March 12, 2014
Big Mountain: Now there's an understatement
It took all of my courage, every last ounce of my physical and mental capabilities went into it, but I did it! After seemingly endless toil, pain, sweat, frustration and anger, after feeling continuously like I wasn't going to make it, but persevering nonetheless, it is true, I finally did succeed. The sense of achievement that now settled in my weary mind at having overcome all the odds was truly immense and made all the physical torture just about worthwhile. I had done it! I had pushed my bike out of the muddy field!
And what a mountain it was that still lay ahead. From the elevation charts I could see that I would have to rise from my current position at 700 metres above sea level to 2200 metres above sea level, an ascent of 1500 metres. But I could also see that along the way there would be a couple of big downhills, height that would need to be regained, making the total amount of climbing more than 2000 metres. To put that in perespective, thats about one quarter of the height of Mount Everest, if taken from sea level to summit. Which doesn't actually sound that impressive. Lets try a better comparison. Its about two-thirds of the height from Everest Base Camp to the summit of the highest point on Earth. Essentially, what I'm saying is that I was hoping to cycle two-thirds of the way up Mount Everest in a single day.
Considering the size of my task I was in a terrible state of mind for it as I turned off the main highway and started to climb. I was feeling quite tired and quite negative about it. The problem, I suppose, was that I was feeling fatigued because I hadn't had a rest day for a while and I had cycled up that rather testing mountain the day before. Remembering this difficult climb I was even more distraught at the calculation that today I was effectively going to have to cycle up the equivalent of that mountain THREE times over. This did not make me feel better as I trundled along uphill at six kilometres per hour struggling and straining at the pedals. Struggling and straining at the pedals, by the way, is a lot more mentally challenging when you know you have to keep doing it for the next ten hours.
As if this wasn't bad enough, I soon realised that the road was not following a river, which was stupid. It was stupid because instead the road went up extremely steeply for a while and then dropped back down again, meaning even more altitude to regain. It was a very frustrating and exhausting way to cycle up a mountain and I reasoned that with this extra climbing I was now looking at having to cycle three-quarters of the way up Everest instead of two-thirds. Exhausted but still moving, I went through a small village after about 40 kilometres and a group of men stopped me and, with charming inevitability, asked if I wanted chai. I had to decline on this occasion as I was already beginning to realise that if I was going to get anywhere near the summit today I had no time to stop. I did ask them how much further it was to the top and one of them told me four kilometres. This was excellent news, maybe I would have time for chai after all! Then, just to be sure, with some rather over-familiarity, he reached out a finger and wrote the letter 4 on the thigh of my bent leg. Then, disappointingly, he moved his finger over a little and circled a zero next to it. Another 40 kilometres to go. Marvelous!
Something had to be done. I was feeling weak, mentally and physically. I needed a secret weapon, something to give me an edge, to keep me motivated, to provide me with a kick. Luckily for me, Lance Armstrong wasn't the only one who headed to the mountains prepared. Oh yeah, I had my own secret weapons up my sleeve:
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Fueled by the amazing power of cookies I powered on through the town of Sebinkarahisar and down the second of the two bigger descents. Here was where the real mountain began. Until now I had been travelling through uninteresting scenery on a decent road with a shoulder and some traffic, but now the road became very narrow and the traffic decreased to almost nothing. I could see now that this was certainly not a frequently-used pass. On the plus side I was now following a river and so the frustrating downhill sections could stop, as I moved on up through a dramatic narrow rock canyon.
Beyond the canyon I passed through a short section of impressive red and yellow rock faces as the Turkish scenery swayed once again towards the spectacular end of the spectrum. As I was on my way through this area a 'Jandarma' car drove past me and then turned around and parked right in front of me. The Jandarma, as we remember, are the military police, and two soldiers got out of the car and advanced towards me. "Guys, you're in my way," I said, "I'm trying to cycle here."
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I didn't really say that, obviously. I said "English, English" like I always do. They didn't speak any English but were clearly making indications that there was a lot of snow higher on the mountain. I understood what they meant but I was sure that the pass must be open because there was still some traffic - even as I stood there waiting a bus from Giresun drove past. What was most frustrating was that I really didn't have any time to waste if I was going to make it over the summit before dark, and these guys were now just standing blocking my way as one of them messed around with his phone for ten minutes.
Finally he managed to get someone on the other end of the line who spoke English and he held the phone up to me.
"Hello?" I said.
"Hello. This is the commander" came the response.
"Hello."
"The weather is very slowly."
"What?"
"The weather is very slowly."
"What?"
"The weather is very snowy."
"Oh! Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Okay!"
After this very helpful conversation the Jandarmas drove off and allowed me to continue on up the mountain. Before they left they drew me a diagram of the peak, showing that I was currently at 1600m and the summit was at 2200m, and that there were 18 kilometres to go between here and there. It was at this time three in the afternoon, leaving me just enough time to make it to the top before it got dark at around half five or six o'clock. Whether I would be able to get down the other side was another question, but by now I had a serious case of summit-fever, and I was determined to make it.
With this determination I raced through ten kilometres in the next hour and had eight kilometres left by four pm, which was when the road left the river and began climbing more steeply on a series of switchbacks towards the summit. I was a little worried as I reached the snowline that I had seen no traffic since I passed by another small village a half an hour earlier, but was relieved of any fears that the road might be closed when a big truck came down from the top of the pass. The truck pulled up next to me, however, and the driver shouted out of the cab towards me. Of course I couldn't understand the words, but the implication was pretty obvious. His sign language was very good, I particularly enjoyed his impression of a dead man. The message was clear - you must turn around and go down, if you continue to cycle up you are going to die. No prizes for guessing what I did. "Relax my friend," I said, "I'm making a movie, and its supposed to be action-adventure, something about a super hero who becomes capable of extraordinary feats of physical endurance when he consumes cookies. Its a work-in-progress. Cheerio then!"
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The road was getting steeper and I was completely wiped out. Having felt the need to press on without stopping I clearly had not eaten enough and I was starting to feel a little bit woozy. It was time to break out the big guns:
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But even with the awesome power of sandwich cookies the road was becoming ever more challenging, seemingly getting steeper and steeper as I climbed higher and higher. The snow was now piled high at the roadside and it was very windy as I got further up the cliffside. It was not snowing but the wind was blowing snow from the sides onto the road, piling up in drifts, in some places freezing. The cycling was torturous into this biting cold wind on the difficult surface. I had no choice but to keep going though, there was no turning back. Yet my biggest concern remained the time as the daylight began to dwindle. I simply had to keep moving on, tired limbs turning mechanically through the pain. There was no time, no time. Well, there was time for a picture.
And then finally I saw the silhouette of a building up ahead through the whiteness. With some joy I realised that it must be the summit, another house for the plough workers perhaps? What a great relief that would be! I turned the final switchback and headed up towards it, passing a summit sign, posing for a picture in the last throws of daylight. I had done it! I was at the top! And indeed it was a building for the plough drivers - they were hanging out of the windows to see my cycling up. One ran over to me and insisted that I come inside, I couldn't have refused even if I wanted to, he practically bundled me in out of the cold. The warmth of the building hit me like a very comforting sledgehammer. The man, Hamdy, showed me around. There were bedrooms and showers, a kitchen, even a cook. I was given warm food, a warm shower, a warm bed. Turkish hospitality had extended to the most extraordinary places. I was to spend the night on a windswept mountain pass, blizzards raging outside, and I was as warm and cosy as I'd ever been. I was also the most exhausted that I had been for a very long time, certainly on this trip. My whole body ached from head to toe. But I had done it. I had taken on Big Mountain and won.
Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 14,618 km (9,078 miles)
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