It got pretty cool in the night beside the river – so much so that I actually had to get in my sleeping bag for the first time since the Pamir Highway! Having not put my tent up the morning routine was extra quick this morning and I was ready well before breakfast was.
As I’ve mentioned previously today’s a part-riding, part-bussing day as it’s been deemed too dangerous, and too difficult to navigate to get into Tehran. As a consequence it’s a relatively short ride, and there’ll be waiting time while everyone gets to the meeting point before we can head in on the bus.
Stage 92 route notes
I’m riding with most of the departing riders today, and as we’re generally the quickest on the road we’ve decided to let everyone else leave before we head off – Michael and I have also tried to set things up so there’s a ‘finish line’ for the departing riders to cross, let’s hope that’s worked out – we may as well split up the waiting that we’ll inevitably end up doing.
First off was a climb to the first tunnel for the day, then a pretty fine descent which also included passing through a number of tunnels. Another attempt at video making which kind of worked – I was looking backwards whilst doing about 50 km/h downhill through the tunnel at the time so it’s hardly surprising it’s not very steady
It was a pretty cruisy morning stopping as and when we wanted to and generally taking things easy, there was no hurry for as, as no matter how much mucking round we did we were always going to get there before the slowest riders.
A couple more climbs, a couple more descents and we were into the lunch stop and a few photos (see below) before eating, loading bikes and waiting for everyone else to get in. Unfortunately the finish line idea didn’t quite work as we’d hoped but it was good enough.
Charlie and Will had decided they were going to ride no-matter what, and Grant’s joining them in an attempt to help them stay safe, so they set off after eating some lunch. We’d expected to see them on the road but in the end they took a different route. They also discovered exactly why we were being bussed in – apparently it wasn’t much fun.
Once everyone was in we loaded up the bus and headed for town – wow, Tehran’s huge, and sprawling, and growing at an incredible rate id all the construction we saw is anything to go by, and full of completely manic drivers!
The 65km trip from our stop into the hotel took almost an hour and a half as the bus worked its way through the maze of one-way streets and traffic to get there. It’s not actually the hotel that I’d been told, but it’s in a better location, so that’s good.
It’s also a very nice hotel, another of the better ones for sure, with good sized rooms and though we’re on the eight floor we don’t have a view as our tiny window faces into a (small) atrium so all we see are walls and other windows.
Rob (who I’m sharing a room with) and I headed out after showers to change some money. We didn’t have any trouble finding someone to change money for us, but they tried to swindle Rob out of 500,000 IRR – thankfully we realised what was happening and they feigned ‘mistake’ when it looked much more deliberate to us!
Back up the road and we stopped in at a pizza place with Ivan and Michael for lunch number two for the day. Back at the hotel I got a couple of blog posts done before it was time to head out for dinner.
Charlie and Will’s families, and several friends, are all in Tehran and invited four of us to join them for dinner. It took a while to get there through the traffic but it was well worth it when we finally did. They have a guide with them who explained the menu, and then ordered a selection of very tasty starters and mains for us – it was fantastic to have that local input so that we knew what was on offer, and what was good.
It was a very enjoyable evening – it’s no wonder Charlie and Will are so nice, there families are too, so as well as a fantastic meal we had a great time chatting, so much so, that it was 2300 before we got back to the hotel – I can’t remember the last time I was up that late!
Riding data
View from my tent
There’s nothing to see – we look out the window at a wall and another window just the same across an internal atrium
