Steve's Cycling Blog

Despite the number of close neighbours I ended up with under my tree the white noise of the river drowned everything out and the cooler evening made for a great sleep. Surprisingly my tent was dry when I came to take it down – I say surprisingly because as recently as 0315 it had been raining pretty heavily so I expected it was going to be rather soggy!

I was away from camp by 0515 with the pleasure of a tail wind and smooth asphalt under my wheels which meant I was sitting on between 35 and 40 km/h depending on the gradient, until both of those things ran out at more-or-less the same time.

I stopped at 35km to take off a layer and eat my morning banana. Upon closer inspection it appears that what I thought were tombs are actually just really elaborate graves!

As I was approaching lunch it began to look like I was going to get seriously wet

Fortunately it continued to move away from the road and though I got a little rain, by the time I’d stopped and put my raincoat on, the rain had also stopped. I continued on to lunch with my raincoat on and probably ended up wetter from the humidity and sweating in my coat on than if I’d just carried on!

Today feels like I’m riding along the edge of the South Downs in the UK with the hills on one side and the plains on the other.

I really like that one of the wild flowers growing on the edge of the road here in Kazakhstan is sun flowers

From lunch the road continued to undulate along the edge of the hills (on the other side of which is China – we’re within 50km (as the crow flies) from the border currently) tending generally downwards and with pretty good tarmac to keep the speed (and morale) up!

I pulled into the 103km coke stop for a refreshing beverage – today’s choice was mango iced tea which proved very tasty. Grant and Jackie stopped just as I was heading onwards. From there I could see the next massive thunderstorm which was going to try and drench me.

I turned left at the roundabout with the storm sitting just off to my left and began the main climb for the day – again a few spits of rain, but despite the fact that it had obviously rained a lot it left me well alone – other riders weren’t so lucky, Will and Charlie got throughly dumped on as they were coming down the hill.

There was something of a head wind for much of the climbing, which did mean that some of the lesser descents still had to be pedaled, but it wasn’t too bad for me and I continued on up. Down the other side and I passed Bernice at about 50km/h saying “good morning Bernice” as I went, unfortunately I think I frightened the living daylights out of her!

The bunkers i the rider notes turned out to be aircraft hangers from a semi-defunct airforce base, many of which still have decaying aircraft parked in them. In the distance I could see that operations are still ongoing at the base but it’s clearly been scaled back significantly since the demise of the Soviet Union.

Camp should have been on the right shortly there-after, however it had to be moved as the planned site was (apparently) far too muddy. The guys had done a great job of flagging the gap in the central median where we needed to jump the curb and head down to a new site beside a small creek – it seems a pretty good spot because although we’ve had a pretty decent squall through in the time that I’ve been here we’re pretty sheltered from the worst of the wind.

My timing remained perfect because I managed to get my tent up, and out of my riding gear before the rain came down – once again being first in to camp meant I could pick a pretty good spot under a tree.

I had a wee nap during the worst of the rain which has arrived, and have subsequently been for a wander to see what I could see. Not a great deal, other than a huge field of knee-high sage and head-high thistles (photos below).

And the best news of the day is that Mark, our chef, managed to buy duck breasts (62 of them :-)) in Usharal and they’re on the menu tonight.

Bruno, Ron and (Australian) Jackie have just come into camp – it’s been a long day for them (nearly 11 hours) though they did spend some time staying out of the rain in a cafe. That just leaves Ruth, Rob and Rhys to come in, who are clearly having an even longer day – right now the wind’s dropped off again, but it’s been howling at times this afternoon since I’ve been in, so it’s going to have been tough going for them.

Later: The three R’s all made it in not long after the previous group and though it had been a long day they were still in good spirits.

Dinner was as awesome as I’d hoped it might be:

There’s another big black cloud coming over the horizon, so I suspect the next downpour is only a mater of minutes away so I’m going to go and get my (currently) dry clothing off the line I’ve put up, clean my teeth, and vanish into my tent before it arrives.

Riding data

Total distance:	147.75 km	Total Time:	06:18:17
Max elevation:	788 m	Min elevation:	453 m
Total climbing:	850 m	Total descent:	-1065 m
Average speed:	23.43 km/h	Maximum speed:	73.44 km/h

View from my tent