Sadly today has been one of those days to be endured rather than enjoyed, and I’m glad that it and yesterday are now behind us. After the 188km yesterday today’s 145km sounded like it should be somewhat easier but both the wind and the road conspired against us.
Stage 37 rider notes
Having not gotten to camp until nearly 1600 yesterday afternoon everything was feeling very rushed when the alarm went off at 0415 this morning to tell me it was time to get moving again.
I set off with Michael, Will and Charlie again, but Charlie was really struggling with dehydration – as soon as he drunk anything it went straight through and he had a headache and was finding it really hard to concentrate.
The upshot of that was that we were moving really slowly, and stopping pretty frequently. At the 30km mark it was beginning to look like another 10 hour day, and I didn’t know if I had that in me, so with apologies to the other three I headed out on my own.
At times that seemed like a mistake when the wind really blew, or the road was really rough, but I was steadily improving my average speed and hopeful that I’d catch up with at least some of the riders ahead of me at lunch.
Lunch was at 65km, and I was very pleased to see that everyone who was ahead of me was there when I arrived. Ivan was leaving just as I pulled in, but the others were still eating so I quickly made some sandwiches and filled my water bottles.
In the end they (Paul, Erwin, Grant and Jackie) set off before me, but only by about 5 minutes, so I was able to catch up with them about 3km later and tack myself onto the end of their rotation taking 2km turns to lead the group riding in a diagonal line behind – thankfully this road sees very little traffic (I’m not surprised, it’s total crap!) so riding five wide is seldom an issue (other than trying to dodge the potholes).
At one stage a truck pulled over on the side of the road and four men got out to ‘talk’ to us about what we were doing and where we were going, and to take some photos with us:
Shortly later we met Andreas who was once again heading back along the line of riders with water and fruit – this time delicious peaches! He also had good news – as he’d been driving back towards us he’d noticed that the first 15km he’d been getting really bad fuel efficiency suggesting that he’d had a head wind, but since then it had improved significantly.
Gradually the road improved and by keeping the rotation of front rider turning over every 2km we chipped away at the distance still to go.
And then the wind did shift! which made the last 18km a much easier proposition. With the wind behind us Grant and I headed away from the other three and picked up the pace a little.
Into camp and there was a pleasant surprise in the form of a clean clear river flowing just below camp so swimming (read ‘having a bath’) and washing were in order.
At the 30km point when I left them Charlie had added some electrolytes to the water bottles he was carrying and they seemed to do the trick – by the time he got to lunch he had perked up considerably and was feeling much better. In the end they were only about an hour later into camp than I was.
I’m also not sure about the 25:75 gravel:tarmac ratio – I think that depends largely on ones interpretation of tarmac!
Riding data
Moving average: 18.9 km/h (slow day)
View from my tent
Didn’t end up happening – I went to my tent after dinner (about 1745) and got everything sorted out for tomorrow, then lay down for a wee rest before finishing this post off – next thing I knew it was 1945, so I got out of my clothes and into my sleeping bag liner and went to sleep!
Love how you lot become the subject of fascination for the locals. Mind you, you are all a subject of fascination to me too – weirdos!
What, please, is a lo-profile camp?
Yeah exactly – take 30 westerners on bicycles and two huge vans covered in English sign-writing into a tiny wee town in the middle of Kazakhstan and then expect them to camp ‘lo-profile’ so that the locals don’t notice. Hmmm like that’s going to end well.
Apparently at the time that was written they couldn’t find any local official so it wasn’t entirely certain we were allowed to camp where we were. Unsurprisingly the local officials (in the form of the police) noticed we were there (surprise!) and stopped by to say hello!