August 25, 2014
Trying to get the distance done: But we really should eat
I slept terribly, really badly. We were right next to the tracks and trains were passing all through the night. I couldn't blame Petr for that though, not really. I could blame him for not being ready at 7.00am like we agreed though, even after I'd waken him up in plenty of time. Waiting more than an hour for him to get ready was a very frustrating way for me to spend the first part of a day when I wanted to put a big distance in.
At 8.20am we finally hit the road, me leading the way and cycling faster than usual to show I wanted to get moving. Petr struggled to keep up, and soon came alongside me and said "I'm going to have to quit my trip."
That seemed like a bit of an overreaction, but I slowed down a bit all the same. To be honest I couldn't have kept that pace up all day anyway. But Petr said it was because he was sick and he always got sick from the cold. He started talking about taking a plane south for the winter and then flying back to carry on next summer. That was allowed by his rules. On the plus side he was wearing his orange hi-viz today.
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After 30 kilometres I wanted to stop and eat something but as usual Petr wanted to continue until the next cafe. It didn't seem to matter to him that we were in the middle of the woods and there weren't any, it was a cafe or nothing. So I stopped and ate, and he carried on, and then I continued and tried to catch him up. It wasn't long before I did, as a few kilometres later he had stopped when a group of touring cyclists from Belarus appeared coming the other way. There were six of them, just riding from Ulan-Ude to Irkutsk, but they were very nice and gave us biscuits and a sausage as presents. I wished we had something to give to them in exchange, but then Petr solved the problem by fishing out a half-empty 2-litre bottle of beer and offering it around. The first girl he passed it to looked apprehensive, as one might being offered alcohol at 11am, but she got in the spirit of things and took a big gulp before offering it to the next person. The next person refused, as did the next, and all the rest in fact, which would have upset me if I'd been that poor girl.
Then we were off again and still following the shore of the lake more or less, such was its size. Finally we reached a cafe at the 70km mark and Petr stopped to have something to eat. It occurred to me that if we hadn't met those friendly cyclists that fed him sausage he probably wouldn't have eaten anything for the first 70 kilometres.
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We stopped at a shop at the 86km point and I bought some electrical tape to fix my mirror but all they had was green so it looked ridiculous, and Petr bought some polythene sheeting to try and better waterproof his tent. A right pair of hobos we were and no mistake. He had a bite to eat here as well, but then we pushed on towards the next cafe. We were making good time, but I was struggling from not stopping and eating as much as I normally would. Around 120km I had to stop and eat again and Petr once more simply had to push on for that cafe, so we parted company once again. I was really struggling now and had to stop and eat some more ten kilometres later. Then I saw a sign for a cafe in 400m and thought Petr would be pleased to see that, but 400m along the road there was just this...
I was really tired now and it was getting late. I though Petr would have to be waiting for me at the 150km mark as that was our target and I wanted to stop there. But when I got there of course there was no sign of him. Or wasn't there? Up ahead I could see an orange blob at the side of the road, it was surely him. So I kept cycling towards it, but as I got closer and closer I realised that it wasn't him. What it was, strangely enough, was the bright orange sign of a cafe! I was still about a kilometre from it when I realised this, but then I saw an orange hi-viz on a bicycle ride away from it. Petr! I couldn't believe this guy! He'd cycled 68 kilometres without eating anything to get to this cafe, the man was a machine. And now he had obviously given up waiting for me just as I was almost there! Oh well, I wasn't going to chase him. One kilometre would have been almost impossible for me to make up in my tired state anyway, and then the man would no doubt insist on finding some water to camp by, and we'd have to cycle another ten kilometres and then probably camp by some train tracks. No, best to pretend I hadn't seen him, camp here, and make an early start the next morning. I didn't feel bad, I wasn't really abandoning him. If anything, he was abandoning me.
Today's ride: 154 km (96 miles)
Total: 26,736 km (16,603 miles)
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