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Saturday: 23.08.25
Naryn – direction Arabel Plateau
125 km / 1400 Hm
my video day 8:
How wonderful it is to wake up in a bed without an alarm clock, take another shower, get the bike gear in order, and most importantly, enjoy a fantastic breakfast in peace. We treat ourselves to that — to celebrate reaching the halfway point.
During the night, that unpleasant cough hit me again. Probably the result of swallowing all that dust.
Konrad and the teams Markus and Jos are taking it easy today too. There are several other bikes parked in and around the hotel lobby, so we’re clearly not the only ones. Konrad kindly offers us some chain oil — we hadn’t been able to buy any the night before. Lacking a proper container, he’d improvised with a small tube from the hotel amenity set.
He doesn’t need it anymore anyway — his Silk Road Mountain Race ends here. What?! Unfortunately, the rear shock on his bike had broken, along with the mount for his panniers.
The friendly Polish rider, who lives in Belgium, planned to stop by a car workshop to see if they could help.
A glimpse into the future: Konrad would still continue the next stretch, but then, like me, shift to what he called a “pleasure tour” to Karakol (though I wouldn’t exactly call it that myself).
Hermann and I set off relatively late for race standards — well-rested and ready for the 400 kilometers ahead without any opportunity to restock supplies. At least there would be plenty of water along the way. After Naryn, we turn onto our detour route (see report from Day 7, bridge collapse).
At first, it’s a pleasant ride on tarmac, but soon we’re back on gravel, with the unpleasant side effect of cars overtaking us and covering us in dust — a déjà vu from the day before. My response: Cough! Cough!
The extra elevation gain goes by fairly smoothly, though it gets quite hot later in the morning down in the valley.
The dust situation, however, keeps getting worse — the tires sometimes sink several centimeters deep into the fine powder. We kick up clouds of it ourselves and trail a plume of dust behind us for minutes at a time, just like the cars.
Around noon, we reach the highest point of the detour. Up here lies a vast alpine pasture with yurts, horses, cows, sheep, and goats.
Three boys — one on horseback — hold open a gate for us, and the descent begins. It winds along broad slopes, offering a wonderful view of the mountains across the valley.
The downhill is fast at first, but then the dust gets deep again, and my bike starts behaving like it’s hydroplaning — only on dust instead of water.
My brain, having nothing better to do, amuses itself inventing terms: dryplaning, dust-surfing, fine-dust drifting, or even aerosol-based loss-of-traction phenomenon.
Good thing I have no idea what the next few days have in store — otherwise I might have been worrying about other things instead.
Enough nonsense. Eventually, we’re down in the valley again and rejoin the original route. It’s already lunchtime, and hunger forces us to take a short break in the shade of one of the last trees we’ll see today — we’ll be climbing back toward the 3,000-meter mark later.
For now, though, it’s bread, tasty cheese, and — not to forget — a tin of fish. Then it’s back on the bikes, though I’d really rather stay put, because right away the road climbs steeply again.
The Naryn River has carved a deep gorge here, flanked by massive rock walls. The road, with nowhere else to go, winds up and down for about 20 kilometers. In the heat, it’s brutal.
Water is scarce too, but I figure that’s actually a good sign — the river is far below, and we’re crossing it only a few times via bridges. Well, a few times… and then no more bridges.
By afternoon, we’ve left the gorge behind, and a wide valley opens up before us — scattered farms, animals, farmers cutting hay. Then we come to a small hamlet, just a handful of houses.
Two bicycles are leaning against one of them. I check my route notes — there should be a tiny shop here. Google MyMaps mentioned knocking if it’s closed. No need — others are already there.
As I get closer, I realize who it is: the two riders who’d amazed me in the past few days — they’re riding singlespeeds! I can hardly imagine tackling these mountains without gears — just one chainring and one cog. Well, at least that setup isn’t prone to mechanicals.
Hermann’s derailleur keeps making odd noises, and he worries the cable might snap. If you don’t have a gear cable, it can’t break, right? Of course, the downside is they’ve probably done a lot more hike-a-bike than we have.
The place where we stop is remarkable in its simplicity — a crooked wooden shack. An elderly couple, clearly well along in years, offers food and drink. They translate via a phone call to a friend — not an app, an actual call.
We get a boiled egg, instant coffee, and a wafer. We chuckle — that’s literally their entire stock, our predecessors must have cleaned them out. But hey, better than nothing. As the saying goes: the last one gets bitten by the dogs.
We continue riding, deep into the night. The valley grows lonelier, the climbs smaller but frequent. Clouds gather, the air turns cold. The gravel road eventually fades into a grassy track, alternating with rocky stretches and stream crossings. My feet are wet and freezing.
In the darkness, distant lights hint at yurts far off the road. Once, on the other side of the river, we spot a brightly lit house with a bridge leading to it.
The next day, a Russian team tells us a wedding feast took place there — they’d been invited and show us photos of the banquet.
We had planned to keep going up the switchbacks toward the Arabel Plateau, but fatigue catches up with us after 125 kilometers. Probably for the best — some of the stream crossings in the dark had already felt eerie, and we knew from previous SRMR stories there were more to come.
We pitch the tent quickly — the routine runs like clockwork by now. Hermann boils water for instant Chinese noodles. A little luxury never hurts, he laughs.
I look up. The thick clouds have cleared, revealing a brilliant starry sky.
I cough myself to sleep. Tomorrow, the climb to the Arabel Plateau awaits — and the turnoff to the remote loop.
