As we left Osh at the beginning of the week we came onto the Pamir Highway which we will follow from the south of Kyrgyzstan all the way across Tajikistan to Dushanbe. One of the things about the Pamir Highway…
Back to black – pavement that is (stage 54)
Our homestay hostess turned up at 0530 this morning with rice porridge, fresh bread and homemade blueberry jam, all of which was delicious. Andreas then picked us up in the van to take us make to the compound our bikes…
Uphill, down dale, and unexpectedly into a town (stage 53)
In the swings and roundabouts of this trip, today was an awesome day – oh so much better than yesterday…! The first couple of km were downhill but then we began the main climb for the day – thankfully we…
Self doubt, self belief and stubbornness (stage 52)
Today was always going to be one of the toughest days of this week as though the distance wasn’t overly far, there was a lot of climbing, and it was pretty much all on gravel! Things began pretty well –…
Back to the gravel (stage 51)
There was rather a lot of rain in the night, but by the time we were getting up this morning it had thankfully stopped and the wind had done a reasonable job of getting our tents dry. Today was very…
Let the (real) climbing begin (stage 50)
Today was (supposed to be) our first foray over 3000m but in the end as the Chinese have been busy building a new road according to my Garmin they’ve shaved a few metres off the top of the Dolan Pass to…
It’s all about the sleep (stage 49)
The music started with sunset – initially from ‘over the hill’, but then also in the bay we were in. Somewhere around 2300 there were fireworks, then there were drunk people coming to swim in the lake quite near my…
Back in the groove (stage 48)
Yesterday worked! Today I’m back to looking forward to the day which is probably just as well given that this is one of our longest riding stretches at seven days, and there are some pretty significant hills later in the…
Off to Kyrgyzstan (stage 47)
Border crossing day and we got to start half an hour later because otherwise we’d be waiting at the border for it to open for too long…! On the way to the border I nearly got myself in trouble with…
A day of climbing (stage 46)
Today’s our last full day in Kazakhstan and the country’s saved the best for last – after many days of flat we’ve got some hills to climb today. The last couple of riding days it had still been pretty dark…