Morocco (Atlas Mountains) Biking

Hi All. Looking for some inside knowledge, and this seems as good a place as any to begin…

I’m going to be in Morocco in early November, and will be the Atlas mountains south of Marrakesh for a bit. Keen to try and ride bikes (easy MTB or Gravel) for a few days to explore and play. Happy with day trips, but could also maybe do a 2-3 day trip linking places where we can find basic accommodation. Not looking to go epic – 3-5 hours riding per day more than enough.

Any suggestions and recommendations on routes, bike rental places, guides etc. please?

Cheers.

My son is there now walking- about to do whatever the big one is. I’ll ask him to look out, I’d certainly love to go.

We did a trip a couple of years ago organised through https://www.mountainbikeworldwide.com/ we started in Marrakesh and then did several days of guided riding around Amizmiz and Imlil. It was great riding, though the area was dirt-poor *before* they had the massive earthquake last year.

Our guide was Rashid https://www.instagram.com/guidemountainbike/ who was a really nice bloke. We also had a van and driver/cook so we ate really well on the rides (we would meet the van for a big salad + mint tea). It was great fun, and everyone was super friendly.

Hope any of that helps.

No biking advice sorry, but I was there trekking in 2016 and did ‘the big one’ that @jkomo mentions….Mt Toubkal. Now this might just be me, but I’d avoid Marrakech like the plague if I went back. It was just relentless with hassle from the locals and really exhausting. I absolutely loved the rest of the country though.

Agree with Tom, stunning country, lovely people etcetera… with the exception of the centre of Marrakesh which seems to exist purely to extract money out of western tourists.

They’ve introduced tourist police in Marrakech so it’s much better now.

When I went in 1988 it was awful, but I went back a few years ago it was fine.

Airport was chaotic, bring your own biro for the immigration form.

I can’t recall who I went with right now.

Have ridden there with Ciclo Maroc. It’s a stunning place though you wouldn’t want to be without a guide or fixer. Infrastructure can be haphazard. The people, food and hospitality are amazing.

Marco sub contracts out guiding there, the place he used at the time was atlas sportatlas sport in Marrakesh. They do small tours as well as their full week expeditions and will sort accommodation and lunch stops in the mountains.

I did a week riding there with Freeride Morocco a few years back, basically gite to gite mountain biking with a support truck. My take was that the actual riding was very like the Alpujarras / Sierra Nevada region of southern Spain – loose, steep, nadgery – but with a red-tinted dirt filter. The culture is ace though, the mountain village felt to me like something from Nepal and the people were great. It’s probably the most accessible culturally exotic / alien destination you’ll find from the UK.

As a few folk have said, I think you’ll maybe get more out of it in efficiency terms by using a local operator, but plenty of people do stuff off their own bat and have a good time. I think gravel bikes there would be ace. GCN did a watchable video about riding there a couple of years ago. Erm…

Also Josh Ibbett also did a bunch of vids about bikepacking there:

Ooh I have piccies

Airport was chaotic, bring your own biro for the immigration form.

Worst airport I have ever been through – absolutely terribly run place.

Marrakesh – shithole.

Mountain biking – went fifteen years or so ago, was great going through little villages etc but, imho, that would not outweigh the burdensome nature of the rest of the country. On my list of places I am never returning to (with Venice and Middlesbrough).