His entire childhood, Rajesh Magar from Nepal begged his parents for a bicycle. His entire childhood, he was told that he may get a bicycle someday. His mother is a housemaid, while his father is a construction worker. With their limited income, a luxury such as a bicycle seemed a long way coming, if not impossible. Magar decided that he’d have to fix the situation himself and after doing small jobs and saving up for months, he bought a cycle from his school friend and immediately fell in love with it.
The problem was, he became so obsessed with the bicycle that his mother sold it to a scrap collector to get him to focus on school and studies. Being the boy that he was, Magar dedicated his time to YouTube and Google researching bikes. Ultimately, using a GI pipe used for household plumbing and an old spring from a scooter, Magar built himself a bicycle and took off to the streets of Kathmandu and the Himalayas.
Now, 21-year-old Magar is the four-time Nepalese National Champion who, according to National Geographic, might be Asia’s fastest mountain biker.
“I love everything about mountain biking,” Magar told National Geographic. “When I’m on a bike, I forget about all of my life’s problems and issues. I appreciate nature, the trail, the bike... mountain biking takes me to a place where I feel totally free.”
A stunning documentary (above) by Joey Schusler called RJ Ripper, which is what people popularly call Magar, documents Magar’s love for biking, his inspiring story and determination that was, as the video description puts it, “forged from junkyard scraps and tested on the rugged trails of the mighty Himalaya”.
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