Debating between 2/3 stars for this one. There were some great parts of this trip, and some really low lows so I'll elaborate a bit more below for anyone trying to decide what type of trip to go on:
Context - we chose a 2 day/1 night Mountain Bike trip. We were here at the end of April/start of May. We booked the trip one day before via Whatsapp which was easy to arrange, and showed up early the next morning to get our bikes and pay.
Pros - super easy to arrange. We were able to leave our big backpacks at the agency so we could just take smaller day packs for our ride. They provided lots of water for us to take with us. Our guide was super friendly, good guy, spoke good English and was able to tell us about the area.
They accommodated our vegetarian diets, and the meals were delicious.
We stayed in a small village at a "homestay", got a really authentic and unique experience. The chief of the village hosted us himself and we slept on a mattress on the floor in the same room as him and his wife. His wife cooked dinner and breakfast and even a takeaway lunch for us the next day.
We got invited to a party at the school in the village, drank, and had a great time with the local villagers.
Cons - when we asked how long the ride was expected to be, we weren't given a clear answer (which was ok, because we're competent bikers and were fine enough with the ambiguity). However, 8 miles in, our guide's bike broke so he could no longer shift, which meant he had to walk the uphill sections. Obviously this isn't his fault, but it became an important factor as the next 15 miles was going to be pretty much all uphill on muddy gravel.
It turned out, none of our bikes were equipped to tackle how muddy the trail had become. Our first day ended up being half trek, half bike as the chain on my bike kept popping off, and our guide couldn't shift to get uphill on his.
The second day, the downhills were again so muddy and slippery that it was dangerous to ride on, and uphill we were having too many technical issues until eventually while my partner was riding, the entire derailleur almost completely fell off (pics below). At this point, we were less than halfway back home, so our guide ended up trading bikes with us, and we rode his shiftless bike, while he walked our broken bike uphill, and then would ride without pedaling going downhill. We made it that way all the way back down the mountain until we got to pavement where we called the company to come pick us up.
All this to say, it felt like a tour company should've had better foresight into the conditions of the roads and known that the bikes weren't equipped to handle such conditions. Our guide also should've called for a replacement bike as soon as his broke since we were still on pavement at that time and the issue had potential to be resolved. Instead the experience was a rather long and tiresome one, that resulted in two out of three broken bikes, a much harder than anticipated ride, and a shorter second day than planned.
A little more information from the company, and better planning could've resulted in a much better trip. Sounds like the treks/kayaking are the way to go!