90 | Cycling World
January 2017
11Stage
Sivrihisar – Gaziantep , Turkey
( 12 – 22 Dec )
Total miles cycled : 3,250 ( 5,230km )
Eventually , after six hours of unremitting dreariness , I stop in a small village called Ovacik . It turns out to be a lacklustre , barren hole of a place , filled with tractors , dung heaps and cement huts . After a brief search , I discover the entire male population in the café – about three dozen of them , in a collection of leather jackets , flat caps and beanies , some talking , most staring into space . All turn to me as I enter , and silence descends with a crash . Have I misjudged this terribly , I wonder ? Have I stumbled into some malignant backwater where visitors are fed to livestock for sport ?
No , as it turns out . Half an hour later I ' m chatting pleasantly with the local mayor via Google Translate . One of the older men invites me to his family house for the night and I spend an enjoyable evening eating everything they own and meeting everybody they know . All the older women are housewives and stare at me fondly . Do they like Erdogan , I ask ? An enthusiastic yes . Am I Christian , they ask ? No , I admit . Married ? No . I detect a flicker of disappointment , but no judgement . The maternal mollycoddling continues unabated .
I sleep well in their toasty living room , and leave by 8am the next morning after a feast of chips , bread , jam and olives . The chill continues to curl its spindly tentacles about my bones as street and sky meld into one , a white gossamer ghost . Everything seems weak , brittle , blanched . When the inevitable pfffffft occurs , I half expect it , but my heart sinks all the same . It ' s clear that Maud ' s in desperate need of new tyres , but she ' ll have to wait until Beirut – a mere 500km down the road .
My morale remains low as I climb high into the Taurus mountains , only briefly uplifted by the whoosh of the Turkish Cycling Federation passing me by . Then , as my arse starts to pulse and smoulder from the strain , the fog suddenly lifts to reveal thrillingly bright blue skies . I turn my face to the sun and feel its warmth for the first time in weeks , its rays dappling my skin like electrolytes , its breath thawing my soul .
The next day , I reach the summit – and narrowly avoid plunging headfirst into the Mediterranean after a glorious , breakneck 50km plummet all the way down to the sea . Next stop : the Syrian border …
Follow Rebecca ' s journey at thebicyclediaries . co . uk , on Twitter at reo _ lowe , on Instagram at bexio8 or on Facebook at bexbicyclediaries . She is sponsored by Kona , Lightwave , Garmin , Arkel , Berghaus , Lenovo and Pedros .
90
- Galata tower , Istanbul