Rain

Desert Camp to Aksu
September 24th
172km (338m vertical)

Long, cold, wet ride today. Although the desert-proper only gets rain once every 10 years, we rode through a steady shower along its outskirts. Its the first rain we've seen in months, and everyone got completely soaked and covered in street grit. The temperature dropped to 51F...so my hands and feet were numb with cold. Thankfully, we are staying in a hotel tonight, so I got a warm shower and had a chance to rinse and dry my clothes.

Four riders fell today, but none were seriously hurt. Stewart and Jost got tanged up riding together and both fell. Stewart hurt his arm and Jost hurt his hip. Jimmy bumped into Fred and fell, cracking his helmet. Graeme fell on some bad pavement, but didn't get hurt. I imagine that they will all be a bit still tomorrow. My sore shoulder is only now back to normal after my little fall.

We spent most of the day on lovely smooth toll roads, before entering the town on public roads and seeing the surface quickly deteriorate. Is this really Communism?

Lunch in the middle of no-where:

Riding in the rain. (This was at the beginning...when I was still warm and smiling.)

My legs were covered in street grit. Those are yellow socks.