I had four nights in Almaty for some rest, recovery, repair and re-organisation – the four R’s of senior bikepacking.
I did it for a few reasons. Although I’d had two rest days since Urumqi, I felt the need for more rest so I could manage the riding that was ahead of me. These days, I fatigue more quickly and recover more slowly and with a couple of arduous months ahead, I wanted to be rested to start with.
I also needed to repair the top zip on my Alpkit Stingray frame bag. It had definitely worn and my attempts at fixing the slider had been fairly successful but only after much stuffing around. The result was that I had no confidence in it to last much longer. The good news was that the fix I’d done meant that you needed a special technique to open it – so at least it was secure.
I went to see Sergei at Almaty Gear Repair. What a great guy. He works out of the back room of a basement level barber shop. You’d never find him if you didn’t know exactly how to get there. Thanks again to the Rolling Around App for the info.
I keep mentioning Rolling Around, but it’s incredibly useful – for bikepackers by bikepackers. Go use it.
There was also a Decathlon in town and I couldn’t resist. I didn’t get anything big, just some bits and pieces that makes my setup more flexible. I want to have options for food and water storage in the more remote areas. So I then reorganised my gear so I could use the three days to Bishkek as an experiment. I’m always tinkering.
And then, there was rest. I ate well and e en found some food coffee at Steppe Coffee around the corner.
I’ve been tinkering with AI again in planning this trip and it’s come a long way since I was getting it to help me through Checchia in 2023. (Back then it pointed me to many nice places but they were hardly on any particular route that could be followed without zigzagging across the country. I also tried a few AI products in planning the initial portions of this trip and found Gemini to be better than Chatgpt and found Grok to be worse than useless.
So, I gave Gemini my route and asked it about food planning, water availability, power consumption given my phone and camera, altitude effects and Diamox effects on someone my age … And it gave me a really useful summary that I’ve been reading.
So, I bought a new power pack. I didn’t want to miss any footage for the sake of a $30 battery.
The AI response went a long way to easing my anxiety about the road ahead. Anxiety ? John ? After 37,000kms of bike travel ? Yes. I was concerned about the things I asked Gemini about and it helped me a lot.
I still don’t know how my body will react to the remote high passes. I’ve ridden over 5200m before, but that was ten years ago without luggage. We’ll see. Gemini even gave me strategies and told me what to expect.
Of course, it could be wrong.
So, let’s just give it a go and find out.
I also caught up with Pope in Almaty. We had a coffee in the morning he left and interestingly he mentioned anxiety about his trip. When I told him what I’d been thinking, he said – In Zharkent, you told me not to worry and that everything would work out. You should do what you told me to do !
Oh, back to Almaty …
I really enjoyed it. The food wasn’t Chinese for starters, the coffee was a real change for the better, it was sunny, there seemed to be quite a few English speakers and it was beautiful with wide tree-lined boulevards
I relaxed and enjoyed the place.