Day #4 How I Crossed the Pamir Highway

Two bikepackers ride a wide, rocky dirt road through a dry, mountainous landscape. Sparse vegetation covers the hills flanking the road, with distant mountains under a partly cloudy sky. One cyclist wears a red backpack; the other rides ahead farther down the road.

Considering I slept in a ditch near the Pamir Highway and got up before four in the morning, I didn’t feel bad at all. The forecast didn’t let me down and the wind calmed down in the meantime. Had I known, I would’ve slept in Sary-Mogol yesterday and spared myself that nasty wind altogether.

What pushed me forward wasn’t just the urge to catch more racers, but mainly the grim forecast. In the area I was in, a decent amount of rain was supposed to fall in the morning. If I moved north in time, though, I could dodge it altogether and come out of it with dry feet.

Overnight, not only did the wind calm down, but so did the traffic. Climbing toward the “40 Years of Kyrgyzstan” pass, only the odd stray truck passed me. I was lucky with drivers—if two weren’t meeting head‑on, they gave me plenty of room. And if they were… I dove into the ditch.

At three and a half thousand meters it was already freezing. Effort had kept me warm until then, but a long descent was coming, so I pulled on winter gloves, shoe covers, and waterproof pants. One short undulation. And then? 100 kilometers of descending, dropping 2,000 vertical meters. Everything in Kyrgyzstan is massive.

🛣️ Pamir Highway

First, let me stress again that the Pamir Highway is no highway—definitely not by our standards. Two lanes. A centerline only in your dreams. Up to the highest pass it was at least asphalt. As I rode through the valley between mountains, that alternated with plain, packed dirt.

On top of that, it started to drizzle. Luckily I was already fully suited up in waterproofs, so it didn’t cost me much. After an hour it stopped completely.

For most of the way I had a headwind, so it didn’t feel like downhill at all. At best I’d call it flat. And believe me, fighting the wind for a hundred kilometers is anything but captivating. The views were beautiful, sure, but they get old after a while.

Flocks of sheep blocked the road, shepherds on horseback herding them along. Cars and trucks forced their way through with loud honking. And I tried to slip through behind them.

Sometimes sheep, sometimes horses

A paved road stretches through a mountain valley, bordered by white concrete barriers on the left and a gravel shoulder on the right. Rugged, brown mountains rise in the distance, with a small settlement of houses and trees nestled between them. The overcast sky casts a muted light over the arid, remote landscape—typical of a quiet bikepacking route through mountainous terrain. — There it is—the Pamir Highway

I rode in that endless valley for about seven hours before turning off the “highway” in the town of Gülchö. I stopped at a bigger shop—self‑service again. Food wasn’t much of a problem in Kyrgyzstan. There weren’t many restaurants where you could get a “normal meal,” but the selection in stores felt more than sufficient. It was a contrast to, say, Atlas, where there was always “something,” but they basically had nothing.

💩 And then it started

In the shop I was hunting for a protein source. I often bought cheese or looked for ready‑to‑eat meals in a can. As for dairy, I trusted yogurt or a little Danone bottle, but the fermented mare’s milk the local herders carried at their belts was a hard pass. Here, for some reason, canned fish caught my eye—great idea, right? Even as I rode away from the shop, my stomach felt off. I had to clench my cheeks hard while threading a densely populated area. The “runny” episode was solved by a pair of Imodium tablets.

I kept going “on the road”. On mapy.cz it was orange, but in reality it was just plain gravel. They’d laid asphalt only in the villages so there wasn’t so much dust. When I was unlucky and a truck rolled past me, thick, dark clouds rose.

Otherwise, riding that valley was great. A gentle climb suited me much more than a gentle descent. I was enjoying Kyrgyzstan so much I caught myself thinking this wasn’t such a hard race. Atlas and Hellenic felt much tougher at that moment.

A rugged mountain valley with a fast - flowing river, crossed by a narrow wooden bridge with concrete supports. Steep, rocky hillsides dotted with sparse vegetation rise in the background under an overcast sky. The foreground features rocky terrain, while trees line parts of the riverbank—typical of a remote bikepacking route.

A dusty gravel road curves through arid, rocky hills under a bright blue sky with scattered clouds. Cows stand on the road ahead; power lines stretch across the landscape. Sparse dry vegetation lines the route, typical of a remote bikepacking trail.

A bikepacking scene: A winding river flows through a rugged valley. In the foreground, reddish-brown dirt and dry grass. Steep, sparsely vegetated hills flank the river, with patches of green shrubs and dry terrain. Distant mountains rise under a dramatic sky of dark, billowing clouds with sun rays breaking through. The remote, challenging landscape suggests a backcountry route.

A dirt road winds through a rugged mountain valley under a partly cloudy sky. On the left, a large blue and white sign with non-Latin text marks the area near rocky terrain. Towering, rocky mountains with sparse greenery rise in the background, with a deep valley below. The remote, scenic landscape suggests a challenging bikepacking route.

👮 I’m sleeping indoors!

I knew very well what awaited me tomorrow—the dreaded hike‑a‑bike section over 30 kilometers long. I tried to get as close as possible but didn’t want to enter it yet. The organizer warned us that it includes several heavy fords that tend to swell in the evening due to melting ice, and there’s a chance they can’t be crossed safely.

I planned to sleep just past the very last village. I hoped some shop would be open at night. In Kyrgyzstan, things are livelier in the evening than in the morning. When I saw lights and a cluster of racers, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. It turned out to be a police station, and the officers invited us in to sleep there. I couldn’t resist.

I even ran into Hannes, the guy I wrote about in the first part whose bike had gone missing. Since I started long after the others, I didn’t really bump into the same people like you usually do at these races. I made friends for a day at most.

They told us to take our valuables inside because things get stolen here. I no longer had the energy to explain that my biggest valuable is my bike… Also, who would steal at a police station?!