Two points is not two points, I will explain it later', this ominous quote by Lebron James sparked a flurry of memes for NBA fans back in 2018. Now, standing at 3600 meters above sea level, I was looking at the pass that was only two kilometers away, but to me this was as unreachable as if it was 2000k away. "2 kilometers is not 2 kilometers", I was repeating as some sort of mantra to myself. At this point, the onslaught of emotions that had occurred in the previous couple of hours has mostly subsided and there was a only a blissful state of emptyiness. Empty of fears, empty of doubts, empty of sorrow and pain. Normally, I would gratefully welcome this state as the perfect conclusion of a big effort but at this moment, the job was far from over.
To understand how ended up in this sort of mess, I need to rewind the tape back 24 hours to the start. Flight Sofia-Istanbul, flight Istanbul - Bishkek, sleep 3 hours. Land at 4am, purchase sim, download local version of uber, navigate through the hordes of scam taxi drivers, the dreaded but somehow endearing drill of arriving in an Asian country, only this time I was all by myself. 40min taxi to center, try to sleep, go 24hr restaurant. 24hr restaurant was closed between 6 and 7am because they clean the place. Run back to the same taxi, go to another 24hr restaurant. Order what would be the last normal meal without meat in a while, drink a gallon of black tea, crank out some final features for metodika.app.Get a taxi to the bike rental place, bags and water totally do not fit the frame as expected, some janky moves are necessary to fit my stuff on the bike. Leave with the bike, avoid death on the roads going of Bishkek. Realize the bike was heavy as fuck, and the three hours of sleep left me with little to no juice in the legs. Bike rental lady recommended a more scenic and quiet route for getting out of Bishkek. Big mistake - it added 25k and and 1k meters of elevation gain.
I enter the mountains, rush to get as high as possible before the sun sets. End up at only 1800m elevation, way off from the 2500 I had planned. Start to setup camp, get ambushed by the gnarliest swarm of moscitos, panic, repack everything in 2min, and start biking onwards. Second attempt at camping at 1900m, no moscitos, my gas cannister had fallen due to the hasty repacking (this would be the start of a long series of things falling of and/or apart). Realize I had no cell coverage, didnt warn my family I am about lose it, get upset that they will get upset, sit down and cry. Go back two kilometers to retrieve the gas cannister. On the way back, I see a robber's mask, thrown on a rock near my camp, slight panic starts to set in, but I am too cooked to repack again and run away. Crash in my tent, fever dreams for two hours and then a blissful coma till 8am. Sleeping for two hours after sunrise was a clear indication I was not in good shape but not much to be done about it at this point.
Started riding at 9am, task for the day was to climb 30k to the top of Kegety pass at 3800m and then go down as far as possible on the other side. Cycling was hard almost from the get go. At 2500m I was already getting short on breath. At 3150m I was so beaten up that I pulled a block of Parmesan cheese to chew on in hopes of lifting my spirits. At the same time, I met the first person in almost 24 hours. A swiss guy was descending the pass in the opposite direction. For him the brutal Tian Shan traverse was almost over, with only 100k left to Bishkek and the worst behind him. His jolly spirits were in contrast of my decrepit state. His depiction of what was ahead of me sunk me even deeper into despair.
From there on, things got really interesting. Until this point, riding was hard but was early enough in the day and I had some semblance of freshness in me. Now, the road was rough, elevation was serious, and it was already past noon. I was doing mental calculations if I could make it to the top of the pass and do the dangerous descent afterwards before nightfall. Going I would most definitely be panicking at this point if I had enough energy to do so.