September 13th
180km (606m vertical)
Longest ride of the trip so far, and our first “century ride” (i.e. more than 100 miles). We didn't get tailwinds like last year, but we made good time on the flat roads of the Ferghana Valley. This is the most lush and densely populated region of Uzbestan, but it was not really much to look at – for the most part, the valley is too wide to see the mountains.
At the 160km mark, Nicole and I congratulated each other...and Nic promptly got flat tire – her first since she started in Paris!
Crossed the Uzbek-Kyrg border at 175km without any problem. Much smoother than the crossings from the last two days. We were through in less than an hour.
Arrived at the hotel at 6:30pm local time (Kyrgyzstan is 1 hour ahead of Uzbekistan). After 11 hours on the road we were tired, hungry and ready for a shower. Ridiculously, the tour van decided to wait in Uzbekistan until the last rider crossed...and the van had all of our bags! Terrible planning! (We had a support vehicle on both sides of the border, so the van should have gone straight to the hotel.) It didn't arrive until 8:30pm, when it was completely dark. Until then, everyone sat around in their sweaty cycling clothes with nothing to do but curse the tour company. Nick sat there for 5 hours! By the time we got our bags and showered, the local restaurants had closed so we couldn't get real food. There were little markets open, so we bought snacks and drinks, but it was very satisfying after a long ride. A little rotisserie chicken from a street vendor was my saving grace.
The hotel we're in is a dump of Velotreki proportions. It is under repair, so the tour van got stuck in the driveway for 30 minutes when it finally arrived and the construction woke me up at 7:30am the next morning. Our room does not lock from the outside, the bathroom door doesn't close, the toilet has no seat, the beds have no sheets, there is no A/C, and the power went out in the building as we ate “dinner” in our room last night. The area surrounding the hotel seems poor, with garbage on the dirt rds and dozens of old soviet apartment complexes that are falling apart.
This guy might consider buying a truck:
There were dozens of these tiny oil derricks in the hills today.
The view as I changed Nicole's flat tire:
A closer look at the Kyrg mountains that we will be riding through:
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