Lombok by Bike

Smooth rolling hills with beachside shacks selling fresh grilled fish with rice with a cool coconut? Yes please.

Welcome to Lombok, sitting directly to the east of Bali, and known as the ‘island of a thousand mosques’. The sounds of the mosques call to prayer are as frequent as the smiles from local strangers. A beautifully diverse and lush island perfect for a bike tour in the middle of the Australian winter. 

In the  heart of the island sits volcanic Mount Rinjani, which makes for a spectacular ascent at 1.00am for sunrise (on foot). The surroundings and circumference offer rolling hills, flatter farm land, inner jungles with waterfalls, rice fields and beaches for days. The traffic is incomparable to Bali’s and honestly I felt safer on these roads than at home. Although it has a regional and remote feeling, the island is small, and there are villages all within hours riding distance, offering food, water, local sweets and those smiles. 

To embark on my first overseas bike tour, I started by scouring Strava to find some routes. A Strava stalk sent me to Lombok local Heatam, who had recently designed, implemented and completed ‘Wheels to Waves‘ a flash-packing ride around Lombok and through the centre  – mates on bikes – the dream. Over the coming months I worked strategically creating my own itinerary loosely based on theirs – eventuating in reaching out to Heatam to explain my plan and express my gratitude for his mark on the map. Haetam and another friend ended up joining me for a bike touring adventure.

Landing in Bali, it’s easy enough to stuff a bike box in the back of a taxi and boost up to Padang Bai for the night where you can set up the bike and take in a sea breeze. From Padang Bai, we caught a slow boat (local ferry) over to Lembar, Lombok. The boat leaves approximately every hour, and your bike can be left safely in the lower deck while you enjoy the ride (approx 5 hours).

Arriving in the harbour in the late afternoon is prime time to stretch the legs with a short and flat ride of 20 kms into the city of Mataram. Mataram has a bloody good bike mechanic, good coffee, fishing villages, markets and local life. From Mataram, we rode east into Tetebatu, a small village in jungle hills and rice paddy fields, a lush area to spend a few nights visiting waterfalls and watching local life go by.

We then rode south to Kuta Lombok, an area very popular with tourists which boasts some top notch food, yoga, surf, and all round good times.

Further south we rode to remote villages and surf breaks at Ekas where the only tourists are there to surf, and there is very minimal infrastructure or tourism. Ekas is dryer, flatter, and the most remote we travelled – with dirt tracks winding along farmland and coast lines. The plan then was to ride right up the middle to Sembalun and embrace the dirty gravel of the lower hills of Mount Rinjani, before descending and heading north to the rolling coastline of Sengiggi and  completing the loop by coastal riding back to Mataram and further on to Lembar.

As goes with any trip, it seems wise to expect the unexpected and as such, I fell ill down in Ekas, meaning a boost up to Mataram to be closer to a chemist. After recovering we bailed on our original route due to lack of time and instead enjoyed early morning rides through the city and out to local villages, amongst school kids and fresh food markets, where we sought gravel backroads and escaped the rising sun. We rode up the hilly coastline to Sengiggi for sunsets and fish on the beach, and completed the final leg of the tour back to Lembar for the ferry to Bali. 

Although the ride was planned from hotspot to hotspot, as always, it’s about the journey not the destination. We spent hours with local children, intrigued by our whiteness and lack of religious status, people practiced their English with us and we caught glimpses of day to day life not otherwise seen if we had sipped ice coffees all day in Kuta.

Sure we had our iced lattes here in  Kuta and they were bloody delicious, but we also communicated with a local bike mechanic in broken Bahasa and English, waved at surprised looking farmers, and touristed with local tourists at waterfalls. 

Gear and Other Things:

I took my trusted mostly-used-for-commuting Bombtrack Arise touring bike, with a handlebar bag, and trusty Framework designs pannier bags on the rear. Being summer, and staying in hotels, we didn’t need much and could afford to pack light. 

If you’re keen to grab some routes check out Haetam’s new business venture, a touring guide interested in the ethics of tourism, whilst also sharing the beauty of the island – we don’t need another Bali but we do want to share the adventure of the island beyond the ‘hotspots’.