Steve's Cycling Blog

Plans and preparations are decided in vain
Think we’ve seen enough now
Hope and validation are united again

Bernard Fanning – Hope & Validation

It hardly seems like yesterday that I was in Spain setting this blog up, and yet I’m writing this as we approach Beijing. The time has vanished in a blur of activity – not least a week in Turkey celebrating Adam’s birthday, and two (separate) weeks in the US with a client (Hi Paul :-).

I’ve tried to get in as much biking as I could, but with all the other things going on I’ve not done as much as I would have liked – things started coming together over the last two weeks though so I’m hopeful that I’ve done just enough that I’ll be able to get into the swing of things without too much discomfort.

That said, I’m not entirely looking forward to 164km on day 5, with a further 4 110km+ days before a rest day!

Visas

Getting my visas sorted out was also something of a challenge. One of the great things about living near London is that everyone has a consular section there. Unfortunately they’re not all in the same place, so several trips to London, and quite a bit of trekking round the inner suburbs ensued. The other slightly frustrating thing is they keep very odd hours! Mon, Tues and Thurs 11:00 till 13:00, or ‘every day except Wednesday and Friday as they put it’.

The most amusing visa was Uzbekistan. According to their website it was going to take 10 days to be issued after I submitted the documentation. I got there with about 40min to spare before they closed, waited a while, handed over my documentation, got told to wait a bit more, got called back to the counter and was handed a deposit slip. Go to the bank up the road, deposit the fee and bring the receipt back they said. I walked, I deposited, I returned, now with about 5 min before they closed. I got called to the counter, the woman handed me my passport and said ‘check the details’. I looked confused, then looked where the receipt was in my passport and there was my visa – the quickest £50 anyone ever made…!

Also by total coincidence I met Jacob, one of the TDA staff, at the Mongolian embassy as I was dropping off my application and he was picking his up.

Thanks to the combined research of both Ruth (another Silk Route rider) and Adam my Chinese visa ended up being entirely straight forward because I already knew that I needed to tell a ‘simplified’ version of the ‘truth’ about my trip, and that I had to get my visa in my UK passport (rather than my NZ passport like the rest).

‘The stuff’

There’s been rather a lot of shopping done over the last couple of weeks as I try and get all the things that I needed together, which given the hectic schedule of late has been quite a challenge – and then one of the local bike shops who was getting me replacement helmet pads let me down, so we had to make a detour on the way to the airport yesterday to pick them up. But, much to Rick’s relief (he was much more worried about my state of packing than I was) everything came together and got done.

Travels

A somewhat damp drive to Heathrow yesterday morning, including a stop to pick up helmet pads from Guildford and my bike was entrusted to BA for the journey to Beijing.

My bike in its travel case heading for Beijing…!

The flight was exactly as we like them – totally uneventful…! We then spent about 25 min taxiing round the Beijing airport before arriving at a gate. Immigration was equally a non-event, and our very kind driver was there with his van to take us to the hotel where I’m now finishing this off while Adam has a nap.

It also seems that the VPN I set up is working as desired since I seem to be able to access all of the internet (including Facebook and Twitter) from the hotel WiFi, so I’ll number that amongst the successes to date…!

I was amused by this (extremely well translated) sign on the ATM as I was withdrawing Yuan at the airport… There you go…!!

Might be time to go and do a spot of exploration – though I have to say the view from the hotel window doesn’t really inspire one to venture out – not sure how riding’s going to go in this air…!

Loving the air quality…!