Here we go again
Once again I find myself on a bike saddle, sweating my way uphill, whooping my way downhill, and pedalling what seems disproportionately hard on the flat. Sophie is in front on her trusted steed, leading the way on our slow charge forward. We have done this before, but my body doesn’t seem to remember that. We are back at a beginning, huffing and puffing, struggling along, baffled by how slowly we are moving. It seems like our goal of Mongolia is insanely unrealistic. Yet we push on, finding comfort in the knowledge that we have attained a similarly unattainable goal before, and that time with poorer quality gear, and only a fraction of the knowledge. So we adjust our eyes. We stop looking quite so far ahead. The Pamir highway and Mongolia are no longer in our sights. Today’s lunch stop is our goal. The next 100m uphill is our goal. These are attainable. These are within reach. Sometimes we question our sanity. Who came up with this plan?
As I sit comfortably on a bed, I can casually state that Sophie and I came up with what now seems like the hairbrained scheme to cycle from Tbilisi, Georgia to Beijing, China, while along the way passing through some of the most remote places on Earth. Oh, and don’t forget biking along the second highest road in the world, pedalling over more than one 4000m high mountain pass. As is the way of many grand plans, this one was born from the minds of two people with adventurous hearts, empty bank accounts, and a momentarily sedentary life.
In different time zones, different situations, different climates, Sophie and I decided it was time to challenge ourselves once again, to head into the unknown, and to push ourselves mentally and physically further than we had ever done before. So we found flights, chose a date, chose a direction, and chose a starting point. We debated visas, weather, and how to pack a bike for an airplane. We gathered gear, bikes (their names are Louanne and Gertrude the third), way more tools and extra parts than last time, and our courage, and then we left. We took that always difficult first step and dragged our packed bikes to the airports, hoping that they would arrive at their destination relatively unscathed. That first scary step from the known and the comfortable to the unknown was behind us, and after an interesting journey through the skies, we found ourselves at 3:30 in the morning in the airport in Tbilisi, Georgia, walking back and forth through security to shuttle our bikes and bags to the relatively small car that was waiting to take us to our hostel. We had made it to Georgia, to the beginning, and so had our bikes!
Tbilisi surprised us, though having done absolutely no research, that in itself isn’t much of a surprise. But Tbilisi proved to be a vibrant and interesting city, that also seemed to have long distance cyclists crawling out of the woodwork as they waited for the end of winter. A big group of us got together and shared stories, tips, and lessons hard learnt. We found out about roads and visas, were informed that things we hadn’t even thought to worry about were potential issues, and things we had thought about thoroughly were no longer relevant. We were newbies again, and have come to terms with the fact that we know nothing. Our plans for Tbilisi were simple, wait for the end of winter, go for rides to get used to the bikes, hang out with the other cyclists, and sort out many of our visas. We explored a little, learnt that visa regulations had changed and we could no longer get them in Tbilisi, and then got waylaid by some sort of bug that had both of us curled on the floor of our hostel. So our plans went out the window and we decided that once we could stand upright, we would leave the city and head east, to a vineyard and hostel where we could volunteer and perhaps make ourselves useful while we learned about Georgia and its culture. That day finally came, so we loaded up our bicycles, double checked our map, and wobbled our way through town out onto the open road.
Tbilisi has some pretty awesome hidden gems around.
‘Just like riding a bike’ may be a popular expression, but there’s a reason why ‘just like riding a fully loaded touring bike’ is not. After time away from our steeds, we could remember how to pedal but our muscles and our lungs couldn’t quite seem to remember how to exert the strength required. We removed layer after sweaty layer as we struggled along, moving so slowly it felt as though we must have flat tires. But alas, the tires were full of air and our speed was the product of nothing but the difficulty of moving a vehicle that weighs at least 40kg plus yourself, with nothing but two wheels and your legs at your disposal. When we stop for lunch, we learn to remove the sweatiest layers, and don every item of warm clothing we have. The weather is still quite chilly, and when you want to eat and nap as badly as we do, warmth is your best friend. Lunch always ends too soon, and somehow we convince ourselves to get back on the saddle, and start pedalling again. We talk and dream of the day we can look back and laugh at how slow we were when we started this trip. But for now we just struggle. At night we are shattered, with barely enough energy left to drag our bikes to the campsites we find. Some nights we just have cold oats. Other nights a burst of energy and the promise of hot food spurs us to light our stove and cook some delicious rice and lentils. And with the setting of the sun and the cold weather settling in for the night, we set up our tent, and snuggle in to our temporary home, looking forward (or for now, dreading) the rising of the sun and another day of cycling.
Our current destination isn’t extravagantly far away, but until we were near, it may as well have been on the moon. We pull in to Wine Hostel Sanavardo,a converted house in a little village named Sanavardo, near Kvareli. They have a vineyard, and will be our new home for the next two weeks. We look at the mountains surrounding us in the distance and hope that we will not have to cross them. We drag our bikes to the back of the house, take off our shoes, and prepare for this new experience, and the next part of the adventure. And we quietly celebrate being off the bikes.
