.

Sembuwatte Lake Road - one for an MTB or sturdy hybrid

In fairness there are now a couple of bike shops in Colombo that sell imported bikes for about the same price that you’d pay in the UK. Since I did my trip, a company has also started organising MTB trips in the Kandy and Knuckles area using good quality bikes.

Navigation

Most of the routes I cycled almost jumped off the page (or screen) when I looked at maps of the area. There simply aren’t enough roads to give you much choice about route planning.

Google maps are reasonably OK for Sri Lanka, but some of the roads shown are just rough tracks, and conversely there are plenty of small tarmac roads which are missing from the mapping. The really amazing thing is that most of the country is covered by StreetView, which lets you actually see what a road is like. I spent many hours virtually cycling around before I arrived in Sri Lanka. Even some off road sections are covered.

Rough track between Pitakanda and Rattota

Whilst riding I navigated using routes on Strava or by checking on Google maps.  Strava seemed to have the mapping data stored even if I wasn’t using mobile data, and I’d already downloaded the local maps on Google but also Maps.Me as another option. So as long as the battery lasted on my phone, I was OK.

The People

 

People in Sri Lanka are friendly, hospitable and curious. You’ll often hear words of encouragement - at least that’s what I think they are. Even on small roads or tracks in quite remote places there are normally some people around; perhaps tea estate workers or the occasional tuk-tuk.

“Where going?” is a common question, and a way of saying hello. How do you answer? “Just cycling for the sake of it”, “to see the view”, or simply “nowhere”?

Near the top of one especially long climb, a motorcyclist stopped and offered me a tow. I assumed he was joking until he started getting a bungee cord ready. I saw him a couple of times again: either he was going and backwards and forwards to the nearest village for some reason or he was checking that I was still alive.

A regular pit-stop in Kandenuwara

There are also little shops almost everywhere, which means that you can travel light and stock up on water and snacks as you go. Stopping for food breaks became part of my routine, with pol (coconut) roti, vada, and bananas being some of my favourites and easy to find. Much preferable to dry tasteless energy bars.


Places and routes