Steve's Cycling Blog

I was chatting with Adam yesterday afternoon and saying that I’d managed to escape the upset stomachs which had caused a number of other people issues. Unfortunately that was my undoing, and a night of constant trips to the loo left me feeling decidedly unwell when it was time to get up.

I forced myself to eat some breakfast, though not as much as I ordinarily would have, and not as much as I needed for the ride which was ahead. After one last trip to the loo I set off.

Stage 55 route notes

For the first 35ish km I was able to cycle more-or-less normally. At this point most days I’d be stopping for a snack – often a snickers – to get me through to lunch but the idea of eating anything, let alone chocolate, just made me feel worse!

At the 43km coke stop I got an iced tea (which in these parts is pretty sweet) which I was able to drink. While I was there Jackie, Grant and Niek also stopped so I sat behind them through to the point where the road got steeper at which point they got away from me.

By the time I got to lunch I was feeling decidedly second hand – low on energy and extremely nauseous! Lucky Luke, our medic, was at lunch today and after filling him in on my night, and him checking my temperature an anti-nausea tablet, an antibiotic and an Imodium went in. Again I forced some food down – I needed the energy for the rest of the ride.

I spent the best part of an hour at the lunch stop which with the medication meant that by the time I left I was feeling somewhat more composed.

Michael and I set off together and really enjoyed the descent from lunch – great asphalt, flowing corners, and plenty of gradient to keep us moving at around 60km/h without needing to do anything other than brake occasionally.

From the town of Gulcha at the bottom of the hill we had a little more climbing to do. At one point we were being pursued by a very old Russian truck which was taking its time about catching up with us

Michael winning the hill climbing section

It eventually got passed us only to stop about 500m further up the road so that the driver could get out of the cab with a bucket of water to add to the cooling system of the truck

They did overtake us, but at a cost! Note the bucket on the bumper.

We reached camp around 1400 which is down at the edge of the very fast-moving Gulcha river where it’s also pretty sheltered and consequently very hot – mid thirties – with no shade at all.

Gulcha river in full flow.

As I’d been riding I’d figured that I should be able to put up my tent fly using the groundsheet to hold the poles in place, which worked out really well – I rolled up both sides of the fly and added my sleeping bag over the top to act as thermal insulation and I had a pretty cool place in which to lie down.

In the end I did more than lying down – I slept for over two hours and dozed for nearly another two through until rider’s meeting and dinner by which time I actually felt like eating for the first time today.

As Harry had gone to put up his tent – another MSR – the same fitting which had caused me problems in Mongolia also failed on his tent. One end of the original poles from my tent still had an undamaged fitting, so once the lunch van returned from route scouting for tomorrow Michael, Harry and I unloaded the permanent bags until we found my bag – almost right at the bottom of course – and were able to get the fitting out. A bit of mucking round with elastic and aluminium fittings and Harry’s poles were good as new and he had a tent for the night!

In other news I forgot to mention from Osh, another rider has also decided to leave the tour, this time Pär, who was supposed to be with us through to Istanbul, has decided that the combination of many things mean he’s not enjoying the trip and that he doesn’t want to continue. We shall miss Pär greatly as well and I hope that we will stay in touch!

Riding data

View from my tent

The mountains looked like bad green-screen they were so sharp against the sky.