It had been our first night through freezing temperatures and we spent the morning laughing at the novelty of all our stuff being frozen – the tarp, the bivvys, the water even the eggs we were going to have for breakfast. It was all a novelty still, but that wouldn’t last long

clearing frozen mud out of the cleats

still cleaning frozen mud out of the cleats

A lovely sunny, crisp morning cycling up in the snow. We pulled into a field to get a nice shot of us and the mountain. Finn had a bit of trouble getting his bike back out of the field.

struggling to get out of the ditch

pretty easy, eh Finn?

We were riding along a tertiary route southeast until we hit the main road to Tabriz out of Ardabil which we would then ride west on. A headwind in the morning turned into a tailwind as we turned off onto this main road and we celebrated by pulling for something to eat at a rest stop. 

how about them mountains

We were greeted by a nice attendant who led us over to the shop across the lot. ‘This man’ he said, pointing at the shop ‘is a bit…angry?’ ‘Crazy?’ I suggested. ‘Yes, crazy.’ The shop owner was a bit surly, but not really that bad. We ate our lunch in the station office. Another attendant say there and talked to us through gesture.

‘Iran, Iraq, Irland’ he mimed shooting a rifle. Then ‘No!’ Stopped shooting ‘brothers’ with a big smile on his face. Once he was sure he got the point across he left to go outside.

We rode along the rest of day in semi-covered fields of snow. The headwind was reasonable strong so we were pooped by the time we finished for the day. Found some shelter from the wind under a long bridge spanning a gorge and set up camp. 

cant photo the wind but it was pretty strong here

the bridge we camped under

yes, on top of the tarp and bivvy we brought a tent. We thought we might need it for winter. we did.