The Soul of Manas: Traversing Kyrgyzstan’s Talas Range by Mountain Bike

Some marked trails were non-existent or had been washed away by landslides. Impossible passes, blocked trails, treacherous rivers with no crossing points followed. When the tarmac disappeared, we bumped along a double track until our four-wheel-drive submitted to the rubble. We set up camp by the Baikyr River, below our first pass, Chon Kyzyl Bel, eight kilometers south of the Uzbek Border, and Patrick laid out a set of large-scale, decades-old Russian maps – the only ones available of t…