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Concordia
Merchant Taylors’ School
Being exposed to the elements makes you appreciate how
vulnerable you are. If the weather decides it doesn’t want you to
carry on, you have to listen to it.
The top of the Tor-Ashuu Pass (3500m elevation), Kyrgyzstan
Embarrassingly, we failed the first
leg by missing the ferry from Dover,
making us realise this was a marathon,
not a sprint. Only when we reached
Istanbul, after a month on the road, did I
allow myself to think of what lay ahead.
The size of the achievement –
contrasted with the sudden feelings of
“What now?” – meant that each day I
was flooded with conflicting emotions
ranging from elation and euphoria to
sadness and despair.
In the western US, there was a 180-
mile stretch of road (catering for cars)
in the Mojave Desert with one food
and water stop
en route
. We arrived
– the shop was shut. You just have to
dig down.
One late afternoon, in the Caucasus
Mountains in Georgia, a thunderstorm
carrying massive hailstones rolled in. As
bolts of lightning hit the floor around
me I froze – assuming I was going to die
right there. There was nothing I could
do. Shaken up, I just had to plough on
another two kilometres to find shelter –
and Will.
Being exposed to the elements
makes you appreciate how vulnerable
you are. If the weather decides it
doesn’t want you to carry on, you have
to listen to it. In Europe it was rain; in
Asia it was wind.
The direction and force of a wind can
be the difference between crawling to
gain less than 50 miles in a day and
being hoisted for up to 130 miles. Or
being blown off your bike or staying
put. I learnt to embrace the positive and
accept what I couldn’t change.
I had expected the ride to be more
physically demanding but I’d say two–
thirds of the effort was mental. You need
strength to find the drive to get up every
day and sit on a bike for seven hours.
The unpacking and packing of
panniers felt relentless. The monotony
of chunks of the journey was also hard.
In Central Asia we were presented with
the same long straight desert road, with
the same terrain, seven hours a day, for
weeks at a time. Music and podcasts
offered some respite.
Will and I started the trip talking as
we cycled but we ran out of things to
say. Eventually we understood each
other so well, knowing what each other
was thinking, we didn’t need to speak.
Spending every waking moment
with one other person is intense. With