June 10, 2014
Okay what wants to break next?: Well done bicycle!
Free from the constraints of sticking to anyone else's schedule I was able to make an early start the next morning, riding on through ever-more incredible scenery. After a (relatively) quick opening 30 kilometres my bicycle obviously decided that, as nothing had fallen off or broken for almost 18 hours, it was about time it did. Consequently my front mudguard detached, rolled under my front wheel and was then spat out across the gravel road. I was at the bottom of a steep climb and I couldn't be bothered with fixing it, so I stuck the mudguard under a bungee cord at the back of the bike and started with the uphill section. By the time I was halfway up my left pedal was feeling very loose. I really should have stopped to check it but I figured I might as well get up the hill first. This turned out to be a mistake, as the loose feeling under my left foot increased more and more until, with the top almost within reach, the whole of my left crank arm fell to the floor, pedal and all. Well done bicycle, another successful day!
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I know from bitter experience with crank arms that after they fall off once they will keep on doing it, but that wasn't a problem because naturally enough I had a spare crank arm with me. All I had to do was put the old pedal on the new crank arm and I'd be away. But the old pedal seemed to be very attached to the old crank arm and didn't want to let it go. Literally. I asked John to try and get the pedal loose for me. Oh yeah, by the way, John and Gayle had arrived whilst I was trying to free the pedal. By cycling late the night before and then starting early I had passed them, but now they had caught up again and we were reunited once more. Alas, John wasn't strong enough to free the pedal for me. I think his Spiderman status was rescinded in my eyes in this moment. I wanted to ask Gabor because he was definitely supernatural, but he wasn't there, which considering John and Gayle were, was very strange. I wondered if he was tied up somewhere. Literally. I gave up and put the old crank arm back on, bashing it very hard with a wrench and asking it tenderly not to fall off again too often.
The three of us found ourselves taking a break from the heat of another beautiful day in a shady village. Up ahead lay the checkpoint at which Daniel, Jona and Franzi had all been turned back and told that they could go no further. This was the crucial moment - was the long and arduous journey going to prove to be all in vain? Was the only thing ahead of us a long and arduous journey back to Dushanbe? Or would we be allowed through, on towards the angry mob and the bloody violence? I sure hoped so. I decided to go on ahead to the checkpoint, perhaps thinking I might have more chance of getting through on my own, or perhaps thinking I might have more chance of not being killed by John and Gayle if I didn't ride with them.
The checkpoint was at the top of a hill. So many people had been rejected here that I was anticipating a mighty garrison of troops and guards, a fortified blockade, barbed wire fences, alsatians, maybe a tank or two, helicopters circling overhead, that sort of thing. Instead I was met with a couple of men at a picnic table sitting at the side of the road who looked like they were selling raffle tickets. The only reason I even recognised it as the checkpoint at all was because one of the men was in a uniform and had one of the bright stick things that look a bit like a very short and very orange light-saber. I had seen police using them to beckon cars to stop all over Central Asia. Given the fact that cars really did stop every time I had to consider the possibility that it really was some kind of futuristic weapon and so I wheeled over to the checkpoint and asked for two raffle tickets. In return my name was written down in yet another big book of names and I was told that I was free to continue onwards towards the bloody violence. Hurrah!
Today's ride: 85 km (53 miles)
Total: 20,508 km (12,735 miles)
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