Following the Tien Shan Traverse – part 1

Last summer a small group of bikepackers put together a route that traversed a huge variety of Kyrgyzstan landscapes over 1000km from Lake IssyKul to Bishkek. We were planning to finish our 3 month ‘Stan bike oddesy by following this route they named The Tien Shan Traverse*. Having just completed the first third we can […]

4 passes to Issykul

Kyrgyz men drive like they are on a race track and they don’t leave a lot of room for cyclists. It was 60km uphill on a busy paved road from Naryn to our dirt road turnoff so we treated ourselves to a 40 min drive. It was worth avoiding and so much more pleasant to […]

And then there were three

We ended up spending a few days longer in Osh than planned as tummies went on strike again. When we left we organised a taxi ride 200km east to avoid some hot, boring riding out of the Osh basin and to gain 2000m up to the top of a pass – lazy, I hear you […]

Stuck in No Man’s Land

We are in a small cold corrugated shed that is the Tajikistan border immigration office. Looking out the small dirty window we watch the snow falling heavily and inside the immigration officer is clearly very uncomfortable with the fact that our printed evisa sheet of paper does not have a Dushanbe (Port of Entry) stamp. […]

Bound for the border

Despite the strong tail blowing us to Murghab, we were not quite so lucky heading away from Murghab. It was the first time I considered putting music on to deal with the long straights climbing ever so slightly and with the tedious head wind. Alan was struggling with the day until after a restful lunch […]

A kefir bomb and rejoining the Pamir highway

We met cyclists coming in the opposite direction with tales of the worst road ever. Some had pannier racks being held together by cable ties, one had major disintegration of his wheel and some opt for a taxi ride to avoid the terrors of the Wakhan road and Kargush pass. We were peddling along waiting […]

The Wakhan Corridor

From Khorog we followed a route along the edge of the Wakhan corridor. The corridor is a thin strip of land belonging to Afghanistan which separates the former USSR ruled Tajikistan and the British Empire ruled Indian sub continent, specifically what is now Pakistan. The river forms the northern border of the Wakhan Corridor and […]

Maysara Pass, return to Khorogh along Pamir Highway

‘Hand on the heart Tajikistan’ sums up one of the lovely gestures we get as we ride along past people. The right hand is placed over the heart as a sign of respect. We experienced it early on from children and wondered if it was a ‘respect for elders’ gesture but no it works for […]

Breathtaking and breathless up the Shakdara Valley

We had our eye on a 5-6 day loop out of Khorogh that few cyclists do and would take us under the high peaks of Karl Marx (6700m) and Engels (6500m) and over a 4100m pass. A friend Pat Deavoll had climbed both peaks on a climbing trip in the area last year and recommended […]

To Khorogh and a pleasant break

We are so impressed with Tajikistan so far. It is a Muslim country but is very moderate. We have seen few mosques and the the president has banned the Call to Prayer perhaps in an effort to reduce fanatical muslimism. Women do not seem oppressed and not all wear head scarves. It is presently Ramadan […]

Biking the closed northern route to Kalaikhumb

There are 2 routes to Khorog- the southern route is 100km longer and goes thru lower hotter countryside. The northern route is presently closed to cars because of 2 bridge washouts and goes through the mountains, but it was not guaranteed we could get through. We liked the sound of another closed road so we […]

First taste of Tajik peaks

17 hours on a plane was a record for both of us. That got us to Dubai and then we had 17 hours on the ground before our flight to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. It was near 40 degrees in Dubai and riding the air conditioned public transport helped kill some time. We were […]

Riding the Stans..

We are off to pedal two of the ‘Stans in Central Asia, formerly USSR. We fly into the capital of Tajikistan and out of the capital of Kyrgyzstan 3 months later. Part of our route is along the border of Afghanistan, a mere river crossing away. We expect dry, desert conditions in Tajikistan, with high […]

A chocolate box finish

We were warned by those heading south that the views were going to be stunning on the last days of our trip – and they were right. Sadly many south bounders had to tolerate bad weather thru this northern section but in the style we were accustomed to, we had good weather and no rain while […]

Canada – big mountains, big mines and big tyres

From the Canadian border north there are two options – the alternate, lower route that goes thru Fernie or the main route that tackles 3 significant passes and traverses thru the Flathead mountains – said to have the highest concentration of grizzlies in North America. Many Dividers go for the Fernie alternate (for obvious reasons) but […]

Eureka – only 6 miles from Canada

Just before the town of Bigfork we were befriended by motorcyclist Steve, who lived up the road in Whitefish and offered us a spot on his back lawn to pitch a tent when we got there the next day. Whitefish is an old logging town turned ski resort/summer lake destination so it was nice to […]

Beating the bears to the berries

We have been enjoying some lakeside camps – Coopers Lake, Lake Clearwater, Seeley Lake and Flathead lake and they have varied from no people, no lakeside houses, no motor boats to lotsa people, privatisation of the shoreline and motorboats. At Lake Clearwater I was introduced to huckleberries which is a major food source for the […]

The kindness of strangers

After our holiday in Bozeman we were ready to spin the wheels again. With forecasted bad weather we had a big day to Park Lake. Starting on paved roads, gravel roads followed for the first climb of the day. Then down  into the old mining town of Basin for chicken and taco soup, followed by apple […]

You’ll have to wait for Whitefish

Between flat cell phones and a lack of libraries, I am a bit behind on the blog front. Rest assured we are still making progress north and have not been held up by beers bears tho the beers we had with a late lunch when we got to Seelly Lakes yesterday almost flattened us! We […]

Bears, bison and a break in Boseman

We embraced our time off in Bozeman and had a good break from biking enjoying dog walking, great eating, shopping for fat bikes for E & D to replace stolen bikes, catching up with Elissa and Grum and resting. As well we had a mini journey from Bozeman up to Paradise Valley where Ellen and […]

Steep hills and good food in southern Montana

It is not all about food but we quite often plan our days to camp 15-20 miles out of a town then ride in for a big cooked breakfast at a small diner. At the rate we are travelling this happens every second of third day. From our lovely campsite near the historic town Banack […]

Brief interlude in Idaho

We enjoyed our ‘zero’ days in Jackson Hole. I am not sure I even left the house on our first day, but I clocked a few kms mountain biking with Pam on the second day, and we both enjoyed a raft down the class 3 Snake river with Mick in the afternoon. The days are […]

Riding into our first National Park – the Grand Tetons

There is a perfectly good paved road from Pinedale to Jackson Hole – of course the GDMBR doesn’t take it – much nicer to take the circuitous route over Union and Togwatee Passes. Jackson Hole is a diversion from the route which we took in order to visit friends, and have the treat of 2 […]

The racers and the sloths

It is fun to be heading thru the riders on the Tour Divide – the north to south race that follows the GDMBR. It puts us to shame as these super athletes at the front of the pack are riding 200 miles a day (sleeping 4) tho’ I know I’d rather be a sloth! We […]

Wyomings Great Divide Basin

We have written off Taco Johns fast food, but were pleasantly surprised by the McDonalds breakfast – from our 5 am sampling! Sadly there was already wind out of the west when we struck our way SW then W into the Great Divide Basin. Heads down and grinding into it. After an early lunch we […]

Blown into Wyoming

Steamboat was our last Coloradoan town. We were surprised to hit a lot of snow on the next pass we crossed given that it was not very high and the days were getting a lot warmer. We tried being smart by camping high but there was not a good enough freeze so we did a […]

Diving in and out of the Colorado river

We left the hecticness of the Breckenridge/Frisco area on the lovely paved cycle trail that we had followed all the way between Breckenridge and Silverthorne. A cyclist caught us up and on chatting found he was married to a kiwi and had spent 3 winters working at Cardrona ski area (small world). We enjoyed a […]

Breakfast in Breckonridge

The beauty of this ride is the ever changing terrain and circumstances. One morning we are eating breakfast in the comfort of our tent vestibule with not a soul for miles and 24 hours later we are enjoying eggs benedict and coffee at a cafe on the main street of the very upmarket town of Breckenridge.. […]

Sliding into Salida

Refreshed after our stay with Enrique and Taco we left town early on a sunny morning, 3 days of food on board for the stretch to Salida. We planned a scenic day, visiting a natural rock arch then camping at Penitente Canyon, a reknowned rock climbing area. We loved the sandy, low key track that took […]

Rocky Mountain high, Colorado

We made it to Horca (the town with no food for sale) just in time to miss a wee snow blizzard. There are more shops and restaurants closing down in the small towns we pass thru than are setting up. Luckily we had a nights more food so we could stay at the Ponderosa CG […]

New Mexico makes it hard for us to leave

We left Cuba with full tums from the popular (and very good ) Mexican restaurant Bruno’s. Alan, Rob and I climbed out of town, initially on black top, then up lovely dirt roads, and for the first time, with running streams crossing our path. Rob was able to educate us on the local flora and […]

Buttes, mesas, plugs and arroyos

We arrived in Grants just as the storm hit with rain and wind and hail further south, but soaking in the Travel Lodge hot pool we were oblivious to it! Grants is a former mining town – it was the centre of the uranium mining industry for a while and the famous Route 66 goes […]

Packin’, pies and politics.. a day in Pie Town

In the 1920’s a man starts a general store on Route 60 – one of the first coast to coast US routes. His doughnuts were no good so he started making and selling pie. Business took off. When they tried to open a Post Office in town they applied for the name ‘Pie Town’, initially […]

The Bike House (Silver City) to the Toaster House (Pie Town)

We enjoyed paved roads out of Silver City for the climb into the mountains. The Gila hot springs and Cliff Dwellings National Monument were far enough off route that we decided to hitch in. The RV driven by an Alaskan remote pilot and his wife let us take our bikes, which meant we could stay […]

First days on the road in New Mexico

The on-ramp of Interstate 10 has a bunch of signs, one of them (amazingly) aallowed us to ride on the shoulder of these 4 lane ‘motorways’. We had to get back east 20 miles to a little place called Separ and there was no alternative but to ride the interstate – a trifle intimidating but there […]

Our new 11kg life

New trip and new bike setup. We have ditched the carriers and panniers and our home is strapped to the frame of our fat bikes – following the growing ‘bike packing’ scene. We have had an awesome summer of bike packing trips, our fat tyres inspiring us to explore the high open Central Otago tops […]

Eat, sleep, ride, the Great Divide

The Great Divide Route in the US is a 4300km route from the Mexican border to Banff in Canada. It crosses the Divide many times and has a height gain/loss of 60,000m. People race it in a record 14 days, we have the length of time our platinum card will give us free travel insurance..just […]

B is for bike

and ‘I’ is for impulse! This week Alan and I introduced a new steed to our stable.. It started with me wanting to replace my full suspension mountain bike, it ended with both of us purchasing fat bikes – hard to go past an almost half price deal.. I described fat bikes to my mum as […]

Exploring the India Himalaya

Unexpectedly our trip this year ended up being in the Indian Himalaya, no complaints as we had both spent time in the Himalaya walking and skiing so time to spin the wheels there. Our plan is to fly into Delhi, get the train to Shimla and then bike up the Spiti valley crossing the Kunzum […]

Ending our journey in the Vale of Kashmir

More 4 am wake up calls from the local mosques were a feature of our last days in the predominantly muslim state of Kashmir. From Kargil we had our last pass to cross into the Vale of Kashmir, the 3800m Zoji La and we had our first day of getting wet while biking – hmmm – we […]

Entering the fabled Zanskar

The huge peak of Kun dominates the down valley view from Rangdom but we missed the sunrise on it because of a veil of high cloud. The mornings fun was taking the shortcut to the Rangdom monastery 6km away across the river flats. We could ride most of the numerous river channel crossings even when […]

Have you one pen please?

We were warned, in black and white, how bad the road surface was on the route in from Kargil to Padum. At present it is the only way for people and supplies to get into the villages of the Suru and Zanskar valleys. it is a dead end road and the Zanskar valley inhabitants are […]

Following the Indus – knocking on the door to Pakistan

One day of eating, relaxing and clothes washing in Leh seemed enough and we made a late start down valley. There seemed less traffic on this road that links Leh to Srinigar – the final destination of our journey. As we were climbing up to a saddle a small van pulled up alongside and the occupants […]

Last high pass to Leh

From Pang we had a short day to the shrinking Tso Kar Lake. We were picturing camping by the blue waters but all we could see was salt plains in the distance. We did see a herd of wild donkeys instead as a small compensation. We treated ourselves to dinner at one of the luxury […]

North Into Ladakh

For 300km on the road to Leh (from Manali) there are no permanent settlements and the road is only open for about 5 months of the year because of winter snows. To accommodate the busy tourist traffic over the summer there are a number of parachute tent ‘cafes’ that are set up along the way providing […]

Raising the bar on cycle touring – Kunzum part 2

In Batal we woke to a grey and cold day, pleased that we had crossed the pass the day previous. Eggs and roti, chai and another chai were needed before we faced the day ahead. We had been warned! The first few km’s we bounced down the road alongside the Chandra river. We came to […]

First Wheels over the Kunzum La 2015

It was time to start moving forward again with the challenge of getting over the Kunzum La. The ‘advertised’ opening date is 15 June but because of a big winter they were looking at a much later opening date. We talked to motorcyclists who had been to the pass and back and they complained of […]

Immersion on the high roads

With time to spare before the Kunzum La opens we decided to do a loop above Kasa that would allow us to spend three nights at around 4300m. We ditched our camping gear and other miscellaneous and left town with just 2 paniers each. It was a big climb above the Spiti valley alongside yet […]

Discovering the Kibber Canyon

We are constantly amazed on things we stumble across on our journeys, whether it is good timing (lunching monklets, Hindu processions) – or by a casual conversation with someone. In this case an Indian motorcyclist mentioned a rope bridge beyond Kibber village that stopped wheeled transport to the next village Chenai. We carried on climbing […]

Of things Budhist and barking dogs

At 10 years old, the host from our Kaza Guest House, escaped with his mother, father and 2 brothers over the Himalaya from Tibet to Nepal. Near the border they were shot at by Chinese and it took 3 months for the journey. They arrived in Nepal with nothing. It was the same year that the […]