Sometimes, we soar. Europe to Central Asia

Lou's blog

​We swept along the roughly tarmacked road, for a brief moment oblivious to the weight on our bikes, as if it didn't exist, or as if the motion enveloped the weight and gravity swept us on even faster. Sometimes, sometimes we soar. We crested over a hill out of the tall, musty brown pine forest we has been cycling through. The return of the fresh sunlight made us blink and a wave of different colours surrounded us, emerald green fields, rusty red roofes, thickets of dark green, and always the dark blue glint of the sun off a solar panelled roof. The scene that we swung into was one I'd seen so often in Germany and, never far, the familiar shape of a wind turbine in the distance standing out on a ridgeline or plain in the landscape.

We have left Europe behind and are now firmly following the Silk Road in Kazakhstan and the steps of Marco Polo.
Sometimes we soar, whether its in European forests or desert plains in Central Asia theres a childish thrill that comes with cruising on a bike. Three days into our ride through the steppe and after a meal of pasta and potatos the previous night I swept on towards an endless horizon relishing the joy and freedom and barely containing the urge to scream waahoooo! No headwinds or hills can dampen the spirits raised when ahead of you is smooth asphalt and a whole new country to explore.

Here's to European cycling and to adventures to come.