It’s day three in Kyrgyzstan; I’m about 3,700 metres above sea level and rising. I’ve lost the ability to sweat as I’ve hiked my fully loaded bike up a rocky path for the last 6 hours, surrounded by towering, dramatic peaks, and I haven’t seen another person for a couple of days.
What the hell am I doing here?
Let’s rewind.
I’ve always loved the idea of bikepacking, yet never done it.
Any number of excuses over the last decade have stopped me, but the concept has strummed away in my brain, like a semi-present little band way up the back. Sometimes they’ve taken days or weeks off, and other times they’re playing Black Betty so loud I can’t think about anything else.
The idea of bikepacking is a romantic notion.
A man on two wheels with the bare necessities, exploring, travelling and camping. There are no limits, just endless potential, no need for fuel or cities, no need to plan a route for petrol or admin. Fueled by water from streams, fruit, nuts, dried sausage and pasta in the bag, I can go anywhere.
To me, it sounds a lot like freedom.
Well. I read an article in Wild Magazine, and I was done.
After months of preparation and 40+ hours of travel, that’s how I found myself on my first ever bike packing trip. Alone in the Tian Shan mountain range in Kyrgyzstan, a hop, skip and a jump from Western China.
I don’t like doing things in half measures, obviously. No overnighter to prepare, no Australia-based excursion. I mean, I hadn’t even slept in my tent. Just straight to the mountains of Central Asia for me.
But why?
Why leave my family behind for two weeks? Why put my business on hold? Why go it alone?
Great question.
After a bucket load of philosophising, pondering and ruminating on my own in the wilds of Kyrgyzstan, I came to a deep and philosophical conclusion.
I just had an itch to scratch.
I have had this itch for years, a gnawing need to challenge myself, to see how far I can go, to explore what’s over the next ridge. And the next. And the next. I want to go on a solo mission, test myself, learn and tell a story.
What story? At the time, I was unsure, but I used Kyrgyzstan as my vessel to find out.
Coming back to the present, as I’m hiking up the mountain one painful metre at a time, I’m doubting myself. I’m down. It’s dark inside my soul, and I’m just a massive ball of negativity.
‘What the hell am I actually here for? What’s the point? I miss my kids and my partner’.
‘Fuck this’
It was a tough day, but they say pressure makes diamonds, right?
Well, at the moment when I was at my lowest, I wasn’t thinking about the pressure point of making diamonds.
With the air thinning, feet wet, and the sun beaming down, I only really had one solution.
I’m here. I can’t go home. May as well keep moving forward.
And that became the theme of the trip.
Something that I learned about bikepacking is that the ascents take longer than you think, and the descents are over way too quickly.
I’ve travelled to beautiful places before, but this was different. I’ve travelled in a car where you’re focused primarily on the road, I’ve travelled on a motorbike where you’re too preoccupied fanging it and not dying, and I’ve travelled by horseback, where I personally was too busy clinging on for dear life to fully appreciate where I was.
Dare I say it, but a pushbike may be the best way to appreciate the world.
The bike lets you feel the land more than any other mode. You’re present as you feel every bump on shitty roads, trying to find the best lines. You’re one with every corner, because stacking can mean losing the bark off your legs. Every decline is a full body sense of joy, and every metre of incline is felt through to your depths.
The scenery of Kyrgyzstan was like none other. In a country consisting of 90% mountains, around every corner was a new scene worth searing into my memory. Every weathered mountain was different and unique, and yet all of them were impressive and dominant. One of the biggest struggles was to keep my forward momentum and not to stop too frequently to take pictures.
The people who lived amongst these mountains were just as amazing. Once I returned to a modicum of society, I was regularly asked to come and have tea, waved at, chased down for a chat and stopped on the road to be handed gifts. Coming from a country where we tend to treat tourists with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the warmth I was shown was incredible, bordering on uncomfortable.
And me?
Yes, cliché as it might be, I learned a lot about myself. Countless hours in your own head will do that, I guess. I hiked my bike for more hours than I could’ve imagined; I rode my bike for less than I would’ve liked.
I fully uncorked that solo man in me, the one who sings to himself and chases the next horizon relentlessly like a dog with a bone.
I learned that even without a crazy amount of training, I can push myself more than I realised. I have an almost pathological need to, as Dory from Finding Nemo once said, ‘Just keep swimming’. I also learned that perhaps a day off every now and then isn’t a bad idea.
I re-learned that I love serenity and I will always have a childlike excitement at the sight of mountains.
Most importantly, I learned that experiences like these are best shared. There are only so many times I can appreciate eagles flying nearby, mountain streams coming straight from the towering source, or the kindness of strangers on my own.
When I look back on my trip, there is a tinge of sadness. Not because I wish I hadn’t gone, but because it felt like an opportunity missed. I had a ball; every moment I felt an incredible sense of gratitude towards the world.
And yet, with my family at home, I saw my trip through a lens into the world I want to share with them.
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This post was previously published on OLZACCO.SUBSTACK.COM.
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