noel's blog

On this trip, one of the things that has kept me going is the anticipation of moving on to the next country; a new border, a new language, food culture, landscapes,etc. Especially after having ridden nine weeks in Central Asia, I was growing tired of the language, the food, the culture and the landscape of the region. In addition, returning to China (having first come in 2006), was one of the major motivations for this journey; needless to say, I was very excited about entering the "Middle Kingdom."

When I was planning my rough route back in Wisconsin, I knew that the real mountains would come as I passed from Central Asia into China. I guess Kyrgyzstan is both blessed and cursed by being a mountainous country; it offers pristine, beautiful scenery, but at the same time, the land is not productive and the country is very poor. Leaving Osh, the next milestone would be the crossroads town of Sary-Tash, where the north-south, and east-west highways in southern Kyrgyzstan meet. The town would be the last place to restock on food before heading into China. The first two days out of Osh put Christian (my German cycle-buddy) and I at an elevation of 7,000 ft (2,133m). On hump day, we would have to climb more than 5,000 total feet, with the final 2,000 feet over 9 switchbacks in 3 miles. We took the morning easy, stopping at restaurant to eat a hot meal, and taking 45 minutes to dry our tents which were wet from the night morning dew.

In Osh, I ran into a German two-wheeler named Christian. We both were staying at the same guesthouse, I having arrived from the west and he from the north. During his time in Kyrgyzstan he had been having some trouble with the locals, most notably kids throwing rocks at him. We decided to ride together out of Osh south into the Alay-Pamir mountains and cross into China. There is only one navigable road that goes into the mountains and since we were both riding to China, it seemed like a good idea to have a little company as the riding would get more challenging and desolate. Within a few miles of leaving town, the distant horizon showed the jagged shadows of the mighty hills. I had never heard of the Pamir mountains before this trip and I suspect they are among the least known impressive mountains in the world, at least in America. Of course, on our first day cycling, we would start with a bang.

Descending a 7,200ft pass in eastern Uzbekistan is asking a bike to do a lot.  With 300 pounds of bike, gear and rider, slowing down downhill for obstacles and turns puts the brakes to work.  In fact, they can, and have produced so much friction against the braking surface of the rim that the pressure in the inner tubes causes it to pop, which it did.  Just as I was about to pull over to let the rims cool down the sound of air quickly hissing out of my tire put a frown on my face.  Upon setting to the task of changing the tube, I noticed a sizable crack along the sidewall of the rear rim.  I guess after five years and around 10,000 miles have been enough for the poor rims.  I duly changed the tube and proceeded to even more gingerly descend the mountain, this time using only the front brakes for fear of the rear rim totally losing integrity which would be a very messy situation.  Stopping every few hundred yards to let the front rim cool down meant

Being clean is a relatively important concept for me. I try to wash or rinse my riding clothes every day, especially on hot, tough days when sweat was just streaming out of every pore. I take the effort to wash myself either in a body of relatively-clean water (if available) or worst case I can make do with a 1.5 liter bottle of water from a store to sponge off with.

This video is not new; in fact it has millions of hits on YouTube, but for those that haven't seen it, I think you will agree it's awesome and somehow communicates a great affirmation of humanity.

Every now and then it's great to be in a place where you can truly just put your feet up, relax, recover and basically just hang out for a few days.  Especially after some tough, rainy, cold days in the Alps of Austria and later Italy/Slovenia, I was the grateful guest of Karoline and Cristian in Trieste.  Karoline, or Ms.