On the edge of the abyss

(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).

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Because of the upcoming pass crossing and the uncomfortable bed, I hardly slept at all. Completely exhausted, probably also because of yesterday’s exhausting day, I open the zippers of my sleeping bags and look through the cloudy window pane at the dark coniferous forest that stretches over a mountain ridge not far behind the house. The morning sun has not yet made it over the peaks of the mountains, which is why the small village is freezing in their shadow. “I’d love to stay in bed,” I say, yawning, quickly closing the zippers again and crawling into the warmth of the two sleeping bags. At 9:00 a.m. it is still not a degree warmer. Although today’s stage is only about 55 km long, we have to cross the high pass. So we have no choice but to leave the warmth of our beds. We slip into our sweaty cycling gear and climb down the concrete steps to wash our faces and brush our teeth at the only washbasin in the house. So that the residents don’t get frostbite during their morning toilet, there is a thermos flask of hot water next to the washbasin, which can be mixed with the frost water in a plastic bowl. As is often the case in the countryside, the toilet is a hole in the ground. Sawdust is scattered to prevent slipping on the frozen urine. After a quick clean-up, we carry our bike bags, charged batteries and everything else down the steps. Once again, we are supported by helping hands.

The sun has already climbed over the ridges. We sit next to our loaded bikes, outside for the first time since we’ve been in China, and have breakfast in front of the restaurant opposite. This time there is a heaping plate of rice, eggs and vegetables. It is already 12:00 noon when we get on our saddles and leave the village with its helpful and friendly inhabitants behind us. As soon as we pass the town sign, the climb begins. As our batteries are full and the climb is not supposed to be longer than 15 kilometers, we take it easy. There is no sign of ice or snow up to an altitude of 1,600 meters. “Maybe it’s all melted away already?” says Tanja confidently. From 1,700 meters, the first small patches of snow appear. We avoid them and continue to make good progress without any difficulties. At an altitude of 1,800 meters, we already have to slalom around the increasingly frequent patches of ice and at 1,900 meters, large areas of the road, at least on the north side of the mountains, are completely covered in ice and snow. “It’s damn slippery!” I warn Tanja as my rear tire suddenly spins and my heavily laden bike begins to lurch dangerously. “Drive through the snow on the far right! The tires have better grip there,” I shout. Snow and ice crunch beneath them. To our right, the path descends steeply. A few hundred meters ago, the climb was still quite pleasant, but suddenly it becomes a suicide mission. Suddenly I hear Tanja shouting behind me. I carefully apply the brakes and stop immediately. Tanja pedals with great concentration about 50 meters behind me. She didn’t make a sound. It was the crunching or something else that made me think that. When she sees that I’m standing, she’s about to stop too. “Just don’t stop! Drive very slowly and carefully! As soon as the tires come to a standstill, nothing works anymore!” I warn. Then she almost runs past me at walking pace. Just a little inattention, a wrong steering movement and she would inevitably crash. “What madness,” it goes through my head. Meanwhile, Tanja disappears around the next bend. I think about how to get out of my situation unmolested. It’s so slippery that I can’t even lift a foot to swing it over the center bar. Not a chance. I stand there frozen and don’t know what to do. Stopping was absolutely the wrong thing to do on this surface. After I can’t push my bike a millimeter further up, I let it roll slowly backwards. The hanger buckles immediately. As you always have to steer in the opposite direction with a trailer, i.e. think in reverse, it can happen that you cannot reverse any further because the trailer is parallel to the wheel. This is exactly what has now happened. To get out of this situation, I would have to drive forwards again. This is impossible because of the icy ground. So I need Tanja to help me push the bike off the slippery surface. “Tanja! Taaanja!”, I shout, hoping to be heard and assuming that the ice surface behind the bend is interrupted and she is waiting for me there. Apart from the chirping of a few birds, I get no response. “What a load of crap,” I curse. Then I dare to lift my right foot over the center bar again. The left-hand man almost slips away. I can only hold the bike with a lot of luck. One option would be to actually lie down on the road with my bike and then crawl out from under it. What a messy situation. “Concentrate Denis,” I admonish myself. I stand there completely still and breathe in and out deeply. “Now,” I order myself and lift my right foot again. This time I actually manage to get him next to the bike without falling. I let a minute pass and try to push the bike. I immediately slide off with both feet. Then I put the bike on the side stand, uncouple the trailer, push the e-bike from the ice onto a snowy surface, pick up the trailer and hitch it up again. Ajaci squeals happily and says the whole thing is just a game. Sure, I could let him out of the hanger now. That would make it easier for me to start up. However, I would have to click him with his leash to the special device that is attached to the luggage carrier. This in turn means that Ajaci has to run exactly alongside the bike during the tricky ride. So he’s not allowed to pull on the lead, which he usually does when he’s new to the bike. In this case, it would definitely put me on the nose. Letting him run free is also not a good idea because cars keep crashing down the pass. They don’t seem to care about the slippery road or are unaware of how slippery it really is here on their supposedly safe four tires and how close death beckons to the occupants from the deep ravine. So I get back on my Riese und Müller and pedal carefully. The rear tire immediately spins and forces me to dismount. It works on the third try. Slowly I make progress. The tires are rolling, but things are looking up again. Tanja actually stopped just a few hundred meters after the bend. “What took you so long? I was getting worried and was just about to run off to see if anything had happened.” “Oh man, I’m telling you. It really was a mistake to stop on such a patch of ice. Thought you’d called me though. What the hell. I’m back again. But we have to be careful as hell. It’s even more slippery than we thought. In some places, even walking is a challenge,” I explain as one of the few cars comes round the bend at far too high a speed. To warn the driver, I wave like a wild man. He doesn’t take the slightest notice of this and rushes towards the ice patches where I was having so much trouble getting ahead. We watch the vehicle and wait for it to lose traction at any second and plunge into the gorge. Before we know it, we’re rushing over the ice without skidding. “Lucky,” I say, shaking my head. “What do we do if it’s also this slippery on the other side of the pass?” I ask Tanja, as we’re still standing there, gathering strength for the next patches of ice that surely lie ahead of us. “What do you mean?” “We can’t drive a meter down the mountain on this slippery road. We can always go up, but down… impossible. We can’t even push the bike. As soon as you pull a brake, it’s gone,” I say thoughtfully. “Maybe we’re lucky and the sun has melted everything away. Could be?” “If it’s a south-facing slope, it’s possible,” I agree with her. “Let’s pray that it is,” I say, whereupon we continue our slide.

You pass frozen waterfalls and a sometimes beautiful winter landscape. I would never have thought that winter would catch up with us again at this time of year or that it could put us in danger again. I’d love to stop to take a photo or two, but as the snow and ice have buried the entire tarmac on large stretches, I can’t even dream of doing so at this point. In the meantime, we have worked our way up to 2,200 meters. I feel as if we are walking on a minefield, because just a brief stumble, a wrong move and the slippery surface would throw one of us onto the hard ground or send us into the abyss. What’s more, horror thoughts keep crossing my mind: what will happen when we reach the top of the pass? “Can it really be ice-free over there? And what do we do if it’s not? How should we proceed then?” Despite the effort, the increasing cold creeps under the wet, sweaty clothes. Then large road signs appear, stretching across the mountain road like a bridge. In fact, the sun is shining here at 2,300 meters and there is no more snow to be seen, at least on this section. “Looks good!” I shout. We stop, laugh freely, clap our right hands together and are glad to have reached the top of the pass in one piece. “Super,” says Tanja exuberantly. We take a few victory photos. Then we put on our rain jackets and thick gloves so that we don’t get cold on the descent. And who would have thought it? We are incredibly lucky. In fact, there is no ice or snow on the road on this side of the mountain. Simply incredible. We roll along on a never-ending 37 km descent and feel like adventurers who have just escaped from a wild lion…

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