Cold drizzle
N 51°56'40.2'' E 047°48'09.8''It’s drizzling again today at around two degrees plus. Before we head out into the foul weather, we eat fried eggs and, as is so common in simple restaurants, noodles warmed up in the microwave. There’s not much else here this morning. Then it’s out into the cold. Because of our experiences yesterday, we are already properly dressed from the start. We also both wear thick neoprene overshoes now and don’t start to freeze in the first hour. The cold only creeps up when our clothes become damp inside and out again.
A light and now ice-cold headwind does not make progress easy. The landscape looks dreary in the all-encompassing gray. One of a kind, so to speak. No matter where we look, everything is gray-brown or brown-gray. The hoarfrost from yesterday has melted away. But it’s still cold. I kick my buck forward listlessly. Think of our goal. Will we make it before the snow falls? My face shield now sits over my nose. So I don’t always have the feeling that they could just fall off because of the cold. The condensing breath forms a white frost on the material. In the rear-view mirror I see Tanja driving her horse forward. Her breath rises into the atmosphere like hot steam from under her helmet. Because of today’s long distance and, above all, the low temperatures, we can’t take a break. As soon as we stop to catch our breath, we immediately start to freeze. This forces us to keep moving all the time. Just don’t get a flat tire now, I think to myself. That would be a very unpleasant situation indeed. But so what? Why am I thinking about a flat tire? We’ve only had one so far and won’t be driving one again in this cold weather. My eyes are glued to the speedometer. Only 55 kilometers. I find it hard to motivate myself for another 45 kilometers. Then I look again at a harvested field next to me. It passes us by uniformly. The word monotony comes to mind again. One like the Lei and Lei like the One. What a load of garbage. But it’s all the same here. Everything remains the same. The colors are unchanged grey-brown or brown-grey. Perhaps a little black-brown or is it more brown-black? There is no doubt that the landscape seems monotonous to me, monochrome or perhaps two-tone. The structures unite to form a muddy plain. The permanent fog, or is it low-lying clouds, suffocates the earth of Russia in an identical uniformity. Suddenly I feel lost. Lost in a never-ending land. A country that is just beginning to plunge into a deep winter. A winter that we don’t know in Germany and perhaps don’t want to get to know. Siberia begins not far from here and as far as I know, the average January temperature in some areas there is minus 48.9°C. “Wuhaa it’s cold,” I say, shaking myself. When I consider that it’s perhaps just 0°C at the moment and the extreme value in Siberia is minus 67.8 C, it’s actually really hot by comparison. “Denis stop for a minute!” Tanja’s voice pulls me out of my cold thoughts.
After four hours of uninterrupted pedaling, we drink some apple juice spritzer. It’s actually far too cold to drink, but we’re still thirsty. Then, bent over the handlebars, we devour one of the last Rapunzel muesli bars and pedal on before our hands freeze stiff.
Dusk has long since fallen when we reach a road junction after 96 kilometers. The town of Balakowo is another ten kilometers away. Right next to us is a repair workshop with spare parts sales. “I’ll see if they happen to offer beds for overnight stays,” I say and frog-march into the house in my thick neoprene overshoes. In fact, my hunch was right. They have nice little rooms for the truck drivers. We immediately decide to stay. Our bikes go to the spare parts store while we move into one of the clean rooms. The owner immediately puts a radiant heater inside. Oh, how good that feels. Simply fantastic. I resolve never to complain about the heat. Although the summer was merciless in parts and not so long ago, we are already longing for it again. We take off our cold, wet cycling clothes and jump into the hot shower. “Jaaahhhhaaa!”, I shout, rejoicing in the wonderful jet of hot water. “Fairytale-like! Heavenly! Fantastic!” I continue to cheer, impressed at the same time by how quickly you can enjoy such simple things as hot shower water.
