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On the Road: Zand Martin Cycling the Chinese Altai

Checking back in with Zand Martin as he and his expedition partner stalk the Golden Mountains, the Altai, of central Asia. Below, more of Zand’s photos and his luminous prose.

We make certain assumptions when looking at a map. It is a designed object, the recipient of refinement, and bears a certain authority in its geometry. But despite the weight of accumulated knowledge they exhibit, maps are not infallible. The person who designed our map of Xinjiang lives, I believe, in Budapest. I don’t think this person has ever been to this lonely spot in north China, but they created a layered image representing it that was then printed, and is now in a plastic bag in my hands flapping a tih-tih-tih staccato around my thumb and forefinger.

I am in a town that doesn’t exist, and on a road whose route is deviant from the world as known to our Hungarian cartographer. In this barren stretch, we rely on sparse settlements to restock. Beyond the kilometer marker where our village should be, an empty valley of rock, sand, and scrub stretches to the horizon. This is our third phantom village today, and evening has begun to draw the curtain on our misfortune. The road is not right, and the towns we expect for food and water do not exist.

We camp behind a low brown hill, and use our last water to cook our last food. I find a scrap of rug fallen from a camel train and set it before Brian’s tent as an entry way to lighten the mood. I find a scorpion on it as I set it down, spoiling the gift.

The wind rises at 1AM, and we lose our sleep wondering if the tents will hold. They do, and at 6AM we move to the road and encounter an early morning resumption of the previous days direct, soul crushing headwind. Today it is stronger, and has come earlier.

With eighty kilometers to the next settlement and no water in bottles or landscape – not a drop to the horizon – we flag down a truck and are whisked into Beitun. I can think of no other activity comparable to cycling into a 35 knot wind. It is soul crushing. You can still crawl along without much risk, but it is excruciatingly difficult and slow. There is no rhythm. In this land, there is no where to hide and it roars in your ears the whole day long.

The steppe is utterly empty until we reach the abrupt edge of downtown. Our map uses font size to indicate settlement size. Beitun is marked as being the same size as Saribulak, one of the towns that did not exist. In reality, Beitun has 90,000 people in a compact city of modern buildings, leafy avenues, hotels, markets, and restaurants. It is the opposite of the countryside in every way.

Beitun is brand new, and under construction. It speaks of recent Han colonization, of a risen China appropriating its ethnic periphery and casting a web of super modern infrastructure across a landscape unaccustomed to such attention.

There is MUCH more to this story. Read here, here and here for our own past installments, or visit Zand’s expedition 7 for the full text and even more photos. Zand rides an Expat S, built to carry everything he needs over months adventuring in the farthest flung wilderness Earth has to offer.

Behind the Scenes with MM Racing

By now, you know Matt and Mo as two of our favorite sponsored-riders. We have written about their exploits recently here and here. What you might not know about Matt and Mo is that together, under the banner of MM Racing, they are two of the savviest riders/racers in the game.

Matt explains, “MM Racing is really about being our own title sponsor, our own sports marketing company. In 2008, when we teamed up with Seven Cycles and secured product sponsorship for bikes and clothing, we still found ourselves without a title sponsor. At that time, we realized that we were actually our own financial “sponsors” and created our own team name using our first initials. For the next two years, MM Racing served as a place holder or “Your Name Here” for potential title sponsors. In 2010, Bob’s Red Mill filled that spot for us. We remain our own team managers and organizers, now using the moniker MM Racing as more of our sports marketing vehicle via social media, website and e-newsletters.”

“As privateers, we do all of our own marketing,” he explains. “I think a lot of athletes at the elite level just want to focus on training and racing, and we get that, but if you’re not packaging and marketing what you do, it can be hard for sponsors to justify supporting an athlete. Historically, we pay attention to marketing trends and changing the way we approach potential sponsors year-to-year based on current trends and things like laying out ROI for our sponsors. We understand that sponsorship works on two levels. On the one hand, and most importantly, you have a relationship as people. You essentially become teammates with your sponsors, and then at the same time, it’s a professional business relationship, and both aspects have to work for the sponsorship to be successful.”

Mo says, “We have never approached companies for sponsorship we don’t personally appreciate in some way and believe in. The real benefit to our approach is that we get to develop genuine relationships that are part teammate, part professional business. Some athletes may be comfortable with anonymous sums of money from a sponsor, but that’s not what we’re about. We want to be part of a team and show off our teammates. Our approach is akin to our lifestyle. We don’t need a lot, we’re not interested in getting lots of “stuff” for free, we want to be connected to what our sponsors do and who they are on a personal level.”

Both Matt and Mo worked in pro-cycling, Mo as a soigneur and Matt as a mechanic, before getting together, so they both knew what it took to run a tight ship, but all the work of running the team can be a big stress point in their relationship.

Mo says, “We both put so much time, energy and effort into all aspects of our team and our races that when it doesn’t go well for one of us, it doesn’t go well for both of us.”

MM Racing divides their season in interesting ways, too. August through February is Mo time, with cyclocross and mountain bike races dominating their days. March through September is Matt’s time to reel off randonneuring events and other long, meditative struggles against time and distance.

They are in a unique position of being life partners, teammates and running a sports marketing company together. During Mo’s cyclocross season and Matt’s summer Ultra Endurance season, their tasks read like a list of resume qualifications. Matt’s job includes Team Mechanic + Manager, Logistics Coordinator, Social Media/Newsletter/Website Designer + Curator, ultra endurance cyclist. Mo’s jobs include Sponsorship and Marketing liaison, Social Media + Newsletter Content Writer, Soigneur, cyclocross racer.

Mo says, “We work very differently at most tasks and our approach to training and racing but I think our strengths and weaknesses are complimentary. I admittedly can’t multitask very well and that is Matt’s specialty. Matt can juggle five balls and pick up three more without ever dropping one while remaining objective, linear and analytical. It’s essential to managing the mayhem that can come his way during a muddy cyclocross race or unplanned bumps in our travel plans.I can get a little wishy washy in the emotions of things and can do that fake juggling with only two balls. When it comes to my cyclocross racing, I often need time to process the emotions of the day (both good and bad) before I can objectively talk about or analyze a race. Matt can stay the course and compartmentalize tasks and emotions when needed to always be 100% on the job. However, when I am a soigneur my emotional empathy or intuition can end up being the difference between checking things off a list to make sure riders have what they need or just knowing that the thing that might boost their spirits at mile 120 in a 50º downpour is a surprise egg and cheese sandwich.”

Matt adds, “When it comes down to it, we’re really lucky we get to do all of this together.”

On the Road – The Blayleys in Ireland, Part I

John says, in his ever-softening Irish lilt, “I am always trying to describe Ireland to people, and one of the things I say is ‘it’s just a rock, stuck in the ocean.'”

John Bayley and Pamela Blalock, collectively the Blayleys, are fixtures here in our Boston cycling community. We know of no couple who log more miles in a year than these two, everything from the Mt. Washington Hill Climb to Dirty Kanza to rambling tours of John’s home country. This fall, they spent three weeks day-tripping around the Emerald Isle, riding out and back from John’s home in Dublin, before heading to the west coast and then north to Donegal, a pilgrimage of sorts to many of Ireland’s natural, national treasures.

This churchyard sits in an idyllic corner of County Meath, north of Dublin. Many of the old buildings in Ireland can be hard to date just based on appearance. Some are quite old. Others are classic reproductions built in an older style by the wealthy landowners of the 16th and 17th centuries. Some are ruins. Some are museums. And they are all beautiful.

This is Ducketts Grove built in 1830, near Carlow, 60 miles south of Dublin. Surrounded by farmland, the approach to the old estate house is flat, if the road surface leaves something to be desired.

John says, “The riding there, it’s like mountain biking, but on tarmac. The roads curve and twist and undulate.” Over the years, he and Pamela have had good luck with the notoriously wet, Irish weather, but this trip delivered on all the damp, gray promise of that reputation. Pamela rode her Axiom SLX with S&S couplers, a bike we might call an Airheart SLX now, while John rode an Evergreen SL.

Here, Pamela climbs up a forbidding steep alongside a farm. Fenders can be a good idea here, if only to keep the ever-present manure off your backside. The Evergreen’s disc brakes, she reported, keep the bike cleaner, given the conditions, than a traditional rim brake.

John says everything about Ireland is “elemental.” The rain, the wind, the sun, the shift between them, constantly testing your mettle.

It was in their first week, while still based in Dublin, that Pamela encountered her first ever tail wind. Up to that point, she maintained, she had never felt the wind at her back. Sure, she had ridden miles into steady breezes, turned and felt fast on her return, but that was just well-earned speed.

Then, while riding the coast north of the city with their friend Declan on another “elemental” day, she finally felt it, a wind so strong she was able to pass miles without pedaling at all.

Come back to see more from the Blayley’s Irish adventure, and their pilgrimage to the west of the country, or read more of their adventures on their own cycling 7.

Tandemic

A tandemic is an epidemic of tandem-riding. Tandemia (another word we made up) describes the mania for tandems that most anyone who has ridden one succumbs to at some point. Matt O., our production manager, has a serious case of tandemia stretching back many years, and many bikes. He and his wife Susi have been serious tandem riders since Matt’s days at Merlin. Back then, they were only riding tandems when they were “going for a bike ride.”

Then Matt salvaged two old Schwinn cruisers and welded them together to form this bike, a homemade two-seater for rolling around town, hitting up cafes and restaurants and for visiting friends.

Then this bike entered their lives, a small, yellow, folding tandem that someone had (not so) lovingly left out with their garbage for disposal. A friend of Seven’s salvaged it and gave it to Matt and Susi as a gift. This one, dubbed the “Circus Bike,” was a small revelation. It’s smaller wheels and smaller overall size made it much more maneuverable in the city. They began riding it more and more.

The Circus Bike turned out to be a sort of proof of concept. Eventually, Matt built a new tandem, the one below.

Matt built it here in our shop to take the best elements of the circus bike, its smaller wheels and ability to break down, and incorporated it into a better, cleaner package. This bike will pack into a hockey duffel, so they can throw it in the back of the car for a weekend trip, or fly with it. This is the bike they brought with them to the North American Handmade Bike Show in Portland in 2008.

And this is the bike they do longer trips on, their custom Axiom SL 007. You might see them at D2R2 on this rig. They’ve ridden it in Chile and Australia in an ever-changing configuration, Susi always smiling, trying to get Matt to stop for ice cream, to see a friend, or to take a picture, Matt always trying to keep it rolling.

Meanwhile the Circus Bike lives on. Our own Skip Brown, ruler of the Seven tool shop, dark lord of heavy machinery, uses it to ferry his daughters around Somerville.

Photos of Skip and his girls by Ecker Power Photography.

On the Road: Zand Martin Cycling the Mongolian Altai

The soul of adventure is the unknown, those parts of a trip that can’t clearly be seen or arranged beforehand. Zand Martin and his expedition partner Brian engaged that unknown on so many levels as they approached the Altai Mountains, looking for the spiritual home of skiing in central Asia.

Here is another installment of Zand’s trip journal, with accompanying photographs. As ever, we are grateful to him and all those who seek adventure on a Seven.

“Da, yes. Kurgan.” The shepherd pointed behind him without looking. He hunched low over his horse, hands pressed between stomach and saddle horn. He wore a knit ski mask, black leather overcoat, and dark corduroys with patches of thick quilting showing at the knees. He presented an intimidating figure high above, and the gallop that brought carried him across my path reinforced this menacing countenance. Brian had rounded the corner without noticing the stones, and I was alone.Up the valley, where the shepherd pointed, a series of stone rings and cobble piles punctuated an angled plain. In the narrow space between mountain and river, these tombs showed on the surface in gray, weathered rock painted in crimson lichen. They hadn’t been excavated, and still held the remains of some long-dead chariot rider, goat herder, prince, or peasant. The Bronze Age denizens of central Eurasia – Scythian, Turkic, Indo-European – had ridden here, and buried their dead. Above the tombs – kurgans in Turkic – two standing stones marked another site. When I reached the first dark obelisk, I had heard the hooves and spotted the horse and rider hurtling across the plain.

“Turkic? Mongol?” I asked, pointing, trying to fill the silence.

“Kazakh.” Perhaps he misunderstood. The Kazakhs didn’t live here five thousand years ago. They didn’t really exist as a tribe or ethnicity until five or six hundred years ago, but this was a homeland now, and the tombs were, in a convoluted sense, those of their ancestors. While the Russians colonized the Kazakh steppe, many groups escaped over the border of the expanding Empire and settled here in western Mongolia. In Kazakhstan, some say that to find real Kazakh culture you need to look in the remote west of Mongolia.

Under the shepherd’s gaze, I calm and walk amongst the stones. I compliment his flocks, their health and number, and think I see him smile beneath the mask. Beneath hat and hood, zinc and sunglasses, I hide from the sun, while he wears a mask. I am in no danger. I walk respectfully, shake hands, and cycle away as he watches.

We were finally on a downhill run after crossing our last pass, the 3000m Rashin Davaa, and no major obstacles remained between us and China. The main road from Bayan-Olgii aimag runs southeast to Khovd, and then traces a huge loop southwest through a low point where Altai begins to taper into the Gobi. We see a shortcut on the map, a thin, dotted line that runs due south and reaches Bulgan soum and the Chinese border in half the distance. Already crunched for time due to the glacial pace of the Russian embassy, we roll the dice and trade the known for a chance at speed and wildness.

Instead of 800km on the main road, we cross the mountains over rough tracks and pitted roads. These jeep tracks show no sign of intentionality, but instead wander in a braid of ten or twenty lanes where one jeep followed another, and then bundle together over passes and rivers in washboard, sand, and boulder. With almost no information and the barest of navigation aids, we are certainly taking a risk. Not so much of physical harm, but of discomfort, despair, and time wasted. A friend in Olgii assures us there are towns, traders driving the route, and a public bus that goes everyday. In the event, we are passed by a handful of vehicles in five days, and only two dusty outposts with bare shelves mark the route. We eat ramen and carry water from one valley to the next, constantly fretting as bottles run down and we go without.

Over Rashin, we roll along the Buyant and Bulgan gol, descending from alpine to steppe to desert. We are dry. I wake each day with cracked lips and swollen eyes, dust in every pore and ephemeral daydreams of trees, green grass, and water. Scraggly poplars appear as we drop, and mud brick houses and gers show up along the river. We pass a string of Bactrian camels laden with baggage, household goods, and the stove, poles, felt and canvas of a packed ger. Women on horseback plod along with them as horsemen maneuver the flocks around the train. Bits of color trail the lumbering beasts of burden: bright felted rugs in swirling dual tone motifs, and bits of scarf or jacket were a young child has been bundled.

We rejoin the pavement as a sandstorm rages. The valley dissipates, the walls exploding apart, and the river is lost to sight. The mountains diminish. We turn into sharp hills of gravel and sand, and grind down towards China.