What is the Silk Road?

The Silk Road Mountain Race is a  2,000km (32,000 mtr) self-supported bikepacking race through the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. The route is a fixed route, unsupported, single stage cycling race following gravel, single and double track and old soviet roads with very little tarmac and lots of hike a bike sections.

What are the challenges with racing the Silk Road?

Additional to the race distance and elevation, I experienced many other challenges with the Silk Road Mountain Race.
  1. The altitude plays a big part with a large majority of the race being above 3,000 mtrs. This makes it tricky to breath whilst riding at the high passes whilst also impacting your sleep and recovery. It really does effect you in more than one way!
  2. Resupplies present a challenge, due to the lack of opportunities to restock on meals and riding food. The options available weren’t greatly appetising and revolved around being “dry” goods such as crisps, biscuits and ice creams. I personally didn’t risk eating and meats or sandwiches, due to the risk of food poising which I know would cost me time and more calories and time. I packed 2x boxes of gel 50’s and bar 50’s, which I rationed throughout the ride!
  3. The heat also hit me hard! During the back end of the course we experienced back to back days above 42 degrees, which coming from the UK hit me harder than expected! There was no shade, wind or humidity…! The SLT tablets provided a lifesaver and allowed me to get those important salts and electrolytes back into my body.

What was the best bit?

Cheesy as it sounds, but the people and landscapes blew my mind! The scale of the landscape truly makes you feel insignificant and puts you into perspective. The climate is so dry and desolate making an extremely barren and harsh landscape. A stark contrast to Bristol!
I was welcomed with welcome arms and never experienced any hostilities. On one occasion whilst climbing the Arabella plateau a young girl ran out from her yert and gestured a drink whilst pointing at her home.
When walking into the yert her mother and father (I guess) frantically pulled together a hot tea and some sweet treats. No English was spoken. No money was accepted. Instead, I pointed to the route on my phone, and we gestured instead of talked. This was the most beautiful experience I could have asked for and its clear reminder of how disconnected we might be becoming with phones and technology.

What was the hardest bit?

Additionally, to dealing with the above challenges, I had a few sense of humour failures, but the last one really stands out…….
Kok-Ayryk pass – 1,999km / 3,841m  – This is the last high mountainous pass, which on the map looks “manageable” but little I can tell you it is NOT! Reaching the base of the climb at 11pm and after being freshly out of another river crossing it became clear that this pass was going to be slow going, due to being littered with large rocks, recent landslides and alien looking plants.
My mind instantly switched off and I started feeling drunk and dizzy (maybe heat or altitude) so I started having 5 minute cat naps as I struggled to keep my eyes open, but I knew I needed to keep on making forward progress.
The higher up I got the greater the wind speed reached and on one exposed switch back I allowed myself 10 minutes to escape the wind. I huddled in the fetal position behind a big rock to recharge the batteries. When I woke up, I smashed a gel and reached for my headphones. Put on some Abba. And promised myself I would reach the top before the end of the playlist. The saddle was hit at 6.30 am…….! A long night….!

How did you fuel yourself?

As mentioned above, it was tricky to resupply due to the distances between each “shop” and town. When available I smashed choccy bars (Snickers, Bounty and Skittles proved plentiful and in flavours I didn’t realised existed), blocks of cheese (I had 4 blocks in one day) and ice creams. For high calory punches I discovered jam/chocolate/cream roly-poly’s which can easily be eaten like an apple and inhaled in one sitting!
I took 24 bar 50s and 24 gels 50s, which I rationed throughout the event and allowed myself more gels on the days with greater amounts of climbing. Prior to any substantial climb (+2hrs) I inhaled x2 gels at the base and then allowed myself one per hour until the job was as done. The bar 50s helped on the long days with little resupplies giving me comfort that I’m getting good clean digestible food into my body, which was a welcome change to the dry crisps and biscuits.