September 5th
147km (362m vertical)
A long day of brutal headwinds left me exhausted. It was the 2nd longest day of the trip so far, and the wind howling in my face made it impossible to get any momentum. Thankfully the temperatures have gotten much cooler in Uzbekistan. Today's high was only 91F...and it was actually chilly at 63F when we left in the morning.
My stomach was also giving me troubles...again! I seem to pick the worst days to feel ill. I'm not alone though. Trine took the van into Bukhara after a night of illness, and James has gone ahead to Samarkand to give himself 2 extra days of rest.
I pulled Nicole all the way to lunch (i.e. blocked the wind for her) before we joined up with an 11 person double paceline in the afternoon. The paceline was still very slow, but it gave you people to draft behind and other people to talk to. It was like speed dating, since you'd have a 3 minute conversation with someone and then rotate your position in the paceline to talk with someone else.
Camp in an apple orchard tonight. Tall grass and few flat patches to pitch a tent. There are also cows tied to the trees, eating the apples and making all kinds of noise.
One of the smaller "local cyclists":
The double paceline fights the wind:
Local children ran to the road when the saw us coming:
1 comment:
I have never seen the word "only" used with the temperature "91 degrees".
Hope your stomach settles down [you didn't try any of that warm roadside youghurt did you?]
LFL
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