ТюкалинÑк, riding through the woods
We crossed into a new oblast today. The roads started out the same, but the last half of the day had worse roads than the previous two oblasts. Our route was not very populated. Mostly marsh woods with one or two small settlements.
I set my watch ahead an hour (currently Moscow + 3) but woke up the same time with the sun (each day 5-10 minutes earlier as we travel east rather than all at once at time zone boundary). Nice smooth road the first 11km as we crossed the oblast boundary.
From here quiet riding through the woods. We weren’t sure when a cafe might appear so had a cookie stop at 42km at the ШирÑево bus stop. The cafй was then at 62km in Яман after 16km of bumpy roads and some curious police. Another quick stop at 73km at the intersection to Крутинка where we were told another 40km to the next cafй.
Those next 47km were a bumpy ride with many trucks. The trucks would come in waves and were barely tolerable. At 120km we turned into the wind and saw our promised cafe in ТюкалинÑк. Here we replenished things and got water before cycling out of town and camping for the day. I was fortunate to find an ОмÑÐºÐ°Ñ oblast map, so we can hopefully find our way into the big city (likely two easy days ride from today, though possibly one long day).
127km today, 6017km across Eurasia [Photo: 773, 776, 777, 780]