We were moving earlier than planned this morning – it seems that I’m now programmed to wake up at 0500 and despite the fact that I didn’t need to this morning I still did. I dozed through till 0615, then got on with the day.
Things were somewhat disorganised at the hotel – the room our bikes were in was locked and the key was with the absent manager, and though breakfast was supposed at start at 0700 nothing much was ready at that point so there was some waiting round after rider’s meeting. Thankfully Mark had made porridge, and there was also peanut butter and other TDA spreads to augment the rather poor hotel breakfast.
A group of local cyclists had come to ride with us out of town – somewhat surprisingly over half of them were woman. There was a little more waiting round while photos were taken before we set off. There was such a wide range of riders, bikes and abilities, so it was a pretty slow procession which left town, but it was great fun to ride in such a large group and chat with different people as we made our way out of town.
In talking with one young lad in the group he said that at school they are taught in Turkish, which somewhat surprised me, but talking with Fari this afternoon it seems that in this part of Iran Turkish is the first language of much of the population with Farsi as a second language.
We stopped just before the police checkpoint at 11km for group photographs before we continued on our way and the group returned to town.
Stage 98 route notes
Interestingly the group has over 700 members, they ride five days a week and use Telegraph, a Whats-app style messaging tool (which is permitted in Iran unlike Whats-app) to organise all of their events. Tuesday’s they’re trying to make a car-free day and usually have around 500 people join their Tuesday morning ride – shame we didn’t know about it, would have been fun to join them!
Once we left the Iranian group I soon got ahead of the others who had stayed back to ride out with them – a few of our group had chosen not to and had left earlier – and I passed Rob just after 40km shortly before getting to Sooifan
Soofian mosque shining in the morning sun
The carvanserai at 51km looks like it’s recently built, but that’s deceptive as it’s 480 years old and was built during the Safavid Dynasty. Though it’s been renovated it’s more-or-less exactly as built with limited reconstruction having been done.
From the top of the climb to lunch was all downhill and it was pretty sweet – for at least the first 10km it wasn’t even necessary to pedal! As I took the 67km left I saw something pretty exciting – the first road sign for Istanbul – unfortunately I was going too fast, and rather busy trying to stay alive through a very busy intersection to be able to take a photograph!
Into lunch and I was surprised to see Erwin, Paul and Jackie there – given how slow the ride out of town with the Iranian crew had been I’d expected them to be significantly further ahead. It also seems Grant and Ivan both missed the flagging for lunch so Will’s gone to try and find them!
From lunch the descent backed off, but it was still generally descending which helped the kilometres pass. At 131 I stopped for ice-cream to find Erwin, Paul and Jackie again. After coke, water and ice-cream I headed on to finish off the day.
Into camp and we’re nestled into a stand of trees which is something of a surprise given that we’ve barely seen one tree for the last 100km.
This part of Iran is clearly sunflower-central and now’s harvest time. With the exception of the heads being threshed for the seeds it’s a very labour intensive. In the field just over from where we’re camped the woman are working ahead cutting the stalks, then removing the heads which they pile up. The men are following behind chucking the heads into a tractor-towed trailer to be taken to be threshed. Once threshed they’re dried in the sun and the shovelled into bags.
I’ve got my tent up in a shady spot, had a wash, washed out my cycling kit and whiled away the last couple of hours with a wander round the surrounding area, writing up this post, and chatting with riders and crew.
There are mossies in camp, which Grant is particularly opposed to, so he’s well covered up which lead Ivan to say
“You look like the grandfather of the Teletubbies”
Later: Dinner was great – chicken parmigiana subs, complete with a really rich camp-made tomato sauce, fresh basil and mozzarella, accompanied by a mixed green salad and stir-fried beans with sunflower seeds. After a lengthy day it was very welcome!
After dinner I went for a wander into the town just up from camp which proved to be larger than expected. Lots of people about all of whom were very welcoming (despite the fact that I’d gone out in public in my shorts!!)
Back to camp and a bit more chit-chat, and now it’s time for bed.
Riding data
| Total distance: | 146.15 km | Total Time: | 06:07:11 |
| Max elevation: | 1759 m | Min elevation: | 955 m |
| Total climbing: | 738 m | Total descent: | -1136 m |
| Average speed: | 23.88 km/h | Maximum speed: | 63.00 km/h |
View from my tent
Michael writing his journal and Ruth’s tent through the trees
Wow, Istanbul is (sort of) in sight!
The story of the ride through Iran has been great to follow – it seems quite a bit more developed than many of the ‘stans.
And cool to have ridden with a bunch of local riders.
Absolutely!
Generally more developed and all-in-all better organised – it’s certainly been a very enjoyable three weeks (and I’ve hardly missed the beer at all ;-))