Working on the the highway (stage 42)

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Working on the highway, laying down the blacktop
Working on the highway, all day long I don’t stop

Working On The Highway, Bruce Springsteen

Late in the day yesterday a young Swiss chap stopped into camp on his bike – he’d run into Andreas in town who had said he could camp with us. He’s been riding solo for over a year and came into Kazakhstan from the west and has done over 4000km since. From here he’s heading up into Russia and through to Mongolia where he’s planning to spend log enough to learn the language.

Stage 42 rider notes

Once again I ended up with too many neighbours too close to me – particularly when someones alarm went off at 0355 and it took them a couple of minutes to turn it off.

As with yesterday the first part of the ride was on great tarmac, but then we hit the construction zone where a new four lane highway is being built form here to Almaty and it got pretty rough for a while.

At 35km we turned off the under-construction main road onto what was the original highway and had it all to ourselves. At one point it was even tree lined which made for lovely riding, not only with the trees, but the shade and they helped break up the head wind.

A wonderful avenue for cycling down

Shortly thereafter we began the first significant climb of the day, which at it steepest got to just on 10% though without the traffic it was manageable. Toward the top was a closed down rest stop – I guess once the traffic of the main road had gone there was no custom for them any longer.

The road moved on, so the business died.

Continuing upward gave some great views back in the direction we’d come and we were rewarded with a great view from lunch at 65km.

The descent from lunch was fantastic and brought us back down to where the construction of the new highway is ongoing. The first five km of that was a mix of old and new road, and swapping from one to the other, before we began the afternoon climb.

Initially that wasn’t very steep, but was into the wind so progress got a bit tedious. On the good news front I had an entire two lanes of highway to myself by riding on the completed, but not yet open, second carriageway.

Once the grade turned up the wind had less of an impact and I continued on to the highpoint of today’s ride which had a fantastic view into the next valley.

And now for the next valley 🙂

Down into the valley and I was again on and off the new highway. One aspect of it which amazes me is that they appear to be building it with nothing but a white line in the middle – given the UK is spending millions to pull out one central barrier and replace it with another I’m somewhat surprised by this, particularly given that they seem to be doing everything else about the construction ‘properly’.

The camp location had to be changed because the original spot is now covered in new highway interchange – we’ve ended up camping in the field next to a hotel which is undergoing refurbishment, though I wonder at its chances of surviving given that it’s no-longer on the main road. On the plus side we have somewhere comfortable and shady to sit.

Relaxing in ‘camp’

This afternoon I’ve gone way off into the distance with my tent in the hope that I don’t end up with neighbours – let’s see how that goes! Mind you, not quite as far as Jackie who’s pitched herself on top of the hill like a lookout!

That’s Jackie’s tent on the hilltop looking like a nipple – mine is way off looking like it’s under the power pylon.

It’s now 1400 and I think a wander back to the service station 500m away for (another) ice-cream is the best course of action!

Later: Ice cream was good, but rather than the service station I waited a while and went further into town to a shop with beer to have with dinner – BBQ chicken, fried rice and stir-fried veges which while not as good as last nights duck was pretty great.

Plans for tomorrow have changed due to road construction, so we’re covering the same distance, but not ending up quite as close to Almaty which will make the run into there a little longer.

It’s also going to be somewhat protracted because they are concerned about safety getting into the city so want to have a convoy lead by one vehicle and followed by the other which is going to mean a bunch of sitting round waiting for slower riders – more details on that in tomorrow’s rider’s meeting.

For now my laptop battery says 6%, so much be time for bed!