Dave’s bike is now smoking badly and burning about a litre of oil per 100 miles. It’s a bit of a worry but hopefully it will make it to Almaty and a bike shop. We’re just 2 days away and with luck can get there with 3 days in hand. Today was a fairly uneventful ride apart from stopping every half hour to check and refill dave’s oil. Made it to the lake, not as far as I’d planned but still good progress and a really enjoyable ride. Great to be back on tarmac. 50mph feels so fast when you’ve spent a couple of days doing 30 max on gravel, sand and mud. Picked up some more wine for dinner. This time it’s Jessica Alba wine. Very wierd, but all the wine here seems to have pictures of celebrities on the bottle, is really sweet and foul tasting, and claims to be 17% alcohol. Camp site is a very quiet spot with a view of the lake, the mountains to the south from where we’ve just come, and the mountains to the north beyond which lies Kazakhstan, the last of the stans. Kyrgyzstan has been brilliant. Stunning landscapes, friendly people, thrilling dirt roads over mountain passes, plentiful wild camping opportunities, and comfortable weather bar a few evening storms. Today we saw 2 seperate european cyclists and 4 GS riders from Switzerland, it’s obviously a popular place and easy to see why. But now i’m eager to get to Kazakhstan and one step closer to Russia and the big one – Mongolia.
Day 47 Issyk Kol
11 Jul