Jochen Böhringer – MTB & Ultracycling

I took part in the Silk Road Mountain Race last summer already. But even though it was definitely the most impressive and memorable adventure I tackled on the bike so far I somehow was not motivated to write a report. But whenever I see pictures from other events organized by Nelson Trees (like right now the Atlas Mountain Race), I flash back to the Silk Road and scroll through my pictures of Kyrgyzstan and reminisce about those intense days. And before the memories of these days become blurred, I would like to burn at least a few highlights into the digital memory of my blog. So here it is… some pictures of the beautiful country mixed with my experiences.

The data guys can find the whole race replay on MAProgress SRMR 2023 and my specific ride in my Strava recording.

And for those who are not interested in pictures of sun-burned cyclists I want to start with some, taken from the race photographers, which show the enormous beauty of this rough and pristine landscape. 

In general, whenever the pictures in this report are not taken by other participants or by me they will be tagged with the artist behind the lens: Chris McClean (@chrismcclean), Daniel Usmanov (@danilusmanovphoto) and Nils Laengner (@nils_laengner).

After finishing the report I realized that it became quite lengthy. If you don’t want to spend your time reading everything, I can still recommend just swiping through the pictures. Kyrgyzstan is simply beautiful.

Preparation

Some facts first: the event is organized by Nelson Trees and takes participants for nearly 1.900km and 29.000m to climb through Kyrgyzstan. The majority of the race takes place in remote areas at high altitude between 2.000 and almost 4.000 meters and nutritional resupply, weather conditions and temperatures ranging from around -10 to +40 degrees Celsius bring additional complexity.

You can find a detailed description of the whole route at: Komoot Collection Silk Road Mountain Race 2023

So it was clear for me that some altitude acclimatization and proper equipment are crucial. Luckily, in order to make the most of our limited family vacation days, I was able to convince my wife and children that Kyrgyzstan would be the ideal destination for our summer vacation. This meant I was able to use our tour perfectly to get in the mood and prepare for the event! A few pictures of our trip might inspire one or two future participants to do the same 🙂

Two days before the race kicked-off I leave my family at the airport in Bishkek and travel to Karakol to show up for registration, get the bike and equipment finally prepared and most important…to get together with all the other crazy people that think such a race is the perfect way to spend your vacation. As I used the bike already during family vacation for training and do not want to take any risk I spend quite some time at the car wash and in the hotel to get it ready for the race in best condition possible (e.g. new Wolfpack tires, new chain, SON dynamo hub wheel + kLite light and charger, …).

Day 1 – Ghost Town Enilchek and Blizzard

Excitement is at its max when all riders meat at the start in Karakol. To get out of the town and away from the main road with heavy traffic safely, the local authorities accompany the riders in a neutralized start. But soon the track turns into a gravel road and everyone is on his or her own and the rules of the race become valid (e.g. no drafting). A flat but steady climb takes us from 1,600 to over 3,300 meters in altitude over more than 100km before we go back down to 2,500m to the ghost town Enilchek – where the workers of the now abandoned gold mine used to live. It’s located at the very east of Kyrgyzstan in the Chinese border zone. I arrive at the checkpoint at 5th position late afternoon. As the organizers didn’t expect such a fast first segment the checkpoint is not really ready yet.

No food is prepared and also the stamp to document completion of the first checkpoint is not there yet. Fortunately at least a small shop sells some soft drinks and we head into the dawn to climb an old soviet road leading up to a pass above 3.800m. Weather conditions change quickly and besides getting freezing cold it first starts to rain before a blizzard covers the road with snow in the upper part of the mountain. I have to put on all my rain gear and my down jacket to even make the descent. And I still feal miserably cold. Some riders had to take shelter from the weather and by the time I reach the bottom of the mountain again I have moved up to 3rd place behind Justinas Leveika and Artis Žugs. But that is just temporary as I am taken over by Adrien Liechti and Sofiane Sehili again while taking a sleeping break in the early morning hours.

Day 2 – Beautiful views au gratin with hike-a-bike

After about an hour of sleep, the first rays of sunshine create a beautiful atmosphere and I crawl out of my bivvy bag again to start the second day. 

 

After a few kilometers I spot Adrien Liechti at a small shop and we have some small talk over breakfast. A bit later the gorgeous Jukuu Valley starts and it’s going up again for some hours. The last part up to the Arabel Plateau is a real highlight in terms of landscape, but hard earned with a long, brutal hike-a-bike section.

A strong headwind brings cold air and temperatures drop to 1°C while riding up to ~3.800m on the Arabel Plateau. The altitude already takes its toll but the headwind makes it really hard to stay motivated and push through.

But finally a long descent starts and I assume that I can push through until Naryn to get some proper sleep in a hotel. How wrong can you be. Instead, an endless series of river crossings begins, during which I not only get my feet and legs wet, but also gradually become more and more tired. And so I finally decide to sleep in the bivvy bag for another night. I’m just starting to set up my place to sleep next to the track when one of the media cars comes by and films me preparing my dinner and retreating to my accommodation. After two hours I have to continue my journey because I can no longer sleep shivering from the cold as the temperature has meanwhile dropped to -6°C.

Day 3 – From Naryn to CP2 at Kel Suu

Since the last two nights weren’t really relaxing, I’m very tired and it’s hard to really enjoy the track that winds up and down the valley to Naryn.

When I finally arrive in that medium-sized city around midday, I get a simple hotel room to catch up on some sleep and take this opportunity to take a shower. Before that, I treat myself to a real meal in a small restaurant while I congratulate my son Leo in detail on his birthday over the phone.

The stop in Naryn including lunch, search for hotel, shower and sleep takes nearly four hours and it’s already afternoon when I leave the city to go up into the high mountains again. My good mental state after a proper rest is further boosted by a strong tail wind that literally makes me sail.

Only the washboard road and the cold of the night bring me back to the here and now as I work my way up serpentine after serpentine to the border station that controls the entrance to the Chinese border zone. From there we continue through the night and I meet Seb Breuer, Justinas Leveika and Lukáš Klement as we continue up to Kel Suu. Justinas is currently leading the race and we only meet because there is a loop in the route that he just finishes while I start it. At Kel Suu the second checkpoint awaits us and Seb, Lukáš and I enjoy the prepared food, some hot tea and a proper nap in one of the heated Yurts.

Day 4 – Old Soviet Road and how to die of thirst at the Chinese border fence

I share a Yurt with Seb and we leave the camp just a few minutes apart from each other in the early morning close to dawn. He is faster than me going up the insane steep Old Soviet Road. The only things that remind us of the road on this section are the occasional jeep track traces and pieces of barbed wire lying around. So you have to be extremely careful not to miss one of them in the tall grass and get a flat tire or worse. I don’t want to know what happens if the barbed wire gets tangled somewhere between the front wheel and fork at full speed.

I can still enjoy the high-speed descent after the exertion of pushing up and can catch up with Seb once I’m back on the flat. We cover a few kilometers together and wander around aimlessly in the loose gravel and the river that runs through it.

I expect the route to continue like this, but in fact it is the last source of water for the next few hours and I neglect to refill my bottles. From now on it goes endlessly along the Chinese border fence in strong headwinds, very dry air and deep, fine gravel. This „flat“ section is approx. 80km long and rises imperceptibly from 3,200m to almost 3,600m. I’m becoming more and more dehydrated and at times I’m no longer sure whether I can still reach the next water source without outside help.

But finally I reach Torugart, a small collection of houses at a border crossing into China that is used by many trucks to transport goods. I find a trailer with food and something to drink. First, I’m the only guest. But as I gradually refill my empty energy stores with one plate after another and lots of Coke, more and more workers arrive to celebrate their end of work with a small meal and a round or two of vodka.

They are very interested in Germany and the event and with the help of translation apps we have a lively conversation and it becomes increasingly difficult to miss the next round of vodka. So with a heavy heart I leave the cheerful group and continue my journey – now on a wide tarmac road.

What a mistake. I should have found a bed and gotten some sleep instead of starting off tired into the sunset. But before I realize that, the media car driving past creates a bit of a distraction and takes a few pictures.

As soon as the sun goes down it gets miserably cold again. The temperature drops to -6°C and my eyes are slowly closing on the bike. The following hours are some of the most draining experiences of the entire race. I lie down in my bivvy to sleep, but my equipment is simply not suitable for a restful sleep in these temperatures.

My sleeping mat now has a hole and is always empty within minutes. And the strategy of choosing down pants instead of a sleeping bag clearly shows its downside. The cold inevitably creeps into the body through the feet. So after a short while I wake up shivering again and have to ride further to get warm again. The game repeats itself two more times during the night and when the sun rises I’ve lost a lot of time making stops and getting everything prepared for sleep, but I’m not at all feeling recovered.

Day 5 – Baetov to Kazarman

Fortunately the sun brings back some motivation and also temperatures rise stepwise again. I ride up to Mels Pass and take a few photos at an old Soviet monument.

Some riders passed me during the night when I tried to find sleep and I’m meanwhile riding at 6th position when Seb closes the gap to me again (he found a good place in a house for a longer rest) and we jointly approach the last downhill to Baetov. In the city I first replenish my supplies at the supermarket before taking a shower, lunch and a nap in a hotel during the afternoon. Well rested, I start my ride to Kazarman. It starts with never ending washboard sections before getting into the mountains again. 

The road becomes increasingly adventurous and during the night a deep crater suddenly cuts through the road in a quick descent. Unfortunately I’m on the wrong side and the crater cuts me off. I try to brake hard and reduce speed, but in the end I slide into the crater pretty quickly and roll over. 

Luckily I can escape with minor bruises and a bloody nose. And the bike doesn’t suffer anything worse either. It just takes a while until I find my Wahoo navigation device again, which came loose from the handlebars when I fell. When I arrive in Kazarman it’s long after midnight and the doors to the small guest houses are all closed. 

As if by a miracle I still find an ajar door to a property and can get a room for the next two hours. The young man who lets me in even speaks a few words of German because he works in Germany and is currently on home leave. Before I fall tired into bed, I even get some flatbread with jam and honey from the kitchen. Hospitality is really important here and I take the opportunity to inspect my nose and clean the wound.

Day 6 – reaching CP3 at Son Kul via Modlo Ashuu

I have now fallen back to 10th position. But the approaching dawn bathes the valley in a beautiful light and I’m in a really good mood again. I put the chain under tension and in the following hours I can pass four riders again (Lukáš Klement, Josh Ibbett, James Mark Hayden and Sebastian Breuer). The nights are freezing cold but during the day it can get brutally hot as well. And this is one of the sections…

When I start into the day it’s around 0°C but temperature goes up to 37°C in the course of the day. The views are beautiful and I really enjoy them but at the same time it is impossible to hide from the sun in this barren landscape and I feel like a well-done steak on the grill.

Before the long climb up to Son Kul starts (from 1,400m up to >3,300m) I resupply in a small shop that’s also the last commercial opportunity before checkpoint 3. While finishing my late lunch with the 3rd or 4th ice cream from the freezer also Seb and James arrive and do not miss that opportunity of a healthy snack as well 😉 

The diversity of the landscape is impressive and as you climb the vegetation suddenly changes again. Large trees and many bushes line the gravel road along a river. But it is still hot and in order to really enjoy the chocolate I have bought, it is quickly returned from liquid to solid state in the cold stream while stopping to fill my bottles. As I work my way up the climb, bend by bend, I have the feeling that I have found the Stelvio Pass of Kyrgyzstan.

When I arrive at the summit of the Modlo Ashuu Pass, I quickly take a photo in the evening sun and then roll a few meters down to checkpoint 3, which is located in a yurt camp at the beautiful Son Kul Lake at an altitude of around 3,000m. While eating some fish with potatoes also James and Seb arrive. We share a yurt that is heated to sauna temperature with an oven and before I fall asleep I enjoy the last shower of the race. 

Day 7 – Son Kul, Kegeti pass, hospital and mosque

I make another mistake in my sleep tactics and get up after less than two hours of sleep. Together with Seb and James we go up and down on trails and grass paths around the lake. I suddenly become extremely tired again and have to take a sleep break in my bivvy before daybreak. If only I had stayed longer in the comfortably warm yurt camp. Instead, I’m now lying in hoarfrost at minus 5 degrees on a meadow full of cow dung. When the sun rises, I continue my journey, but I’m still not really fit again. A short time later, Lukáš and Josh catch up with me. The route stretches for several kilometers along narrow donkey paths until it ends on a wide mining road. 

The next few kilometers are unspectacular. Lukáš and Josh are always somewhere nearby and we meet one last time while shopping at the entrance to the valley that will take us up to the Kegeti Pass.

The Kegeti Pass is already notorious from previous Silk Road Mountain Races. Not only because of its height of over 3,700m, but also because of the last few hundred meters of altitude, which can only be overcome by pushing and carrying since landslides completely buried the path. But before this section I first go gently up the mountain in the rain. In the pictures you can also see me before I enter the last hike-a-bike part of the climb.

In the upper section it gets really uncomfortable as hail sets in and an ice-cold wind blows over the summit. I put on everything I have and make sure I lose altitude again as quickly as possible. 

The path is initially very rocky and technical, but then becomes noticeably easier and finally becomes a comfortable gravel path. I’m enjoying the flow of the descent and the rising temperatures to the fullest when the fun comes to an abrupt end in an outwardly sloping curve. I lose traction, slip over both wheels to the left and slide at high speed on the right side of my body over the stony ground. The sliding never ends and even as I’m doing it I realize that it’s going to really hurt. When I picked myself up again, I am happy that I didn’t break anything and that the bike is still ready for use. But the feeling of pain and the warm blood running over my skin on my shoulder, hip and elbow quickly make it clear to me that I can’t just keep riding. First I take off the shredded jacket and arm warmers and clean the dirt from the wounds on the nearby stream. In contrast to the abrasions on the hip and shoulder, the injury at the ellbow is not large, but it is uncomfortably deep. And despite the cold water, fresh blood constantly comes out of the wound. So I decide that the wound should be properly cleaned (maybe stiched) and cared for by a doctor. 

So I drive the next 600 meters of altitude further down the mountain until I see men on the side of the road in a small village and ask them for a doctor. As expected, there is no doctor here and the nearest professional care is in the hospital in the town of Tokmok, about 40-50km away. I ask the men to call me a taxi, but that would probably have to come from the city first. And so two of them offer to drive me straight into town in exchange for gas money. I gratefully accept. When they want to load my bike into the car, I make it clear to them that I will come back here later to continue the race and that the bike can stay here. And so it finds a place in the building next door to a mosque.

When I arrive at the hospital, a procedure begins that makes me sweat more than the entire route of the day. The wounds are cleaned intensively and thoroughly mechanically and with disinfectant. And I’m released with a bandage on my arm and a prescription for an antibiotic.

Since I’ve already mentally checked off the classification of the race at this point, I invite my rescuers to dinner in the city before they drive me back to the mosque.

When we arrive back at the mosque, they explain to me that they don’t live here in the village, but that they live and pray in the mosque for a few days with other believers. And that I am cordially invited to spend the night in the mosque with them. And so it happens that around midnight I spread out my bivvy in the prayer room of the mosque to sleep here with 10 to 15 other men.

Day 8 – The race is on (again) – the final boss is calling

Even before sunrise, the place comes to life because the believers wash themselves for the morning prayer. I also freshen up and since I’m no longer in a hurry, I sit down for the morning prayer, which also earns me an invitation to have breakfast together. 

What a perfect start to the day. Refreshed, I set off and when, after a few kilometers, I stop at a small shop to stock up on drinks and food, I am surprised to see on the tracker that the break didn’t cost me that many places and I’m now on 9th position. Firstly because James Mark Hayden unfortunately had to give up the race due to an asthma attack on the Kegeti Pass, but also because I had a comfortable lead over the riders behind me. Aside from the pain of the fall, I don’t feel too bad. With Max Riese and Vlad Podofedov breathing down my neck in the meantime, my fighting spirit is awakening again and I’m back in full racing mode.

What Nelson affectionately calls the bonus climbs in the Race Manual doesn’t look that big in the rest of the elevation profile. But that’s only because they’re a little lower in relation to the final boss (Kok-Ayrik), which is over 3,800m high. And so the bonus climbs last the whole morning and I don’t start the final climb until late in the afternoon. Before that, I fill up my supplies again and enjoy two more ice creams.

This is also the last option, as the valley that follows no longer offers any supply infrastructure, and it is clear to me that I will be on my own the next night. I’m only tackling this final test because the weather forecast is good. If it rained or blizzarded, I would otherwise be in big trouble with my rain gear shredded from the fall.

The Kok-Ayrik is truly a beast. From just under 1,300m it goes up again to over 3,800m. The first part slowly but steadily up a valley on a rough gravel road. But the last 1,200 meters of altitude have to be pushed almost entirely in an infernal hike-a-bike. The rocky path is either too steep or covered in landslides and so I spend the entire night, without a single break for sleep, working my way to the summit, little by little. I can’t check my lead over the riders behind me because there is no cell phone reception throughout the climb. And so I am overjoyed when I can see the summit at dawn and successfully complete this final test just in time for sunrise.

I enjoy the summit to the fullest and look forward to the long descent down to Lake Issyk-Kul. The atmosphere at sunrise and the view are gigantic. But the joy of the bumpy descent is unfortunately marred by severe pain in the elbow. 

And so the relaxed finish really begins when I turn onto the flat tarmac road on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul for the last 20 kilometers.

The finish is in a hotel complex in Cholpon-Ata, a seaside resort with a sandy beach. I’m incredibly exhausted after the sleepless night, but the rush of happiness, that I made it to the finish despite all the odds, is indescribable.

And what’s even better: I beat my dream time of 8 days by 30 minutes and can take home a strong top 10 placement.

After all the exertion and 8 days in cycling clothes around the clock, I can hardly wait to change into civilian clothes after having a fresh shower. Luckily the podium finishers are there to cut me out of my bandage 😉

Post Race Life

After taking a shower I go for breakfast with Nelson and some other riders. But as soon as the adrenaline of the finish wears off, leaden fatigue sets in. I find it difficult to even carry my luggage into my room. And as soon as I reach the bed, I immediately fall asleep. After a few hours of sleep, hunger drives me out of my room again. Now another highlight of these events begins. Everywhere on the site you will meet other participants or the event crew. It’s so great to talk to people who share common experiences. And so for the next few days I let myself drift from one shared meal to the next.

The holiday resort is the perfect place for this.

The only thing that worries me is my arm injury and so I take the opportunity to have the wound cleaned again in a hospital in the capital when a few participants go to the airport in Bishkek. 

Luckily, halfway through the procedure, the doctor decides that it would probably be better to use local anesthesia…

Actually the beautiful encounters and experiences at the finish far outweigh the negatives. But every trip comes to an end at some point, so I put my bike back in my bag and head home after 4 weeks in Kyrgyzstan.

I take with me endless new impressions, beautiful encounters and new friends from a country that I would have had difficulty finding on the globe before planning the trip. Can I recommend the Silk Road Mountain Race? Absolutely – the location and the adventurous event are unique. Would I take part again myself? Perhaps. The demands on driving technique are not that high and the endless washboard sections got on my nerves at some point. However, I have learned quite some lessons on the topic of sleep strategy and sleeping equipment for such a long and remote race and it would be interesting to optimize it again in this regard to achieve a faster time. Never say never… maybe we’ll meet again in Kyrgyzstan sometime 😉