Keep going, keep going, keep going, just don’t give up!

Even today, there are no clouds in the beautiful blue sky. In a good mood, we roll our bikes out of the room and carry them from the second floor to the courtyard. A light breeze moves the flowers in the garden. “Will he come back?” “Who?” I want to know. “Well, the evil wind?” “Ha, ha, ha. Maybe. Better the bad wind than the bad wolf,” I joke.

We let the loyal and reliable bikes roll out of town. As two roads lead to our destination for the day, we often ask for directions. “Prijama, prijama!” (straight ahead), we are told. At the next fork in the road, we reassure ourselves. “Wait a minute. I’ll show you the road,” says a Russian, jumps into his car and drives slowly ahead. “It’s unbelievable how nice these people are,” I say, delighted by the constant willingness to help. At the crossroads, he points us in the right direction. We would like to thank you. The man gets back into his Lada and drives back to where he has just come from. “He drove here especially for us,” wonders Tanja. A road sign indicates 82 kilometers to Asov. “And we want to get there today?” asks Tanja. “If the wind allows it,” I answer confidently.

A large cemetery on an open, unvegetated field borders the town. Three women are sitting in front of it selling fruit and vegetables. “Pull over for a minute. I have to take a photo of the women!” I shout. Before I take out my camera, I introduce myself to the ladies and explain where we are coming from and where we are going. When they understand me, they are downright gobsmacked. Then I ask if I can take a photo of them. “Gladly,” they giggle and sit down behind their modest stalls. “Me too. Me too, please,” shouts the third of them, her goods gleaming in the cool morning sun a few meters away. “Of course”, I am pleased to have such willing photo models. She positions her apples, pears, potatoes, onions and nuts and smiles into the lens so that my picture turns out well. We laugh together and share a beautiful moment together. Then she takes pears, apples and nuts, puts everything in a plastic bag and kindly hands it to me. Now I’m flattened. A woman who obviously doesn’t have much to survive on gives me a few kilos of fruit and nuts. “No thanks, it’s far too heavy for my trailer,” I also kindly decline. “Oh no! It’s not too hard. Take it. You need it. You’ve come this far. You need something to eat,” she chats and holds out the bag to me. Further refusal would be tantamount to an insult. That’s why I’m ashamed to say yes. I run to Tanja, who has held my bike in the meantime, and show her our treasures. Then I put everything in the trailer. Because even plastic bags are valuable here, I give them back. The old lady smiles at me again and thanks me. “No, no, I have to thank you,” I say again, ashamed, and shake her hand goodbye. We drive away waving.

We make progress for the first few kilometers without much crosswind or headwind. Then, oh dear, a border post. “What kind of border is that?” I wonder. “Strange, and in the middle of Russia,” says Tanja. A traffic light is red. A video camera hangs above the road. I’m not entirely comfortable in my own skin. The negative experiences of Transnistria still somehow stick in my craw. Cars overtake us and are stopped by the guards. As we cycle up, the men in uniform laugh and wave us through with a friendly greeting. “Who would have thought it?” I am also pleased with how smoothly this control post went. The road then leads through a depression overgrown with reeds. As soon as she winds her way out of there, the evil wind has found us again and the efforts of the last two days continue from this moment on. “If it goes on like this for 80 kilometers, we’ll be finished tonight!” I shout.

After 36 kilometers, the road bends to the northeast. Now the wind no longer blows from the side, but hits us head-on. Without a doubt, crosswinds and diagonal frontal winds are tough, but it’s almost impossible to cycle directly into the gale. We shift down to seventh gear. Then to fifth, fourth and third. Just to make any progress at all. As if we were fighting a never-ending seven percent incline, we work our way up meter by meter. Now it’s time to switch off the brain and just work. Kick, kick, kick. The fact that we are only making very slow progress is a minor matter. The main thing is to kick and not give up. We sweat like racehorses as we cross the finish line, our sweat immediately dried by the wind. It’s cool despite the sunshine. Standing still is hardly an option. Our thighs do an incredible job. Thanks to a well-functioning body. Thanks to a psyche that doesn’t play tricks on us and doesn’t let us down here in the open terrain.

My head is empty. I see the different shades and patterns of the asphalt glide past my eyes. Dark, light, dark, light. Then again various objects that were pressed into the bitumen by the car tires. The wind whistles around the Uvex helmet, whistles around the aluminum frame of my stallion. Sweat trickles down my forehead and into my eyes. They burn. “Don’t stop. Just don’t stop kicking. It’s no good. It’s not time for a break yet. We can’t stay here. Not a good place to take a break. But where? Where is a good place?” My brain wakes up for a few moments and sends information that I don’t want to know at this point. Go on, go on, pedal, pedal. The wind is blowing. He howls and sings his song. A song about the tremendous effort of riding against wind force six or more. More? “It’s a shame I don’t have an anemometer with me,” a thought allows itself to be voiced into the void. “Why? What am I doing here with an anemometer? Doesn’t stop the wind either,” another thought counters. Kick, kick. The breath is rattling but the lungs are working perfectly. “Doing a good job. A really good job,” a thought whispers in praise of the lungs. Then there is silence again. Only the breath flows. Not hectic. It flows in rhythm. The breath of a reliable performance machine. Further and further into the wind. Thoughtlessness. How nice. Nice to think of nothing. Only the wind speaks and sings. Otherwise, the moments, the moments, the seconds, the hours, the time pass. “What is time?” asks the rested brain. “Time is experiences. Time is life. Time is being. Time is endless,” I hear inside me. “Surely the storm can’t blow like this forever? It is also subject to time. So time can’t be endless.” “Yes, it can. It is endless. The storm is not subject to the law of time. It only takes place. It blows and stops again. Blows and stops again. It has nothing to do with time. The storm exists independently of time. Only you as a human being measure the length of its effect in numbers that you attribute to time. It is structured by people. It is thus made comprehensible for you. But time is and remains endless,” it flares up in my brain. The breath flows. The heart beats to its own rhythm. Blood rushes through the veins. The street changes its shades. The thoughts come to a standstill again. Have gone back to sleep. Oh how nice it is to think nothing. How nice it is just to be.

We stop at a gas station. Buy four liters of water to fill up our Source water backpacks. Huuuiiiiii! The wind howls around the corner of the house and throws Tanja’s bike onto the hard stone floor. She is on the spot immediately. She lacks the strength to lift it up. After careful consideration, a gas station attendant agrees to help her. I can only stand idly by because I have to save my own machine from falling. While Tanja holds my bike, I check hers for damage. The cranks have not been damaged. The handlebars are straight and the wing mirror has miraculously survived. Only the chain has jumped out of both chainrings. I’m reintroducing them. I take a test ride and hand my wife her steed with satisfaction. We continue into the wind. On and on. It is already 15:00. By then we had managed to brave the storm for 50 kilometers without clouds. There are still 40 kilometers to go, says a direction sign on the side of the road. Further and further into the wind. “It’s going to be tight,” says Tanja. “Yes, but we can do it,” I reply. The body is still functioning. For six hours now. It will continue to function. The breath flows. The heart beats to its own rhythm. The blood rushes through your veins. What a challenge and what a feeling of being fit. Fantastic. The perspective is undoubtedly important. Do not swear. Don’t grumble against the wind. What is the benefit? Nothing. And yet there are times when I would like to raise my fist to the heavens and strangle this evil wind by the throat. But what’s the point? Nothing.

The road winds its way north. The wind now hits us from the side again. Our speed immediately increases to 15 kilometers per hour. Then the road bends to the east again. Wind from the front. Without mercy. Challenge. An ostrich farm appears at the side of the road. We leave the bitumen and take a few photos. Where do we get the energy from? I don’t know. I just want the photo. There are certainly not many ostrich farms in Russia.

Our speedometer shows just under 90 kilometers per day. We almost can’t believe it. Despite the wind. Despite the storm. We are satisfied with our performance. Perhaps precisely because of this. With tired limbs, we ask for a guesthouse in a suburb outside Asov. “Nope. That doesn’t exist here. Only in Asov. It’s another ten kilometers to the next Gastiniza,” we are shocked to hear from two young Russian women in very high heels, wearing pretty dresses, stalking along the roadside. Once we have clarified the questions of where from and where to, we mobilize our dwindling reserves of strength. My thighs are burning, pumped up to bursting point. Your neck is tense and your wrists have difficulty supporting your upper body on the handlebars. Let’s move on. Further into the wind. The last kilometers. Hopefully. After the town sign, the road rises again for a final challenge. It’s going up. Slowly but steadily we pedal up the hill. Then the first houses. The slipstream lies over us. The last rays of the sun are just fading away. We stop and ask for the Gastiniza. “Before I tell you that, you have to tell me your name,” says a nice but somewhat drunk older man. “Tanja and Denis,” I say pleasantly. “Ah, that’s nice. You’ve got a pretty Tanja with you. My name is Sergei,” he replies. I am not surprised. Soon half of the Russian male population will be called that. The man grabs me amicably by the arm and wants to know where I’m coming from and where I’m going. Then another driver stops to join in the conversation. Tanja and I are sweating profusely and starting to freeze. What’s more, there are millions of mosquitoes in the village that are swooping down on us like kamikazes. No wonder, because our inflated muscles must be a land of milk and honey for mosquitoes. Just one quick prick of the stinger into the plump flesh and the delicious blood shoots into the trunk. “I can’t take it anymore,” I shout to Tanja. I defend myself, arms flailing, while the gentlemen bombard us with questions. “We have to keep going,” I say to the man who is now holding on to my handlebars with one hand. He looks at me. Starts to laugh and releases him. We say “Spasiba i Doswidanje” (Thank you and see you again) and get our horses going. Leaving the mosquitoes behind. “Prijama, prijama!”, we are told again and again until we suddenly come to a halt in front of a large run-down Eastern Bloc hotel bunker. “Looks expensive,” I say. Tanja guards the bikes and I check out the store. Heavy as a mammoth, at least that’s how I feel, I climb the wide stairs to the reception.

The cheapest room costs 1,100 roubles (32,- ?) including breakfast. We remain. Our bikes find a place in the luggage storage. We get everything up to the ninth floor, with an elevator of course, and sink onto the sagging mattresses. We look at each other happily. “Just under ten hours in the saddle and 98.61 kilometers with a stormy side and front wind. Not bad,” I say with a laugh. “Yes, fantastic. My thighs won’t fit into any pants now, though.” “Never mind. Your legs look wonderful. I think you have the most beautiful ones in the whole world.” “Do you really think so?” “I really do.”

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