Here we go with what we called “il tragedione”. Today it was supposed to be a resting day, after the 60km of yesterday. However, when we reached the Karakuli lake we decided to continue to the pass. First mistake: we didn’t buy more water at the hotel in karakuli. We lacked water for all the rest of the day. We reached the pass at 5pm and we started a very nice downhill (finally, after 3 days of only uphill biking). Sometimes the road was paved, sometimes it was in very bad condition. We calculated that we were some 40 or 50 or may be even 60 km from Tashkurgan. I don’t know how, but we got the crazy idea of biking till there. That was the second mistake of the day. No water and still some 60km of biking. On paved downhill we were pretty fast, but on the unpaved we were really slow. Our only concern on the unpaved downhill was with the backsit and at some point Simone’s backsit broke down. We tried to fix it but at the end the only solution was to put the backpacks on our shoulders. In this way we could bike much faster on the unpaved road and it was also a lot of fun (luckily we didn’t have panniers). But the tragedy just got bigger. At 7pm we were still biking and we didn’t have a clue where we were. It got pretty dark, the only lights were our lamps. At least it was a beautiful starry night. At some point, the road became again unpaved (damn!!). We calculated that we were probably some 10km from Tashkurgan, but in reality it was still some 30km… We entered in a very dark canyon. We couldn’t see much but we were pretty sure that there was a river on the left, some road work on the right and a narrow road for us, cars, jeeps and huge trucks. Not to mention the dust and that the water was finished. At some point a jeep stopped and asked if we need help. Help ? The only thing came to our mind was “Do you have any water ?” They gave us one 500ml bottle of water that we drunk in a couple of seconds. The two Chinese in the jeep were driving all the perimeter of China, quite a long trip… So, we continued. The road was downhill but we had to be very concentrated because of its bad conditions. At some point, the road got flat. We cycled till 10pm and still we had no idea how far we were from the city. Sad to say but at some 8km from Tashkurgan we gave up and we got a lift from a pickup.
We really had finished all our energies. My bike computer showed 108km for today. The driver left us at one hotel. We quickly check in, bought a lot of water and went straight to bed. Simply dead. We promised that tomorrow it would have been a really resting day…

The summary is:
Distance: 1008km
Altitude difference: 3600m. -> 4300m. -> 3200m.
Biking time: 9h:50m

This is the highest point where we have been with our bikes. It was hard but we did it

This photo is dedicated to our friends who didn’t believe we could make this trip, we couldn’t buy a decent mountain bike in China, we couldn’t bike at this altitude and we could reach this pass.

Silence, please

It’s about 4pm. We have a little rest and eat a couple of energy bars, even if we didn’t believe in them so much. In front of us there is a rather steep stretch of unpaved (argh…) road till the pass at 4300m. We start biking that we are very concentrated. Not too fast (4-5km/h) but continuous with no breaks. The uphill is tough. Just after the first turn, we both got blood from our noses. Probably because of the altitude and sun. At the base we promised to reach the top even we have to spit our blood, so we continue, always very concentrated on the road.

A proof that Simone prefered to protect the head of his bike and not his head

We finally reached the Karakuli lake at some 3700m. It was not far away from the place where we slept yesterday, but after 60km we were too tired to continue. We met some kids on the way that were running from their homes to say hallo to us.