Posts from the ‘Cycling’ Category

The Last Camp

There is cleaning to be done. The bags have to emptied out and packed anew, breaking set habits; calls need to be made and arrangements confirmed. A bag of trash consolidated and fuel shuttled off, and all things separated and divorced from their expedition-spun meanings. The goal needs to be put to bed, silenced, zip-tied to shattering conclusion.

But that is tomorrow. Tonight, those thoughts flutter, but forwards is balanced with backwards and the reel of recognition has begun to play. What might not have seemed real that morning, or the many mornings before, has come to pass. The trip is over, you did it, you’re finished. All the structures and efforts up to this point tomorrow break down and their meaning fades.

Last camps are places of rushed preparation, for reentry into that more harsh environment, but also of last quiet, last meal (if you planned right), and last untroubled laughter. The subtle temperature fluctuation that in a few days time you just won’t notice anymore. The empty food bag, and the empty fuel bottle; the full memory card. The last camp is the pivot on which the experience turns, from internal to external; you will lose yourself tomorrow, so today, look at the peaks around you, at the river current folding gently around the bend, at the tanned cheeks and dirty hair of those who lifted to this point.

We revere last camps each time they come, and so we set up just upstream, just up valley, half-afraid of the trailhead or take-out, of what it will bring to us and our team. These points come in succession and mark our real ending, in golden light.

We pedaled into Almaty at 7:30pm last night after 11 hours in the saddle and 160 kilometers on the road, our biggest day. With that, we finished what we set out to do: cycle from Istanbul to Kazakhstan, a shade less than 4,000 kilometers, in two months time. Through geographies sensible ( snow bound mountain ranges, ancient rivers and inland seas ) and not ( jigsaw borders and boundaries fortified in bureaucracy ), we moved east from the edge of Europe to the center of Asia. We relied on the generosity of peoples of steppe, desert, and mountain, as well as scattered expats and the high tide traces of the great Russian and Soviet empires. Now, we beat the streets of Alma-Ata, ‘Fatherland of Apples’ for bike boxes and the biggest bucket of plov we can find.

Cycling the Celestial Mountains, in Winter

Kyrgyzstan has been good to us. Our first pass over 3000m was bright and sunny, making sunburn a new and oddly welcome hazard. The good weather followed us almost all the way to Bishkek, giving out in a fit of cold and snow as we skated out of Kara Balta. Thankfully, friends were awaiting our arrival in town, and we’ve been posted up being tourists for the last few days. With the passes through the Tien Shan completed, no major obstacles remain, and with 222 kilometers between us and Almaty, the end is at hand.

Our egos were tempered just as we gained the top of our first 3000+ meter pass. There we met the family that lives at the very top of the pass in humble buildings buried in 15 foot snowdrifts. The father of the family’s job is to drive the bucket-loader and clear the wind-loaded snow from the road as it is deposited. Even on a gorgeous sunny day, we hurried off the pass as the wind howled.

Entering the mountains, the frequency of towns dropped off precipitously, meaning we had to carry more food and for longer periods. It was a small price gladly paid to leave behind the flat, populated plains. Here, the only shop for 120 km offers juice boxes, meat-flavored potato chips, ramen noodles, and fresh naan.

The loneliest little cell phone store in the Tien Shan.

We passed a large artillery piece just wrapping up some control work along the road, and an hour later encountered its leavings. This wet-slab buried the road in a 300-foot long block of cement fifty feet high. We carried our bikes and bags over it in an hour’s effort, smirking at the hundreds of cars lined up for 14 hours. Bikes win.

In the shadow of spruce, the snow is deep. Work-hardening a tent platform, usually the province of winter ski trips, felt novel on a bike trip.

The difference between the north and south sides of the final pass on the Osh – Bishkek highway was stark. Here, on the north side, the deep cold continues but the air is dry and the hillsides bare.

Getting into Bishkek, we reunited with friends and immediately returned to the mountains, this time with a pair of planks strapped to our feet. Truth: skinning muscles are different than cycling muscles.