August 22, 2014
Irkutsk: Without a Czech mate
The next morning I came up with a plan to find Petr again. He had told me that he didn't start cycling until 10 or 11 in the morning, and so I started at 8 and cycled 25 kilometres quickly until I was relatively confident that I was ahead of him. Then I stopped to replace my drivetrain with the spares that I was carrying, as it had gone just about as far as I could push it. But almost immediately I saw Petr cycling up, a clear plastic bag acting as an emergency waterproof in the light drizzle.
"I thought you said you didn't start until 10 or 11?" I asked.
"I don't have a watch!" he answered.
He didn't want to wait there and said he would cycle on to the next cafe and wait for me there. It took me about an hour to fix the bike and by the time I got to the next cafe, which was another 20 kilometres up the road, there was no sign of him. I guessed he'd got bored of waiting and wanted to make the most of the nice tailwind and so had continued. And I never did catch him up that day. He was also planning to take the shorter route avoiding Irkutsk and so would get well ahead of me. I have to say I hadn't expected to meet another cycle tourist going my way at all in Siberia, let alone one that was going faster than I was, let alone one that was going faster than I was without any visa restrictions. Petr sensibly had a one year visa and was only covering the ground so quick out of choice. And to be fair, going around Irkutsk would save a fair bit of distance, but after cycling towards the place for 1,860 kilometres I wasn't about to miss it.
The next morning it was really delightfully cold and misty as I made my way to the sign telling me that I had finally arrived at my destination after the long trek from Novosibirsk.
That sign was a long way from the centre though, and by the time I got there the fog had burned off and it was a bright sunny day. I hadn't expected much from Irkutsk but it was a pleasant surprise, the area by the river and the central square being very nice. There was even a walking tour marked out on the pavement, with information boards in English outside of buildings and places of interest. I do love information boards, but the information on these information boards wasn't terribly interesting.
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I liked Irkutsk and I would have liked to stay longer, but I thought it better to press on to the final Russian city of Ulan-Ude before resting. That was 450 kilometres away, a mere trifle compared to what I had just done, and I headed back out of Irkutsk in really high spirits. And the road climbed up a lot into the mountains, but that only made me more happy, because this was a really great road. The climbs were long and steep, the kind with an 8% for 2.7km sign and straight after that a 9% for 1km sign and straight after that an 11% for 5km sign. But then the top would arrive and a dizzying descent twisting and turning through real dense forest. This was proper wilderness now, forest everywhere, mountains. This was definite bear country and no mistake. And as I came down near to the bottom of one of the descents I saw a big black animal in the undergrowth at the side of the road, and from a little distance it looked just exactly like the bears I'd seen in Canada, and I thought, here we go! But when I got closer I saw it was just a cow.
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22/08/14 - 125km
23/08/14 - 104km
Today's ride: 229 km (142 miles)
Total: 26,443 km (16,421 miles)
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