Steve's Cycling Blog

It was another chilly night – 4ºC in my tent when I woke up just after 0600 this morning – and check that out – woke up just after 0600, such a civilised hour for waking up 🙂

As I was packing up my tent a self-supported cyclist who’d arrived quite late in the homestay last night came over and was asking me about the road conditions ahead – like all the other self-supported cyclists we’ve seen he’s heading the other way – wonder why that might be? the absence of head winds perhaps?

Sitting in the sun in our compound eating breakfast it seemed like it had warmed up nicely and I was considering taking a layer or two off before heading out, but once I was out on the road I was glad I hadn’t as out of the sun an/or in the wind of riding it was still really chilly.

Stage 59 route notes

We made our way along the side of the lake and then into a river valley. Once again we were following the edge of the buffer zone and at one point the fence came quite close to the road so I got a good look at it – it’s quite some construction with multiple strands of barbed wire, and the top originally electrified. The thing that amazes me is where all the wooden poles came from – there aren’t any trees for hundreds (potentially thousands) of kilometres, and yet every 10m there’s another solid post in this fence which itself seems to run for hundreds (if not thousands) of kilometres.

Buffer zone fence

with such a short distance to go today I was stopping to take photos of anything and everything. Even here at 4,200+ m there are wild flowers along the side of the road

I can see why tourism is the number one export earner for Tajikistan. On the road today I saw one large truck, one small truck, size other vehicles, of which three were tourist-related, and four self-supported cycle tourists. Yesterday was even more uneven – five cycle tourists, three tourist vehicles and three other vehicles in the entire time we were in Tajikistan. I’m sure once we get closer to towns the number of vehicles will increase, but right now it’s very sparse.

Our lunch stop today was beside an abandoned series of buildings – perhaps a former military outpost, or potentially a roadhouse or services station from times gone by. It was also at the end of the pavement for 30km and the 10km of that which we rode this afternoon was manageable if you could find that one smooth patch at the edge and stay away from the corrugations – from talking to other cyclists is sounds like the climb tomorrow will be as bad, but once we’re over the pass the gravel improves prior to the return to pavement.

This afternoon we’re also camped by a hotel

Hotel this way

Hmmm… not exactly thew Hilton

A few of our number have decided to move into the ‘hotel’ despite the fact that all they’re buying is a space on a rug on the ground in a tent – seems that’s preferable to setting up and packing up their own tents. Me, I’d rather sleep in my tent on my own!

Jacob’s in the process of putting together a video about the tour and has been intending to interview me about my experience so far for a couple of weeks now but for one reason or another it’s never quite happened – seems today’s the day!

Later: Well the interview seemed to go ok, and Jacob reckons there’s lots of good material in there for him – his plan is to ask five or six the same set of questions then cut them together into a single compilation of people’s experiences. Will be interested to see how it turns out.

Will, Grant and Andreas have headed up onto the ridge above camp. Given how windy it is down here I can only imagine what it’s like up there, but I expect that the view is amazing.
[photo of the ridge]

I took a wander up the hill too, but nothing like as far as they’ve gone to get a shot of camp

Camp from above

Baby yaks are super cute – the look more like big dogs with the way they wag their tails, particularly when they run.

Even later: Despite having been warned that we were on ‘austerity measures’ for dinner tonight it was, as always, great – a bacon and lentil stew with pasta salad and coleslaw. The last place that Mark had been able to buy meat was Osh and with no refrigeration and hot days there was no way that anything uncured was going to keep until here. I’ll give him the Portuguese Bean Stew recipe which we often make at home as a suggestion for the week after next when we’ll be in equally remote locations.

We’re camped on the western side of the valley we’re on, so as soon as the sun went behind the mountains (just after 1900) the temperature dropped at least 10ºC. Factor in a fairly brisk breeze’ blowing up the valley and it went from feeling like a comfortable 25ºC to feeling like a very uncomfortable 10C which very quickly sent everyone to their tents to keep warm.

And on that note, I need to remember to email the person at TDA who recommended the tent I bought. While it may be great for their Africa trip, it’s far from ideal for this route – all the netting in the top may be fantastic once we’re in hotter climes, however in dusty or windy or cold conditions (or as it was last night all of the above) it’s not much good! All the mesh does is filter out the large sand particles, all the dust comes straight in and although it does get marginally warmer than outside it’s not by much, which means when it’s near freezing outside it’s not much better in here!

Right, need to plug a few things in to charge (loving my solar-charged battery bank, it may have been a bit expensive, but it’s brilliant) and get some sleep!

Riding data

View from my tent

Ridge line above the ‘hotel’