Raid Trans Mauritania Fatbike

Fatbike ride in the desert

If you’ve always dreamed of exploring the desert on a mountain bike, the Raid TransMauritania is for you. Also known as the RTM, it’s an adventure for fatbikes – mountain bikes with oversized tyres – in the sand dunes of the Mauritanian desert. During one week, participants will cycle between 4 and 6 hours every morning to take advantage of the optimal temperature conditions.

The use of a fatbike is mandatory in the Mauritanian Adrar area. Even if the terrain sometimes offers rocky tracks, we will look for a maximum of passages in the sandy dunes to offer you amazing sensations while riding down the slopes.

The RTM is an untimed ride, with no timing and no ranking: everyone rides at their own pace. The sportier riders will enjoy racing down the seas of dunes and tackling the climbs, while those who prefer to take their time will make the most of discovering the Adrar and its breathtaking scenery. Everyone meets up at the bivouac at midday to share the rest of the day.

Why a fatbike event and not a mountain bike race?

The tyres on traditional mountain bikes and bicycles are too thin to have the necessary lift to ride in the sand. For your fatbikes, we recommend a tyre section of at least 4″ in order to ride in the dunes. Even with such large tyres there will still be some sections where your wheels will sink into the sand, but soon you will learn to read the dunes to distinguish the soft sand areas from areas where the sand has been packed and hardened by the wind.

Stay tuned

To make sure you don’t miss out on any news about Raid TransMauritania, subscribe to our newsletter.

The history of the Raid TransMauritania Fatbike

For some years we dreamed of making our tracks with our fatbikes in the wildest landscapes of the Mauritanian Adrar. We have just made this dream come true, and turned it into an event: the Raid TransMauritania Fatbike.

After a successful first edition in 2019, a second edition in 2020 where we tripled the number of participants, a post-Covid comeback in hiking mode in 2022, a successful 2023 edition, a more remote and wilder 2024 route that increased the challenge, a 2025 course through new dune fields towards Choum, and a 2026 edition south of the Amatlich in areas never used before on the RTM, the 8^th edition introduces a new format with two consecutive loops — while keeping the sand and dunes that make the RTM so unique.

You will ride about 300 kilometres in six stages in a team of at least two. This adventure is reserved for fatbikes, the only bikes that can go anywhere on the variety of terrain in the Mauritanian desert.

From now on, only the untimed ride mode will be available, allowing each team to progress at its own pace.

The stages will take place in the morning to pedal during the coolest hours; the afternoons will be reserved for rest or for exploring the surroundings. And the evenings, in the middle of the immensity of the dunes or in the shelter of an oasis, will be the occasion to remake the world or simply the day around a fire and the traditional mint tea. Then it will be enough to start counting the stars… to fall asleep. Take a look at what a day at RTM is like.

Beware, addiction guaranteed, the desert is magic!