We’ve gone 3700km, just clinging to schedule. After Gansu we rolled down the mountains into the heat of the Hami basin. We clocked up our biggest day yet, 225km. One km short of my own personal best! Thwarted in the end by a roaring head wind. The last 20K took about 2 hours!
After we left the desert Hami wasn’t actually so hot. The real test came later as we rode through the “mountains of fire” down into the Turpan basin, 150m below sea level. Here it was hot even at night time. Legend has it that you can cook an egg just by leaving it on the sand in those mountains.
From Turpan the team split in half. It was great while it lasted, but Ting and I were of to Kyrgystan, and Frank and Su Chun headed directly for Kazakhstan.
We ran into trouble immediately, in the form of a 45 knot cross wind, right when Ting and I opted to take a short cut accross the basin on an un-sealed road. We spent three hours fighting the wind to get less than 20K before reaching shelter, by which time all our water was exhausted.
From here it was quite good riding, though we struck cross winds from time to time. The bikes actually worked quite well when it was less than 40 knots and the road was sealed.
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