The Yak Attack World-Series!

The Yak Attack goes global!

Regular readers will be very familiar with my Yak Attack exploits in Nepal. Over the last twelve months, Founder & Race Director, Phil Evans has been a busy man, travelling the world and reconnoitring new trails & venues for a World-Series!

In recent months all of that "hard work" has to come to spectacular fruition.

"The Yak Attack World Challenge Series" has been born!

"The Yak Attack World Challenge Series will see a proliferation of Yak Attack formulated events in some of the world's most inaccessible and least developed regions over the coming years. Each race will be a multi-day, stage race that pushes its riders to the limit, both physically and emotionally, through hostile terrain and climate in unfamiliar and challenging settings, which will result in the experience of a lifetime for modern-day adventurers."

"The first race outside of Nepal will be Yak Attack - Rumble in the Jungle, in November 2014 on the beautiful island of Sri Lanka. This epic adventure will be a test of nerve and endurance traversing the scorching jungles, mountains, and tea plantations of Sri Lanka in what promises to be one of the toughest jungle races on the planet. Following that, we will take our adventure MTB race format to South America for AlpacAttack, to be held in April 2015. This race will traverse the Patagonian Andes through Argentina and Chile, one of the most sparsely inhabited regions on Earth. In mid 2015 we will complete the Himalayan Triple Crown with events in Ladakh and Sikkim and crown the Himalayan "King of the Mountains" at the Annapurna event in Nepal in September 2015."

Yak Attack - Sri Lanka - Rumble in the Jungle

Yak Attack - Patagonia - AlpacAttack

Yak Attack - Nepal - Annapurna

Phil Evans has put in a huge amount of work developing and financing Yak Attack - Nepal over the past eight years.

The last twelve months have seen some exciting new developments, particularly the expansion of the team, which now includes the global business acumen of former Yak Attack racer Richard Williams.

Richard has come in as Brand Development Director and is also overseeing the the expansion of The Yak Attack Foundation.

Kate Hobson has taken over the daily administration and will be the first point of contact for most racers enquiring about the events.

The phenomenal Ajay Pandit Chhetri has been added as Yak Attack Race Consultant.

Exciting times indeed.

Phil Evans- Race director and original founder of Yak Attack.

Phil is from Shropshire, UK and has been involved with mountain bikes ever since the late 80's, when he worked as a cycle mechanic on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands. Also an intrepid traveller he has visited numerous countries over the years and has accomplished such feats as cycling the Alaska highway unsupported, cycling across the West Australia desert to Ayers Rock and a 3 day traverse of the Annapurna circuit.

Apart from overseeing the current series of races, Phil is responsible for discovering new and exciting locations to ensure the Yak Attack brand continues to push the boundaries for mountain bike adventure racing.

Richard Williams, Brand Development Director at Yak Attack.

Richard is originally from Pembrokeshire, Wales but is currently living in Switzerland. After travelling extensively, including an Annapurna Circuit trek in 1998 and cycling the Leh-Manali highway in 2005, Richard moved to Switzerland in 2005, living in the Jura mountains and working for the UN. In 2009, Richard founded Holy Cow, a fast food gourmet burger outlet and opened 5 restaurants over the next 4 years. In 2012, he started the Burger Love Foundation which supported local health and social associations for young people in Switzerland. After taking part in the 2013 Yak Attack, Richard went onto to develop the Ravenswell Foundation with the aim to help Nepali riders develop and to provide opportunities for young people in the sport.

Richard is now a member of the Yak Attack team, taking care of brand development as well as developing the Yak Attack Foundation's performance-based funding model.

When he is not sat behind his laptop, Richard can be found making cider up in the Jura hills !!

Kate Hobson – Administrator at The Yak Attack

Kate is originally from Newport, in Shropshire. She worked from the age of 18 as a cartographer, in Wales, for 14 years, followed by three years as a teacher of IT, English & Maths, in Shrewsbury. Kate recently left her job in sales and admin at the Sports Nutrition Company, TORQ, after several years, to join our expanding team as we endeavour to bring you new and exciting races across the World.
Kate loves animals and spent a month volunteering at a Tiger sanctuary in Thailand back in 2011, now making do with her menagerie of cats, dog, rabbits, chickens and ducks at home. She also caught the travel bug in 2002 when her partner took her backpacking to Bali, and has since travelled to, and within, Nepal, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and parts of Europe.
Kate is generally the first point of contact for all race participants, being the lady who will respond to your enquiries and applications; she also dishes out the invoices……so be nice!

Ajay Pandit Chhetri - The Yak Attack Series Race Consultant

Ajay is the current Nepal National mountain bike champion and 4 times Yak Attack winner. He has also raced in many of the worlds higher profile mountain bike races, including the Cape Epic and La Ruta. His wealth of experience on the racing scene makes him an invaluable member of the Yak Attack team during the developmental stage of each race and as the series expands Ajay will be overseeing all of our Asia races.

As well as playing a key role in the expansion of the Yak Attack series, Ajay will also be leading the Yak Attack Adventure Holidays (to be launched shortly), as well as conducting his own "high performance" tours through this fledgling company MTB-Nepal.

Not one to sit on his laurels, Ajay will shortly be embarking on a trainng course to become a TorqFitness accredited coach with a view to passing on his expertise to up and coming Nepali riders. It looks like Ajay is going to have a busy future !!

 

There are quite a few Yak Attack videos on YouTube these days but the 2014 edit filmed by Nepali lens-man Gauravman Serchan is probably the best of the bunch, check it out below and you will see just why I love this race so much!

You can keep up to date with all the latest developments by following Yak Attack on Facebook and Twitter, or peruse the website for the finer details using the links below.

Twitter: @YakAttackMTB

Facebook: Yak Attack

Website: The Yak Attack

Watch out World YAK ATTACK is coming!