Ride Planet Earth

My face looks weathered. Skin peels off my nose, revealing pink skin with a touch of new sunburn that will soon peel off too. My cheeks are brown, rough and tight after too many months of exposure. My lips have turned purple with cold, and are dry and flaking, a result of weeks of harsh cold winds. A mess of black and orange hairs protrude out of my chin, forming something akin to a 15 year old’s attempt at a beard. Ruddy, I think you are suppose to call my complexion.

View Barnaul, Russia to Baku, Azerbaijan in a larger map

I’m in a town called Moron. You read correctly. Only that’s the english translation so its not that funny. You are suppose to roll the r and eat the second o so it really doesn’t sound like moron when the Mongolians say it. There is another town nearby that the tourists call Toilet, but again that’s down to our limited ability to pronunciate.

I’m about 10 days out of Ulaanbaatar (UB), the capital. 8 days hard, hard riding, 2 days visiting the Hovsgol Lake. It was gorgeous, wet and damned cold. I’m about to set off on an even more unbeaten path. Towards the western border crossing into Russia. No buses and not much traffic head in this direction. I wish they did. With my visa nearly up I’ll need a lift or a miracle to get there on time. I’ll be travelling through some truly lonely country.

After Haruna left UB, I was left wondering where to go next. I had planned to head straight up north to Russia but at the last minute decided I could force out the 100 plus kilometres a day to reach the western border before my visa expired and cut out thousands of extra kilometres circling through Siberia. At the last second I bumped into Schulz Marshall, an old friend from Canberra, so stayed in UB an extra day. Luckily I got to hear from his wonderful wife Saskia about the Cycle for Sustainability she went on from Perth to the Australian East Coast. Inspirational.

But the 8 days through central Mongolia posed some unexpected and almost insurmountable problems. Some 80 km out of UB the pain that had been building up in my right knee exploded. It was the worst possible thing that could have happened. I was left hobbling about in the middle of the road, damning everything and everybody. I rang Schultz and Saskia. I would have to turn back, maybe quit this whole desperate adventure, and I needed to know if I could stay with them until I could work things out. But there was no answer. In the fifteen minutes until Saskia called me back my resolution solidified, I would ride on until it was not possible to push another pedal. I have not come this far to stop now. Saskia wished me well and said the option was always there if I needed to return.  

By the time I made camp that night the pain had subsided. I was nestled in the middle of the most beautiul sunset in the world, alone on a vast grass plain, surrounded by gentle mountains and my mind could focus on nothing else. By morning my knee felt the old dull ache that I could easily cope with and usually forgot.

But things didn’t get any easier. After a couple of days the wind that had harangued and bullied me through the Gobi returned, this time bringing along its tougher and rougher cousins from the other side of town. Dust clouds would emerge in the middle of the air to envelop me for a few seconds before hurtling past. Eventually the sheer intensity of it started to seem absurd. It felt like an immense practical joke, that somewhere over the next incline there was a gang of my old school mates operating a couple of monumental fans, trying to take the piss out of my self-righteous odyssey. I imagined that the past 10 months had been a hoax, the reality was a treadmill, surrounded by busy prop-men, continually tasked with finding new settings to place beside and in-front of me as I pedalled along in an enormous and intricately designed sound-stage. But no schoolmates or prop-men appeared and I cycled on alone.

After 3 days I was completely lost. This is down to the roads. The roads in Mongolia are certainly the worst on the planet. Most I don’t believe have earned the right to be called roads at all. Mislaid stretches of rocks and stone splattered about the Mongolian countryside in the abstract manner of a nation-sized Pollock is a far more accurate description. The fact that road signs are non-existent make finding your way a matter of tradition, luck or the latest satellite images downloaded to your ultra-lite GPS. Unfortunately I had none of these things.

I had veered off on a road that did not appear on my map. After a days riding I found I had hit a river that I thought should not exist. I started to ask at every ger I could find but after hours cycling around without finding the main road I was becoming a little worried. As the sun set I found myself pushing my bike along behind a mounted Mongolian, crossing steep hills and dried creeks in this remote valley, across terrain I couldn’t hope to cycle, as he lead me to the faint path that should set me on my way again. I thanked him and camped on a hilltop in the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

The next day I followed this path for 40 km before I returned to the roads marked on my map. Frustration and desperation had been slowly creeping over me and my relief at seeing the next town, Bulgan, manifested in long screams and shouts into the open air. My good fortune was abruptly blunted only 4 km from the town centre as the roads finally took their toll. Speeding down a steep decline an unseen ditch twisted my wheel and the momentum threw me and my bike across the dust covered thoroughfare. Skin that had been bright red and burnt was now caked in dirt and torn. My handlebars and gear levers awkwardly bent. I screamed into the air again in futile anger.

I passed through Bulgan quickly, and left clean and calm once more. The injuries from the fall were minor and superficial, and a good nights sleep had welcomed back all my frayed temperament. The next 4 days passed quickly. One morning woken by a old Mongolian herder relaxing by my tent door, chomping down on my supply of peanuts. Bathing in freezing rivers and streams, while basking in the fresh sunlight afterwards, amid the grass, trees and birds, relaxed in my nudity in a country so spacious but housing so few.

This trip has awakened parts of me I didn’t know existed and highlighted things I probably should have already known. I am amazed and inspired by the efforts that I see around me, people fighting so hard to preserve our planet and climate, people supporting this project to the extent they have. I know now much more the power of another person, the importance of the people in our lives who support us, nurture us and motivate us. I look forward to a time when I can build and nurish those relationships of my own.

This next few weeks will be hard and lonely and across landscapes few are able to witness. I am sure this will test me even further. But the desire to continue is the desire to see the people who are important to me at the end of all this. So that will get me through.