Steve's Cycling Blog

The forecast lies! It said there was a 30% chance of a shower at 0900 – what this apparently means is rain from 0645 until 0945. The upshot was a pretty chilly morning for me as I wasn’t really dressed for how cold it was once I was wet.

The first 3.9km were on the last tarmac road we’ll see in Mongolia – from here to the Russian border is all gravel, dirt and sand which is going to make things somewhat slower and more difficult.

Stage 18 rider notes

To being with things were going reasonably well, but once the rain started it got a lot slower as the dirt tracks, which are the smoothest to ride on, got increasingly slippery – a number of people had an ‘opps’ or two over the course of the morning in the conditions.

The saving grace of the morning was how beautiful the valley we were riding up was, and once the rain eased and the cloud lifted it was pretty spectacular.

Based on the conditions lunch had been arranged to be in a small road-side ‘restaurant’ – basically someone’s front room. It was still the usual fare, but there was the option of a bowl of warm milk for sale if you were that way inclined.

From lunch the really climbing for the day began with a steep climb from the lunch stop – I passed one of our riders who was walking up the hill shortly after lunch, others who were behind me passed her nearly at the top 45 min later, that’s how steep it was!

Looking back into the river valley from the top of the steep climb.

From there it was undulating for a while before I began what is to date our longest and highest climb, with a single, gradual climb of 650m, to take us to a pass at 2000m. In coming weeks this will seem like a short climb to a low pass, but it’s the highest we’ve been so far.

From the top of the climb at 108km there were several more undulations before the final descent down into camp.

Tonight we’re camping out on a (generally) flat plain at one side of a valley which must be of the order of 15km wide.

Plateau camp

One thing that cracks me up with my Garmin is how it tells me this:

Riding on principal highway

When the road looks like this:

Riding on principal highway

Not quite my idea of what a principal highway might look like! Particularly since it makes Chatham Island roads look smooth.

As we’re heading further west without changing timezones (just yet) it’s darker in the mornings and lighter in the evening – sunset isn’t until 2230 tonight, so from tomorrow breakfast will be at 0630 which will mean it will be lighter when we’re getting up. The aim is for breakfast to be 15 min before sunrise, so that the sun is up by the time we’re on the road.

More gravel tomorrow, but the hills aren’t as high, and we end up at a lower altitude so more down than up.

After the spills of today, and with a number of people finding the off-road challenging, I can foresee a potential issue in the coming days with the amount of space in the vans for people who are too sore, too tired, or who have just had enough of the off-road, and are looking to only do a half-day of riding at most.

So far I’ve managed to avoid any physical issues, other than my cold which has thankfully almost gone, and a bit of a sore butt today from riding for so long on rough roads when wet. Let’s hope it stays that way! (not my butt you understand – I hope that feels better in the morning)

One thing I’ve learnt today is that I need to eat more on rest days – sleeping in yesterday was lovely but it meant that I didn’t eat breakfast till 0930, by which time I’m usually onto the second of four meals I eat on a riding day. The late breakfast also meant that I didn’t really have lunch, justt a salty snack with a refreshing beverage, and though I had a decent dinner I found I was running low on energy today.

And finally while I’m making observations about life on the road, the sun not setting until 2230 does make going to sleep a bit difficult since it tends to result in hot tents (though not so much tonight – it’s been much cooler today) it is great for charging things off my solar panels, since they get about 8 hours of sun after I get into camp.

Despite the later start in the morning I declare it to be bedtime (it’s 2045), so will stop here.

Riding data