Monday Day #8, 40 miles

Today’s ride was the most knackering ride I have ever done, by the top I was nearly crying it was so difficult but I made it! Unlike the first big climb this was not through a series of hairpins up a big mountain, rather it followed a river through a gorge, rising at 5-6%, over 14 miles a total of 1,100m. The top of Gytaso La is at 5160m and we were promised a view of Everest, however when we got there were told it was in 10ks time, typical misinformation.

Ride down was unbelievably windy and cold over 25 miles of mainly descent. We stopped fairly soon and I put all the cycling clothes I had with me on and was still a bit cold. The wind was so strong that one of the guys turned round and said it was easier riding up hill than down.

Stirling decided that it would be better if we sheltered behind one of the jeeps and cycled in their slipstream, however, after half a mile it was clear that only he, Daniel and David had the strength and skill to do this so the rest of us fell back. I ended up cycling with Mark and Alvin, not much fun but the three of us got a little peleton together and managed to get to camp before everyone else.

Soon, the boys arrived behind the jeep. I pointed out (impishly) that officially they had not now really cycled Lhasa to Kathmandu as they had been mechanically assisted. Daniel, who has no sense of humour was distinctly unimpressed as, to a lesser extent were the other two. The good natured discussion continued over tea, with me bringing in the tour de France rules.

One thing that is really good is the quality of the road. All the guide books refer to rough roads but we have been cycling on fresh new tarmac with very little traffic, in fact could have used my Cervelo most of the way so far. The answer is that the Chinese took the Olympic flame to the top of Everest earlier this year and to do that and look good in the eyes of the world they tarmaced the entire road. We’ll find out tomorrow if they tarmaced up to Everest base camp, I suspect they did.

Sunday, day#7 - 40 miles

Another beautiful morning and I am feeling really well. Nice flat riding for the first half hour or so then a climb of 300m over about 5 miles. We could see the top from the beginning and I felt fine the whole way up, with three gears to spare.Yulong La (4950m). Hung around a bit at the top then another great descent over 5 or 6 miles, sweeping roads with almost no traffic – getting much better on the corners.

Rest of the day fairly flat and easy, with a half hour stop in Lhartse which was a one street town with a rumour of an internet café, unfortunately it had closed down. Also in town were some guys in vintage cars who were doing Amsterdam to Shanghai over three years.

Strange how altitude is affecting my heart, it is staying really low. On the climbs it is around 120 where at home it would be 135/140. I assume I am going correspondingly slowly. Today, for instance did 40 miles and 400m of climbing and my max rate was 121 with an average of only 101.

Saturday, day #6 - Shigatse to just below Yulong La, 4950m, 60 miles

Lovely sunny but cold day and we head off the 50 miles to Tso La. Mainly flat open road but no organised chain gang today, instead I rode the first three hours with Derek and Russel then had lunch. After lunch supposed to be 12 miles to go, turned out to be 22 miles. I was feeling good and even broke away from the bunch soon after lunch to be the first man over Tra La (4505m), a short and not very steep climb.

Found myself with Russel, Derek, and Heidi working against a headwind, after a while R&D fell behind and I was left with Heidi. We worked really well together but both were getting tired. Finally found the car stopped with most of the group. A discussion ensued about how far was left – estimated ranged from 2 to 7 km, in fact it was more like 15km. The extra 10 miles over what we were expecting was a really big deal when you are as tired as we were.

Heidi and I finally made camp and sat down for a cup of tea. About 20 mins later a very irate Russel came into the tent and made his views clear to team leader Stirling – don’t tell me its 5k when its 15k, I’m knackered and have run out of water. Stirling really is showing how not to be a leader – he has no information about length of rides so takes what the guides say and passes it on to us. I suggest he tell them to measure the distance tomorrow in the truck which goes ahead then phone it through so we can be told an accurate distance at lunch time. He seems to think this is a good idea.

Two days till first sighting of Everest… I’m very excited.

INTO THE WILDERNESS

Now in Shitgase, second biggest town in Tibet, having cycled here... 60 miles on an almost completely flat route. Raining as we set out but after an hour sun came out and was as hot as all the other days.

Again fairly demoralising long straight roads, however, I organised 7 of us into a chain gang as Rupert, Paul and I discovered in Tour of Ireland. Surprised most of them had not done this before, but they are mainly mountain bikers. They took to it well and we covered the 60 miles at an average of 16mph which is pretty good for mountain bikes with nobbly tyres.

Great fun, I realise I am a roadie at heart.

Tomorrow we are of for 10 days straight camping before we return to Kathmandu so afraid this will be last post until then. Its going to take us five days to reach the Hymalayas, and before that we have to go up the most scary pass, 1,300m of climb with 50 hairpin bends - Alpe D'huez eat your heart out. I hope (a) to be fully aclimatised by then (b) to have got a bit fitter and (c) have lost a bit of weight... so might be in with a fighting chance. When you get to the top though, you are rewarded with your first sight of Everest and the mighty Hymalays!!

Camping has started

Well here I am four days into the ride after three nights camping in an hotel in Gyantse (look it up on Google maps). Real one yak town, but fgamous as the place Younghusband based his army when the British invaded Tibet in 1904. I've just cycled over the Karo la pass (4960m) where Younghusband engaged 5000 Tibetans which still counts as the highest battle ever fought by teh British army. The poor Tibetans had bows ands arrows and a few old riffles as well as a personal amulet from the Dalai Lama guranteed to fend off Brittish bullets. It didn't and teh British light artillery and maxim machine guns slaughtered 700 Tibetans in 4 minutes.

Anyway, hotel has no wi-fi so no pictures as I am in the only internet cafe in town surrounded by adolescents playing computer games.

So, what's happened so far... well, first we all cycled to the Potala for a group photo before teh start. Then teh cycle out of Lhasa was fairly tedious as it was on the main road and far too much traffic to cope with. The fact that th last 10 miles was traffic free and through beautiful scenery did not stop me having a crises of confidence the following morning when I woke up in my tent and thought why on earth am I doing this?

Luckly though, the sun was out and we started immediatelyon a 15 mile 1,200m climb with a steady 5% gradient up to the top of teh Gampa La (4794m). Absolutely stunning scenery, flet good over teh first 5 miles in just under an hour and teh second was pretty good too. However, things got harder with the final 5 miles and in the last three I was stopping every 500 yds or so. On one of these occassions a bus load of Chnese stopped right in front of me adn got out and so0tensibly started taking photos of the scenery. Given it was a completely deserted road I realised they really wanted to photo me! Taking pity on them I gestured for them to take my photo, which 15 of them promptly proceeded to do.

Anyway, made the top in just over three hours, which I was very pleased with givn the lack of oxygen at nearly 5000m and the fact that I had not aclatimised yet.

Fantastic views from the top of Yamdrok-Tso, a huge lake at 4000m which is famous for being a fabulous shade of deep turquoise (pictures to follow!)

Following a beautiful ride around the lake we ended up at teh campsite set in a lovely location on the lake shore. On the way saw a number of Hoopoe - last time I saw one of those was no Alresford watercress beds in about 1985.

The next morning I felt like a bit of sloitary riding and set off 10 mins before teh rest of the group, First 10 miles although through beautiful scenery was demoralising as it is a series of very long flat straight roads. THe next 10 in contrast are fantastic, rising fairly gently up to the Karo La pass mentioned above. A fast descent brings us to another lovely campsite next to a river.

The next day work up feeling really well, despite it being -6 degrees. WHen hte sun came out it warmed up a bit but not much. THere followed an easy and beautiful ride of about 40 miles with one little 200m climb to Simi La pass. Got some great photos at the top then a fantastic hairpin descent with almost no cars don to Gyantse (which I had the R3 here).

IN LHASA

Fantastic flight to Lhasa over the Himalayas and we were blessed with perfect weather to get a great view of Everest (see photo from plane window!). Chinese airways a bit rickety, and the seats are so close together I could hardly fit in. In flight food was laughable apart from what looked like a bag of sweeties… I popped one into my mouth only to discover it was yak jerky, yuk jerky more like :-))

Arriving in Lhasa everyone concerned about altitude so a beer free disastrous meal in the hotel, yak tongue and yak tripe on the menu, had a bit of the former (tasted like smoked duck) but gave the latter a miss.

The next day off to the Potala which has got to be one of the most impressive buildings in the world, really takes your breath away as you come round the corner and see it for the first time, weather a bit cloudy but still managed to get some good photos, see below. I was quite keen on all things Tibetan as a schoolboy and had read Seven Years in Tibet, so it was really exciting to wander round the palace where Henrich Harrier had had his meetings with the Dalai Lama.

First we looked round the Dalai Lama’s apartments on the top of the White palace (the rest of it is closed by the Chinese) and it was spooky to see microphones all over the place listening to what we were saying. This is the most politically sensitive area as it is where the last and current Dalai Lama’s held court. On the left of the throne is a portrait of the 13th Dalai Lama but notable by its absence on the other side is the corresponding portrait of the 14th Dalai Lama.

The off to the red palace where you can wander around all the chapels showing throne rooms and resting places of all the Dalai Lamas since the 5th who built it all in the 16th century.

Off to The Jokhang in the afternoon which is the most holy temple in Tibet. Very few western tourists here, place is filled with Tibetan pilgrims walking clockwise around the temples with their prayer wheels, or even prostrating themselves all the way round and Chinese tourists, blissfully unaware of the irony of wandering around temples their parents tried to tear down (bit like German tourists visiting St Pauls…).

Spent the afternoon wandering round the old part of town, absolutely fascinating once you get away from all the stalls selling tatty prayer wheels to the Chinese tourists. One of the few decent things to buy here is a thanka, a religious painting on cloth done by the monks traditionally. Difficult to separate the authentic ones from those mass produced in Nepal. However, trusting the lonely planet guide I visited a shop they recommended and bought a beautiful geometric Thanka, used to aid in Tantric meditation – the more usual ones showing Buddhist gods were not to my western taste. So, lets hope I can get it home in one piece.

Tomorrow we start our main trip with a very gentle 50 miles of flat riding and three nights of camping. Which means that the next update will be a few days away.

FINALLY SOME RIDING

On thing is becoming very apparent – we have a very ineffectual group leader. Affable but useless – a south African who was a client on a similar tour in India last year and is now having a go at leading for himself. The main problem is he can’t make a decision and when he does it’s a bad one. The real decisions are made by the local tour organisers represented by a very smiley Tibetan called Loki.

There are various levels of anxiety in the group about altitude sickness. Heidi, vegetarian Ausie triathlete doctor quietly concerned but personally content as she is taking drugs to fend the symptoms off. Main complainer is Wolfgang, genome scientist and erstwhile mountaineer, who keeps banging on about there being no effect under 2500m. The fact that he has a strong Professor Heinz Wolf accent (remember The Great Egg Race?) somehow adds to his credibility. The plan is to head up to 2000m and cycle around there hoping it will do some good. Wolfgang is volubly sceptical.

Night before the first ride everyone clustered around a large table peering at maps, there then follows a classic case of what happens to a group if the leader has no idea what he is doing… various plans emerge, the favourite being: lets take the bus up there and then start cycling straight up to 3,500m. I realised that it was a waste of time getting involved so I grabbed Russel and Derek and headed off to find a beer.

A couple of beers later we headed back for dinner at 6.15 only to find all the mad plans had to come to nothing and we were indeed going to do what was originally planned – cycle north about 35miles up to 2000m. So no surprise there then.

By the way, I was in a separate hotel across the road from everyone else due to lack of rooms… on the way over there I walked on one of the concrete blocks supposedly covering up the main drain only for it to give way and me fall in. Could have broken my leg, but fortunately only some cuts and bruising – but would have been a terrible way to end my Tibetan adventure. The other group anaxiety is about infection, everyone has a bottle of hand wash that they use all the time and which, luckly for me, Ros gave me just before I left. So I washed it all down and poured disinfectant all over it .

So, back to my room for an early night, 8.30 except for the lottery kiosk below my room blaring out Hindi pop music till god knows when. At 5.00 am the next morning rudely awoken by the hotel shutters being opened. Nothing for it but to head off to breakfast.

Which takes us to Wednesday and the cycle up north. Cycling out early at 6.50! The road goes gently up then there is a taste of what is to come with a short steep hill on broken stones, an interesting interlude, I mistakenly think. From here on the rocky road continues with no tarmac at all as it winds up through tiny villages of unbelively poor people – astounded to see people sitting on piles of rocks and smashing them in to chips with hammers

Unbelievly hard cycling, as I got higher the sun disappeared and it started to rain, then the mist came in too. Finally after 2 hours of pain I come across a number of parked busses and people running around in a dither. Apparently there had been two rock slides about 8km apart making the road impassable. What should we do? Our intrepid leader decides we should take enough clothes for 2 days in rucksacks and continue cycling on as intended while the bus would return down the mountain with the rest of our gear. The deficiencies in this little plan were too many to mention so I simply told him I would be taking the 3 hour ride back down the mountain in the bus. Sense prevailed and everyone else decided to join me.

At the bottom of the mountain after a very hard day’s cycling with 10k to go, Heidi, the NZ doctor stops the bus in order to run back!! Locals very confused seeing her running after the bus, thinking we had left her behind.

Turns out we were going to stay in a different hotel as the Aussi women thought the communial lavatory/shower was not up to scratch in the other one and a cat had used Russel’s cycling hat for a dump… unfortunately, I’m beginning to realise things are not that easy here, we turned up tired, wet and hungry to be told they did not have 8 rooms as we had expected but they did have 8 beds in three rooms… even the Aussies voted to head back to the original hotel.

Thursday

Feeling tired from yesterday’s exertions, but fantastic scenery as I climbed up the mountain. Bottom getting a bit sore and as I got higher it started to rain, had to stop every half hour for relief. Finally called it a day 10 miles from the top. However, got back on the bike and headed down into the valley. Fantastic descent, when suddenly my seat pin cracked and I found myself without a saddle - not the best thing to discover heading fast downhill on a rutted road with mad bus drivers coming towards you…

Back in the hotel more shambolic leadership with confusion about which bags can or can not go to Tibet in the van.