In the apartment sipping some beer, thoughts of the 1995 trip flood back.
That journey had lasted three months and spanned 6200 kilometres. With 4000 kilometres under our belts we had been thoroughly fed up. We were psychologically finished with that ride long before our legs were relieved of the menial, mind-numbing chore of turning over the cranks, long before our intestines ground out the last grit-ridden Xinjiang food. If we’d learned anything for future reference, it was to keep the distances in check.
Brice walked to the China map. We’ve got to reconcile the 1995 lesson with the need to acclimatize to Tibet, which means approaching it from afar. Yet we definitely want to sew Lhasa into the itinerary, and the end point must be Kashgar.
Inspecting the map, there is a sense of pause. The trip looks like probably in excess of 4,000 kilometers. We have less than three months to finish the journey, and we swore there would never be another ultra-long-distance bicycle trek.
It is clear that we should start in Golmud. It will save us 800 kilometers.