September 22, 2016
to Dry River Camp: a tale of two winds
“This is frustrating to have a relatively flat road and feel like we are climbing a pass” Rachel says. For the first 40kms we fight a headwind. Then, Patrick says “This is the reward for this morning”. The road has turned and a little bit of a downhill along with a tailwind making good time until….the road turns again and we start climbing, the wind still helping a bit.
There are dark clouds when we set off from our prairie camp this morning and a strong wind is blowing from the east. But the clouds are moving from southwest to northeast so there must be a different wind direction up there. We grind at about 10 kilometers an hour into the wind and hope things will change later.
We keep expecting the asphalt to disappear. Some might think the romance of cycling across Mongolia on dirt tracks is gone with the asphalt. We think that the asphalt is great, allowing to see the countryside rather than focus on the road. We know we’ll eventually have bad roads, but for now we are enjoying the ride. Every time we see dust in the distance we expect the good surface to disappear, but it keeps on going. The Chinese have built asphalt plants along the whole route and are working on surfacing in both directions towards each plant. When the asphalt does stop it is typically only for a short while and the roadbed has already been prepared just for us. We luck out so far. Our hats are off to the cyclist who cycled this pre-asphalt, solo and/ or in winter.
There is a “town” or rather a motley collection of gers and a few brick buildings at 150kms from Darvi. There are several small shops where one could get water, soft drinks and instant noodle packages. We have been carrying enough water to last us three days and are still confident we can make it to Altai on what we have. Just past the town is a river crossing, the brand new bridge has collapsed when the center support was washed away. We have to push around and through the riverbed and are reminded how lucky we are to have asphalt. There is a little water in the river, but we would not think of filtering it.
After having followed the wide open valley for over 200 kilometers the road finally turns towards the hills to our north and starts to climb. We keep going until the road crosses the dry river bed that comes down from the mountains and find a nice flat area along the bank of the river, hidden from the road by a higher bank and a little protected from the wind. We are 31kms from Altai where there is supposed to be a nice hotel and restaurant. Then we’ll take a rest day to plan the next push to Uliastai.
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Today's ride: 93 km (58 miles)
Total: 22,835 km (14,181 miles)
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