I am sitting right now in what can only be described as a penthouse suite in Russian terms, on the eleventh floor of a Novosibirsk high rise, surrounded by the finest Chinese veneer that money can buy. We each have our own bed and there is even a computer hooked up to the internet on a desk by the window, it is magnificent, I get to write my emails and look out over the third largest city in Russia. But I guess this is jumping ahead in the story, according to your reading I am still in Krasnayarsk, well consider this my first dabbling in the dreaded flashback writing.
If there is one thing the Idiots don't know how to do it is leave a city we have tried and failed many a time to get "a big start" at the beginning of a new push, but have yet to achieve it, we rarely even get a normal day out of a city, usually we do about half of what we would do normally, when I look back through my journal, numbers like 40km, 70km, 25 km repeatedly stand out next to the phrase "Well we left Blank today, but..." Krasnayarsk was no different The city itself was a maze that took us an hour to figure out how to solve, then there were the two flat tires Levi suffered in the first 2 hours, this sadly required a patch break, because the team mechanic (!?!) forgot to patch tubes while we were in Krasnayarsk, luckily thanks to our new found speed we found our selves at a cafe having done 90km a few hours later. "Should we push another 30km today or leave it be, as is we have 3 perfect 150km days ahead of us to Kemerovo, then we rest one day there and push on too Novosibirsk with another two 150km days, I like the challenge I think."
"yeah lets do it, the terrain has been pretty good, nice and flat so we should be able to do it no problem."
That was that, enough said, we walked into the cafe and ate ourselves silly.
We awoke early in the morning to find a change, we had been debating it for days, could it really be that summer is winding down here already? The dews were getting heavier, the trees didn't seem to have that deep lush green look and indeed some of them seemed to be fading. It seems that in seasonal time here it is late August, which would makes sense, in Off The Map there is talk of a frost on August 11th something we found unfathomable two weeks ago but now seems quite logical. Fear not, it isn't going to start snowing and drop to Siberian winter temperatures, it still gets to about 85 or so every day, the mornings are just cooling off again, time to break out the "morning layer" again. We rode along trying to process and either prove or disprove that the season was turning all day to no avail, indeed it might be just in our head, perhaps the last 3 weeks was an intense heat wave and this is what summer is really like here, or perhaps this is a cold spell, this is Russia, anything is possible. The terrain stayed flat and we flew along alternating fields of wild flowers now seeming to fade, wheat which seemed ages from being harvestable and birch trees which seemed to be getting ready to change colors. As we pulled into a cafe at the end of the day (we did our 150 no problem) we met 3 other cyclist coming from Moscow, they were Russian, so we were unable to get quite as much out of them as we would like, however we did learn that on one day on the flats they got a strong tailwind and cruised an unbelievable 260 km which is something like 160 miles, incredible. I don't see us catching a westerly wind of that magnitude on this trip but if we do I'm shooting for 300.
We were slow in getting ready the next day and slow in doing everything really, but we managed even with 3 flats to make it about 140km to a big town with a hotel, Mariinsk, about 160 km from Kemerovo. We figured hey we will stay in the hotel get an early start and do a cool casual 100 miles tomorrow. I even texted Natasha and Nikita, a couple that had contacted us on our website and told them we would reach there city around 7 (we would be staying in their apartment). It seemed perfect. The next morning things fell apart from the start, it was one of those hotels where there was only one bathroom and everyone else lives there on a semi permanent basis, the line is terrible, we couldn't get out until 9 o clock, but no worries, we knew we still had plenty of time. A few hours later Levi had the first dazzling crash of the trip while trying to turn around to fast to look at some flowers, we took a few minute breather, again knowing that really things were going fine, our pace was fast and the roads flat and good from here to Europe, the day before I had rather confidently but honestly said "Right now I think we are strong enough that I am not afraid of big winds, mountains or rain, I think that we can power through them and make good time if we have to." I stand by those words, still. All day there was a fair head wind, which of course made sense to us after I had made such a remark there was certainly going to be some backlash.
By around 4 we were just lounging, knowing we had about 4 hours left of riding but not too concerned, Natasha and Nikita would understand. It was right about then that I got a call from Natasha asking us where we were, I told her and said that I thought we would be in Kemerovo around 8, "But you said 7 yesterday, I though you told me 7." Natasha was pissed. So we got on our bikes and started racing towards the city, still a cool 90 km away. Much like the surprise Fall a few days ago we were not prepared at all for what was happening to us, we started climbing, not just a little bit of climbing either, the kind of climbing one associates with a mountain range. "Are we going back into the mountains? Is this possible?" We couldn't believe it, finally I texted Natasha, "Is there a mountain range here that we didn't know about." She responded "Yes there are a lot of mountains, will I see you soon?" We continued to race, pushing ourselves trying to make good time, slowly the rainclouds were forming overhead. The thunderstorm didn't start until we were about 20 km outside the city, but it didn't matter, it was so intense that everything was soaked almost instantly, but in a way it was quite refreshing, if laughable. We continued to fly as fast as we could, but when there are mountains, it is not a speed sensation you get, it is not like when you are on the flat, there you can get your bike moving fast enough to pretend for a minute that it isn't stacked high with 50 lbs of gear and that you are a real cyclist, on mountains you are a workhorse, pulling a mammoth weight up the hill only to fly too quickly down to the bottom of the next climb.
Really it was quite a scene, us pushing our hardest against the mountains, lightning and thunder clapping down all around us, the traffic getting heavier as we neared the small "mountain city" of Kemerovo. We finally made it to the city gate and of course no one was mad, we had raced for nothing (although if we had taken our time we would have spent even more time in the rain), they met us with bicycles and shared in our drenched adventure back to their apartment (along the way I took my first fall of the trip, not much to right home about, but none the less a tumble). When we finally got the bikes up to the apartment we were beaten men, we could barely move, not only had we pushed big numbers for the last few days, now the mountain sprint had left us breathless, we gobbled down some borscht and pizza and went to bed.
We slept late the next morning in our double bed (!?!), which was a great extravagance for us. Natasha and Nikita seemed to have the day all planned for us, which can often be a good or bad thing. We had breakfast while Nikita looked over our bikes (he was very into cycling mechanics apparently). He immediately deemed them unridable and said we should go to the local bike shop. Anytime you have someone who speaks fluent Russian and has a knowledge of bikes you just tend to agree to whatever they say, it is better to have things replaced here with Nikita talking than later with me trying to explain what I want by pointing. So soon we were back on the bikes (groan) and riding presumably to the bike shop. One of our biggest problems with home stays is food, everyone feeds us well, gives us great home cooked meals and really if I wasn't riding a bicycle 200k a day I would be over fed, but after a dinner and a breakfast at home Levi and I were already conspiring ways to escape to a super market and gorge ourselves. As we got out onto the street Natasha told us we would be going to a museum, we agreed of course but only after a sideways glance towards each other. The museum turned out was on the top of a huge hill, making our legs relive the terrors of the day before and our stomachs question if this was the proper way to the supermarket.
The museum itself was fascinating, Kemerovo is just opposite Kuzbass where just after the creation of the Soviet Union there was an experiment to make an independent and advanced workers colony. Bill Haywood a prominent American socialist and others were involved with Lenin's blessing. It was an amazing museum, showing that up until Lenin's death workers from all over the world came here to Kuzbass to help build a better society (it turned out that all the mountains we were passing were filled with coal, the engine that drove the project). There was running water and electricity long here long before anywhere else in Siberia (still lacking from what I have seen). Upon Lenin's death, Stalin's paranoia and persecution of foreigners caused the downfall of the colony, most of the workers returned back to the United States or whichever country they had originated from. All this I was able to absorb while lying to my stomach, telling him we were just in a really long line at the supermarket.
Finally at the end of the coal mine could be seen, "Ok guys let's go drop the bikes off at the shop." said Natasha.
"And get a pizza each?" Levi and myself chorused in our minds.
We got to the bike shop and Nikita was there to meet us. We got rid of our bikes, no more riding today, phew now let's eat.
"Okay guys, now we want to take you to a national park for a little hiking, then we will all go home and eat, the park is about 1 hour each way."
"Let me talk to her I'll set her straight!!!" My stomach bellowed.
"A hike!?!" My legs screamed.
We managed to convince them to stop for a snack along the way, Levi and I jumped out of the car like two convicts making a jail break, running to the closest kiosk and buying a loaf of bread to supplement whatever snacks they insisted on buying for us (again they were perfect hosts, we are just absurdly hungry guests). We managed to tide ourselves over for what turned out to be a simple walk through the forest to some very old and interesting cave drawings along the Tom river. We got back to the bike shop, collected our bikes, which seemingly had nothing done to them, and returned home for dinner. We ate a very delicious meal, but again Levi and I began to conspire to get out and gobble down some extra nourishment. We used the excuse of coffee, luckily she took us to what resembled an American style 50's diner and we had what most would consider an unnecessary second meal.
The next morning we left Natasha and Nikita, they were excellent hosts, the Kuzbass museum and the cave drawings were not to be missed now that I looked back on it. We simply have an unending hunger which turns us into grumpy edgy old men if not fulfilled every few hours. It was 260 kilometers to Novosibirsk, a cool 2 days ride, where we could relax and do just 130 each day or as we were hoping do most of it the first day out of Kemerovo and relax and have an extra half day in Novosibirsk the next day. It was of course not to be, we got lost leaving Kemerovo in a way that I had not experienced since my parents and I travelled together. It took us three tries to leave the city, we continued following a circuit of signs saying Novosibirsk, but always brought us back to the same spot, it may not seem so bad, but when you look down at your odometer and realize you have done 50km already and haven't gotten anywhere your hopes for that half day in Novosibirsk fade, you know that tomorrow is going to be bad. Indeed by the time the sun was falling in front of us we had just knocked the 60th kilometer off the 260 and we were standing in front of a roadside hotel. We decided to push tomorrow and break our record of 194, see if we couldn't get to 200 km, cycling procrastinators.
And we did it, we flew, averaging 25 km and hour, knowing that a three day rest awaited us in the the mighty industrial city of Novosibirsk. There were no surprise mountain ranges, just rolling hills which were slowly tapering off as we now are approaching the plateau, the Russian Steppe. At the end of the day as we stood outside the apartment building our odometers read 202, suddenly 271 seems in sight, now we just need a tailwind.
ellski
RSS Feed