Prelude: Asheville

The Suspense Is Killing Us

Apr 02, 2022

Hello hello!

Welcome to the first issue of the now erroneously-titled1 Beijing to Barcelona Newsletter.

In case you’ve forgotten (or someone signed you up for this email list against your will), our names are Phil and Carter, and we’re cycling the Silk Road.

With our start date less than a week away (April 7th), I figured it’s high time we check in. It’s been a crazy year of route planning, job quitting, gear tests, and canceled flights. We have a lot to catch up on.

But before we start, I want to thank you all for subscribing! The idea of so many people keeping up with our adventure fills me with a warm, gooey sense of purpose.

I feel loved. I feel seen. I feel the need to manage your expectations.

Disclaimer:

Like any good correspondent, my ambition is to write well. To entertain. To create and share something worthwhile. In this endeavor, I will fail… often and with verve.
Anticipate many nights that are uninteresting. Cold and wet. Hungry. Exhausted. Expect an occasionally grumpy narrator, writing to you from the desert on a frustratingly small phone screen with clumsy, fat fingers.
As the months roll from one to the next, I hope my flirtations with quality occur more and more frequently. But even if the writing fails to improve, I hope it keeps us connected.
So stay tuned. Reply to these emails with questions you want answered. Tell me what you’d like to read, and I’ll make it my mission. You want next steps? I’ll include them. Enjoying the logistics? Let me know.
Hate my poetry? That’s tough. There will be more.
Some updates will be overmuch. Some might only be a few words. I still plan to write weekly-ish, though a general lack of internet access and the crushing weight of my own unrealistic expectations are sure to impede that schedule. I’ll try to write often enough that you don’t forget me :)

Now without further ado…

Asheville:

Some sounds are louder in their absence.

The roar of cars as they thunder down the street. The high decibel whine that pervades our electric world. The monotonous droll of round-the-clock advertising. We grow accustomed to their abiding presence, and they fade to background - a kind of discordant soundtrack for everyday life.

Out here in the Shining Rock Wilderness, I note the conspicuous lack of engines and find relief in a different mixtape. Churning water and chirping birds. Crunching leaves. Treetops rustling, jostling, jesting as we do. A feeling of play, punctuated by Phil’s horrendous puns.

These are the sounds I look forward to on our 10,000 mile journey.

We’re perched on the side of a small mountain, bellies full of steaming rehydrated gumbo, our solar light illuminating the thin nylon dome that we’ll call home for the next 9 months. Phil wrestles with his new ‘self-inflating’ sleeping pad as we mull over trip-related things: our connections in Asia, the feasibility of a podcast, our lamentable lack of TikTok clout, our questionable grasp of social media in general. It’s dark out but still early; we have a couple hours until the day’s hiking catches up to us.

We trekked a little over 10 miles today and logged about 4000 ft of elevation. Not bad considering how many times we stopped to muck about on rocks and fallen logs. “You know, it’ll take us years to reach Spain if we stop this often for pictures,” Phil chided. I let out a full-bellied laugh, and the shutter on my camera chirped in agreement.

Tomorrow, we continue our trek through the mosaic of Appalachian landscapes, and despite my aching calf muscles, I couldn’t be more stoked. The creeks, the woods, the peaks, the meadows. Out here, I feel truly lifted. It’s a good sign for the months ahead. Fresh air. Sun on my face. The kind of congratulatory soreness that accompanies well-worked muscles and makes you giddy for sleep.

Back in the tent, Phil struggles in vain to inflate his new bed, and I’m again grateful for the chance to test our gear before we leave. I can imagine few fates worse than being caught in a rainstorm with a defective tent, 10,000 miles from the nearest REI. Finally settled, we snuggle into our sleeping bags and - in what Phil deems an “elite move” - roll back the rainfly.

With the gentle ‘click’ of our light extinguished, millions of tiny suns wink into existence above our heads, and a dazzling Milky Way spills toward the horizon. Tired of talking but not yet ready for sleep, we stare up at the night sky in silence, mesmerized.

Peering out at the stars, I thought long and hard about how glad I was to be out on that mountain, how excited I was to be going on this trip with Phil, how ridiculously lucky we were to be cold and shivering and breathing and alive. We wouldn’t hear about it until we returned to civilization, but that same night, Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. A week later, our flights would be canceled. We’d be busy calling embassies and consulates again, hard at work on a contingency plan. But that night, I could sit and listen. No cars, no phones, no talking heads. Just a gentle draught and the easy breathing of two young explorers, eager to prove themselves on the open road.

With the storm flaps closed, we call it a night. I start to drift off as the wind buffets our rainfly, reminding us of the tenuous division between shelter and wildness: a flimsy waterproof membrane as light as a toaster. It feels laughably insignificant beneath the endless expanse of sky.

Recently:

Phil drives 100 miles to snag the last Trek 520 Grando on the east coast

China doubles down on zero covid policy; we create “Plan B” start in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Team conducts gear test on gorgeous thru-hike near Blue Ridge Parkway
Carter builds out Tumbleweed Prospector in childhood home with help from family pug

Putin’s invasion puts Russia off-limits; back to the drawing board
- “Plan C” (current route) is born
Phil celebrates last day of employment!
- “There’s nothing quite like closing your laptop for the last time at a job you don’t care about.”
Carter flies to meet ‘Phil from Philly’ in Philadelphia for cheese steaks and final prep

Next Steps:

Due to the war in Ukraine, we’ll be skipping Russia and starting our Silk Road expedition in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan (some 250 miles from the Russian border). Our route will look a bit different than planned, but our end goal remains the same: bike west to Barcelona.

We set out on this journey knowing full well that not everything would go as planned, and while we’re supremely disappointed to miss out on cycling the Mongolian Steppes, it’s not going to get us down. Maybe in the future, we’ll be able to go back and finish what we started. For now, we survive to bike another day.

Our new flights are scheduled for this Sunday, April 3rd. It will take two full days of flying to reach Nur-Sultan. From there, things will continue to go wrong. I guarantee it. But this trip has always been about doing something worthwhile. Something to be proud of. And those tasks are rarely easy.

Til Next Time!

Please reach out with questions, comments, and suggestions of any kind. Whether you know someone in Kazakhstan, have an audiobook recommendation, or just want to say hello, we’d love to hear from you. Just reply to this email.

Check back soon for our first post from the road!

Cheers,

Carter 🌸

P.S. Follow me on instagram for more pictures from the trip!

P.P.S. If you want to support our little adventure, you can buy me a cup of coffee. Here’s the link to donate.

Help us with new newsletter name suggestions! Some food for thought: Silk Road Dispatch, Tent Memoirs, Tent Posts, Kazakhstan to Catalunya, Phil and Carter Are Still Biking, What Happened to Phil and Carter, etc

Silk Road by Bike

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