Date: October 22nd, 2016
Distance: 94 kilometers
Song of the Day: Spirit of Radio - Rush

Today was flat, nothing exciting. There are a surprising number of little towns out here. Since the terrain is conducive, the first indication that a town is coming up is seeing red and white radio towers in the distance. For some reason they always tend to clump up in threes. It reminds me of riding through Africa. There as well, I could tell I was arriving in a town if I could see three radio towers. (One radio tower was almost always nothing. Two was rarely a town. Three was almost always in a town.)

Another thing I have noticed is that the sun is getting lower in the sky. I'm getting fairly far north and as I head into winter and I'm getting less and less sunlight. The sun now only reaches up to a quarter of the sky. It just makes a shallow arc over the horizon. It leads to one beautiful little reaction. The obtuse angle of the sunlight cast on the snow makes it sparkle. As I ride along, the snow glitters like diamonds. It may be cold out here but that doesn't mean it isn't beautiful.

As much as I talked about camping out, I was hoping to find a nice warm place inside. I stopped for food near Dakky, but they didn't know of any place to stay. So after a quick supper I headed back out into the cold. A few miles out of town I found a place off the road to pitch my tent. Stopping is hard. In the dark, without moving, any excess heat evaporates quickly. It sucks. Still, once I was in my tent I was nice and warm in spite of a temperature of -25.



-Dravis

Date: October 21st, 2016
Distance: 109 kilometers
Song of the Day: Hot Weapon - PonyHomie

Today was crisp and actually somewhat warmer than I expected it to be. I hadn't gone a full kilometer before I had to start removing layers. I have found that it is better to be cold than even a little bit too warm. At least with the cold you can get moving again to heat up. Getting too hot means you sweat and that is a bad idea. Yesterday I found ice growing on the inside of two different layers and that's no good. Today went much better and I didn't have any problems.

The road itself continues to be fairly flat. There are no hills here more than a hundred meters tall so really it's just long, lonely miles. Well, they aren't that lonely. I am surprised at how much stuff there is out here. There are still towns every 20-50 kilometers and there are also farms in the areas between. It really isn't as remote as I expected it to be.

The landscape does get pretty boring. The afternoon was mostly cloudy. The grey clouds blended with the dark trees and snow so the only splotch of color were the fields of straw-colored grass. It gave everything a kind of sepia tone. It was pretty in a way, but boring after a while.

I made it into Charapcha less than an hour after dark. Getting to town was my goal for today, and I'm glad I made it, but I still haven't been out camping with my new gear (my sister used my down sleeping bag when we went out camping) so I am actually looking forward to camping in the cold. Hopefully tomorrow will be my day for that.

-Dravis

Date: October 20th, 2016
Distance: 52 kilometers
Song of the Day: Number Two - The Pernice Brothers

This morning I started early with a short trip by hovercraft. I have never been on a hovercraft before and it was a lot of fun. They can take some pretty intense terrain. We hit some big chunks of ice a few feet tall and the thing just bounced over them. I was almost sure it was going to rip through the skirt of the hovercraft, but the machine just seemed to take it in stride. It was noticeably slower in water than on ice, but even that didn't seem to be a real problem. Steering on the ice was... unusual. These craft have a giant propeller in the back that both pushes them forward and changes direction. Since there isn't much friction in that equation I often found that we would be going one direction while the craft was pointed in a very different direction. The machine was as happy sliding sideways on the ice as it was moving forward. Strange, but it didn't seem to really matter. In the end I got to where I was going. We did have to cross a channel of open water that had a working ferry. Damn, maybe I could have taken that yesterday? Oh well. This was more fun. That ferry had a tug boat lashed to the back to push it along, so it was going slowly.

My first stop was to head back to the sign where I had stopped two weeks ago. The journey by bicycle continues from this point, at least in my mind. Plus, it made a good place to get a photo.

From there on it was just putting in the miles. Nothing too exciting here. My sister told me that when she was flying in the land around Yakutsk was very flat and I can confirm that. It is flat with frozen ponds dotting the landscape. (If you get a chance, check it out on the satellite view of your favorite mapping app.) The traffic here was also much better. I think only one large truck passed me all day, plus maybe a dozen small box trucks. So things have gotten a lot safer and I am quite glad for that.

The new bike is doing great, but it is a totally different experience. It's like going from driving a pickup truck to a tank. I know fat bikes do handle a bit differently, but really it is the weight. I have so much loaded onto this thing that turning is a bit sluggish. It does kind of eat gravel though. Just point it in a direction and it goes. I can just grind along for kilometers at a time.

I end up stopping quite frequently to blow my nose. Dear readers, you don't get out of this without hearing about some of the downsides to this trip and a drippy nose in the cold is one of them. It isn't so bad but yeah, I do spend a lot of time getting rid of mucus.

The sun began setting earlier than I wanted it to. Suddenly I found myself in a little town. I know this part of Russia isn't completely remote or anything, I just didn't expect a town so soon. I thought of just passing it by but I figured I might as well eat food that I didn't have to haul out here whenever I get that chance. So I stopped in to a little cafe. I ended up talking with the boss and he asked where I was going to stay. I told him that I didn't know and he invited me to sleep at his place. Okay, I don't mind sleeping outside, but staying inside is certainly preferred. It's easier logistically because I don't have to pack up my tent and sleeping bag in the morning. It is also better because I don't have to spend as many precious calories trying to stay warm. Anytime I get the chance I am going to try and stay inside.



-Dravis

Date: October 19th, 2016
Distance: 12 kilometers
Song of the Day: One More Night - Pill Collins

Well, that was not what I wanted. I thought I was all ready to go today, but that was certainly not true. I still had to pack up my stuff. How long can that take? It turns out, a long time. I spent most of the day dealing with that. I am probably carrying 70 pounds of gear with me. It seemed like as soon as I got everything packed up I would find something else that needed to get packed in with it. Once I had it all packed I still needed to get it on the bike. Using panniers is great, but when you first get them on you have to fiddle with them to get everything adjusted right. Like, my boots kept hitting the rear panniers when I pedaled so I had to stop and fix that. It was late in the afternoon by the time I actually got done with all of that and got on the road.

I was told because of the ice that the ferries had stopped running. I came to Yakutsk two weeks ago and the Lena was totally free of ice. Since then the river has mostly frozen over. Remember that the Lena is about the size of the Columbia river, so that is kind of an impressive feat of nature. We were a bit shocked to see how much it had iced over the night my sister and I camped next to it. Mostly clear when we arrived, completely iced over in the morning. Of course the ice isn't solid enough for me to bike on. At least, not entirely. Hope is not lost though. Some locals told me about a "padushka". I didn't know what they meant. One of the guys looked up the word on his phone and told me that it was a hovercraft. For some reason I didn't believe them. It seemed crazy to me, but as long as it would take me to the other side I was fine. So I headed out looking for the hovercraft dock.

I spent about two hours looking for the place. I rode through the docks where the ferries were all moored. A couple of small hydroplanes had been hauled out of the water and were sitting up on stands. The larger boats had just frozen in place. I am guessing they won't move until the spring. The sun set on me and I still couldn't find the place I was looking for, though. I kept asking people and kept getting different directions. In the end it turns out I had passed where I wanted to be about three times. It wasn't a dock. It was just a little cove of frozen river, and I'll be damned but there were a dozen hovercraft pulled up on the beach. I rode on down to get a ride. Nope, it was too late. All of the pilots were heading home for the day. Crap. Ah well. What can you do? I guess Phase 2 starts tomorrow. For real this time.



-Dravis

Date: October 18th, 2016
Distance: Rest day

Okay, I should actually, truly, for real, no lyin', be ready to leave tomorrow. I have all the stuff I need to ship out ready to get shipped. I have all the supplies I need. I even got the new stuff uploaded to my blog. My cold is mostly gone. I have been here way too long. It's time to get back on the bike. Phase 2 of the trip begins tomorrow. If I can find a way to get across the river that is...



-Dravis

Date: October 17th, 2016
Distance: Rest day

I made a huge push to get ready to get out of town today but still failed to get some of the last supplies I need. I also couldn't find a box for shipping extra food packets on ahead to Magadan. It was frustrating to waste that time. Oh well.

I got a lot of good work done, though. That included getting pictures and my blog ready. I spent more than 12 hours today hunched over my computer. I was up most of the night and realized at 4:40 AM that I wasn't going to be leaving. Damn. One more day.



-Dravis

Date: October 16th, 2016
Distance: Rest day

Okay, my cold is much better. I am still not perfect, but that can't be helped. I tend to find that head colds have a long tail, so I know it'll take a while to be fully myself again.

I managed to get some stuff done today. Yay me.



-Dravis

Date: October 15th, 2016
Distance: Sick day

This cold isn't done with me yet. Urgh. Another day wasted.



-Dravis

Date: October 14th, 2016
Distance: Sick day

Well crud, I really do have a head cold. I still have lots to do, but it's hard to think about anything when it feels like your head is about to explode.



-Dravis

Date: October 13th, 2016
Distance: Rest day

I dropped my sister off at the airport this morning. It was sad to see her go, but I can't thank her enough for coming out to see me. I had such a wonderful time. She said that she was worried about coming out here, because she's had to leave her family at home, but knew she would regret not doing it. I'm glad she did. It has been so fantastic to get to spend some real time with someone I know from back home. It makes me feel less alone in the world.

I was thinking of taking off today, but I still had lots of work to do. Making things worse, I was coming down with a sinus cold. I tried to get as much done as I could, but it wasn't easy. Hopefully the cold will clear up soon.



-Dravis