The offending hill leaving camp, looking nowhere near as steep as it was
We set a new record on the third morning of “the shortcut” – I was pushing my bike within 50m of leaving camp.
The road crossed the river and immediately began to climb sharply at a gradient that I could not pedal on.
Loose rocks and deep ruts added to the toil.
The sustenance provided by our breakfast of oats mixed with semolina and sultanas was fleeting and I daydreamed of bacon sandwiches and bagels with cream cheese and avocado.
For 16km we alternated between pushing and riding a road that wound steeply up from the valley floor, leaving the small village and our cigarette-loving shepherd friends far below.
It was almost 1000m of vertical climb.
Now into rationing mode with no signs of anywhere to restock over at least the next 100km, we allowed ourselves just two Snickers bars between us over those several hours of grueling ascent.
When we finally emerged on the grassy flatlands at the top I could barely believe we made it.
The road cut a red scar through the green landscape, its surface deteriorating further until it was just raw, rutted dirt.
In the distance we could see where it appeared to reach a pass and we set our sights on it for a lunch stop.
About 600m shy of the sign marking the summit, I made a gear change down and my chain hopped off and wedged itself behind the cassette.
Lasting damage from my bike’s rough ride tied to the car roof from Osh to Toktugul.
Shite.
We’d seen little sign of habitation since we left camp and can’t have glimpsed more than four cars in the whole day. It could be a very long wait for a vehicle to give us a ride if the chain couldn’t be extracted.
Mercifully after some wrenching and grunting, his hand wrapped in a shirt, Jack managed to haul the chain out and we were able to finally stop for lunch.
We barely had enough patience for the water to boil to devour our simple meal of pasta with cheese and capsicum.
The rocky road traversed the edge of steep grassy hills, down into valleys peppered with beehives and through bunches of grazing horses.
Tiny farmhouses were dotted about - quaint huts made of red brick and almost hidden by the enormous piles of hay prepared for winter.
We reached a ridge with a vantage point to far-off mountains, and peered down into the valley where the village we were heading to was hidden.
We’d ridden just 42km but had climbed 1414m over five hours and decided the ridgeline was a far more worthy campsite. Dusk was beginning to fall and the rusty-hued mountains’ jagged contours were more noticeable, and the last of the light shone through fluffy seed heads.
Donkeys moseyed past, paying us little attention.
While we cooked dinner a man approached on horseback, greeting us and asking where we were from. After we exchanged a broken, nonsensical few words of Russian and English his horse suddenly hosed a colossal jet of urine into the grass a few metres from my tent.
The stream of horse piss petered out, signalling the end of the halting conversation.
“Goodbye,” the man proclaimed loudly, before galloping off.
We ate a dinner of rice, potato, carrot and buckwheat followed by tea with condensed milk and retired to bed, still hungry.
