September 17, 2014
Sand in the desert: Who knew?
I left the hotel early the next morning and cycled on a track across the valley a bit in order to go around the road block if it was still there, but it was gone anyway. I rejoined the main road at the the top of the valley and it then swung downhill steeply through mountains. Now it was narrow and there was only one road, so I supposed there might possibly have been some justification for having had to close the whole road. Maybe. At the bottom of the descent it opened out into big flat desert plains again and the road got worse and worse. It had such a huge washboard surface that all of the traffic had abandoned it and everything, including me, drove on tracks either side. Now I had a long and boring trek across the desert ahead of me.
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At some point I had a choice of two tracks and turned up one to the right that was narrow with sand built up on either side of it. Because of the wind I couldn't hear vehicles behind me, not that there were very many vehicles to hear, so I was startled by a sudden beep. I looked in my mirror and saw a big green truck rushing up behind me. Evidently given the choice of the two routes the driver had decided that it was absolutely worth risking a cyclist's life for the one that perhaps might be slightly better. He'd also clearly decided that beeping was all he needed to, or could do for me in this situation and kept driving at me. I moved over as far as I could, my bike falling against the bank of sand at the side of the road, and the truck passed me with a few inches to spare.
Naturally I got very angry and started screaming and shouting at the truck, and I threw my cap on the ground. I always tend to throw my cap on the ground when I get angry. It's one of my things that I do. As the truck continued I saw that the back was open and inside it was filled with soldiers, most of whom were staring and/or laughing at me. I was turning the air blue swearing at what may very well have been the entire Mongolian army but I was so mad I didn't care. "I'm not scared of you lot! I'll take you all on!" That's another thing that I do when I get angry - I believe I can fight anyone. And actually that one is true, I could fight anyone, I'd just lose. But in this case I believed I had a chance. I did, after all, have an entire platoon of 29 plus my mum behind me. I looked behind me. There was no one there. Where were you all guys? When I needed you, on our first combat mission? Not one of you there. Well, that's what I get for bringing you along 'in spirit' I suppose. I'll know better next time. Anyway the truck just drove off.
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On the second morning out from Altay I found a small river and was able to wash my clothes finally. It was a hot day so they had time to dry but I didn't have enough drinking water for hot days and the river water was no good, so I was already rationing what water I had. So it was lucky when I came across a few yurts and buildings and found a shop selling bottled water. It was the only place to get anything for 250 kilometres.
The road ended here and it was just tracks from then on. And in a terrible condition too, lots of sand, lots of washboard. At one point the tracks I was following went off to the right and I could see all of the traffic (four cars in half an hour) had taken a different track to the left. I pushed my bike across the desert to cut across to get to that one, an exhausting half an hour pushing the heavy bike through deep sand. Then when I got to their track it wasn't much better. Such was the difficulty of the road I only managed 51 kilometres in the whole day. This time if it had been the London Marathon, not only would I have finished last, but when I got to where the finish line should have been I'd have found that the organisers had packed it up and taken it home.
After a couple more hours of the same the next day the road did begin to improve. My bicycle, which was still holding up to the road remarkably well considering the idiot who built it, started to show a couple of battle scars. First a rear wheel puncture which I patched. That rear inner tube was up to patch number six now and going for the record although it was still a fair way behind my all time best of eleven patches on one tube. Later one of the screws holding my front rack to the fork sheared off. Fortunately it was easy to get it out and I just put another screw in. My bike and I were still going. I just hoped we were going the right way.
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17/09/14 - 77km
18/09/14 - 51km
19/09/14 - 74km
Today's ride: 202 km (125 miles)
Total: 28,722 km (17,836 miles)
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