The road up Jebel Hafit is one of the best-known motorcycle climbs in the Gulf, and it is easy to understand why. It runs for about twelve kilometres, with dozens of well-surfaced bends and hairpins that wind up the flank of the mountain to a summit plateau at roughly 1,200 metres, and from there you can see the whole of Al Ain spread out below and the desert running into the haze. In a country of motorways and flat horizons, it is a gift.
West Ridge sits on the other side of this story. Along the ridges below the road, small stone beehive tombs have stood for five thousand years, built in the Early Bronze Age and now grouped in lines along the crest. Hundreds survive on the mountain, and they were among the reasons why Al Ain's cultural sites, including Hili and the oases, were inscribed by UNESCO in 2011. There is something peculiar about riding up through a modern road and seeing, on the skyline, a row of graves older than the pyramids at Giza.
Hafit is a limestone mountain, folded and layered, with fossil shells in the rock, and the slopes are bare and golden. Early in the morning, the air is cool and clean, and the light is soft on the cliffs. By midday in summer, the rock is too hot to touch, so go at dawn or in the evening, and avoid the midday heat. In the winter, there is sometimes mist in the early hours.
The base of the mountain is on the edge of Al Ain, a city of garden avenues and date palms, so fuel and food are easy to find before you go up, but there is little at the top apart from a hotel, so fill the tank and carry water. Watch for cyclists and for drivers who treat the road as a racetrack, and for sand on the corners after windy days. Parking at the summit viewing points is easy.