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Things have been quite busy at work this spring and this has wreaked all kinds of havoc with my race training. I'm travelling alot and have to really eek out training time from a busy home-work schedule. I'm usually pretty good at doing this -- somewhat to the detriment of getting a square 8 hrs. of sleep per night but mixing training and travel is a bit tougher. Last year I had a nice Concorde frame chopped and S&S coupled to serve as my faithful travel companion allowing me to get some training in while away from home and, tangentaly, to bring you some travelrama picture shows from the riding I've been doing. Why am I boring you, dear reader, with all this seemingly trivial detail? Simply because I want you to understand that I had a very good reason (or so I convinced myself) to bring said travel bike with me to Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Rationalisations can be very dangerous things -- especially those of the most egregiously warped kind as the one I have just gone through for you in the above paragraph. But I had convinced myself that bringing the Concorde was an eminently wise and crafty way of reconciling my work schedule and my need to get some quality training in -- and to bring you back some insight on what can be expected from cycling the roads of the Absheron peninsula.
I was wrong.
So very, very.....v.e.r.y. WRONG!
But first, let me say that I truly enjoyed two aspects of Baku -- the superlative hospitality and kindness of the Azeris and the wonderful quality and beauty of the the architecture and layout of the centre of Baku... which is rapidly being destroyed by a cancer of disnyesque cookie-cutter skyscrapers financed by the ruling class' petrodollars and guided by what seems to be limitless fascination with kitsch.
But about the riding....
Cycling the Absheron peninsula is not a good idea. It is in fact a very bad idea and one that on a good day might land you in a hospital bed with your shattered legs in traction and that, on a bad day, might ensure that your memory is forever preserved in the official road mortality statistics of the Azeri Road Transport Administration.
The landscape outside of Baku, such as it is, is bleak, polluted, covered with alternating expanses of rusting soviet-era industrial factories, refineries and associated detritus, shacks allowing glimpses of the most abject poverty and meagre fields where rank crops and sickly flocks of sheep compete for the few favours of a land otherwise indelibly marked by the hydrocarbons that have been both a boon and bane for its inhabitants.
Oil is everywhere -- in the obscene wealth that has migrated to those members of the ruling family and its small cadre of hangers-on, in the smell of the air, in the black soot that lines the inside of your nose and in the brown scum that laps the seashore of the Caspian sea. A long time ago, flaring natural gas seeping from the ground gave rise to one of the fundamental elements of one of the world's first monotheistic religions: Zoroastrianism. Back in the mid-1880's, the first industrial oil boom brought money and made the fortunes of many Azeri and foreign oil barons -- including the Nobel family. The city of Baku built out of the old oriental walled city that had served as the centre of regional power under independent and then Persian rule and became quite a developed and western-style agglomeration where the Azeri, Jewish, Armenian and European populations lived in relative harmony under the relaxed brand of Shia Islam that still is observed by the locals today. Much of that harmony (and especially the relations with the Armenians), for a number of reasons, went out the door after the short-lived first Republic of Azerbaijan in 1917-1919. I won't go into the politics of the various conflicts that have marked the country since then but will just say that they have been bloody, brutal and have left a seemingly indelible mark on the population.
.... Back to the ride report....
Flying in and out of Baku is not as straightforward as flying in and out of many cities in Europe -- planes only come in and leave on certain days. Thus, my travel schedule, built around a 2-day conference, had 2 mostly free days on which I planned to ride. My bike, however, would have none of it and decided that the airport seemed so bleak that it preferred to stay on the plane. It travelled on to Ashgabat (capital of Turkmenistan), from whence it went to Kiev in the Ukraine before being brought, kicking and screaming, back to Baku two days later via Frankfurt thanks to the kind offices of Lufthansa. Luckily, I had my work clothes in my carry-on. I am, however, the proud owner of 2 pairs of Azeri socks and underwear! So, my first day of riding was shot -- but seeing as how the Azeris follow a very loose interpretation of the traffic code and view red lights as a reminder to honk before crossing an intersection at full speed -- I wasn't too put out. I spent the day exploring the city centre of Baku which, traffic hell notwithstanding, is really a rather pleasant place.
After the conference, I headed out early Saturday morning east towards the tip of the peninsula on what I will with full confidence categorise as the most hellishly unpleasant 2.5 hours of bicycle riding I have done in my life. The soviet-era decaying appartment blocks thin about 10 kilometres east of Baku just in time to signal the virtual border beyond which the roads department has not laid asphalt down since Leonid Brezhnev was a glimmer in the politburo's eye. I thought I knew potholes -- but let me tell you, I knew nothing! The roads out east of baku give a whole new dimension to the word "BAD". In all fairness, they did spiff up near the airport -- just in time to be swamped by a constant flow of antidilluvian Ladas and soviet trucks whose lack of functional brakes was directly commensurate with the speed at which they traveled.
I stopped once to get directions back to Baku and breathed a sigh of relief once I entered the maelstrom that is Baku traffic -- it reminded me of Paris traffic -- Paris traffic on crystal meth! But at least the flow was slower and predictably unpredictable like urban traffic can often be. I headed up to the velodrome on the northwest side of the city and spent an hour inside doing sprints and kilo runs -- just to make sure my lungs would be good and coated with a fine membrane of the everpresent diesel particles that hang in the air. After that, I tootled through town on my way back to the waterfront and my hotel.
What follows are mostly pictures from that ride interspersed with some pictures from when I was walking around.
But first a bit of context for the geographically challenged. 2 maps: one of Azerbaijan and the second of the Baku region with my ride in red.
Also, one of the hotel front with the omnipresent Azeri police. The Sign is the title of the conference where I was presenting.
Rationalisations can be very dangerous things -- especially those of the most egregiously warped kind as the one I have just gone through for you in the above paragraph. But I had convinced myself that bringing the Concorde was an eminently wise and crafty way of reconciling my work schedule and my need to get some quality training in -- and to bring you back some insight on what can be expected from cycling the roads of the Absheron peninsula.
I was wrong.
So very, very.....v.e.r.y. WRONG!
But first, let me say that I truly enjoyed two aspects of Baku -- the superlative hospitality and kindness of the Azeris and the wonderful quality and beauty of the the architecture and layout of the centre of Baku... which is rapidly being destroyed by a cancer of disnyesque cookie-cutter skyscrapers financed by the ruling class' petrodollars and guided by what seems to be limitless fascination with kitsch.
But about the riding....
Cycling the Absheron peninsula is not a good idea. It is in fact a very bad idea and one that on a good day might land you in a hospital bed with your shattered legs in traction and that, on a bad day, might ensure that your memory is forever preserved in the official road mortality statistics of the Azeri Road Transport Administration.
The landscape outside of Baku, such as it is, is bleak, polluted, covered with alternating expanses of rusting soviet-era industrial factories, refineries and associated detritus, shacks allowing glimpses of the most abject poverty and meagre fields where rank crops and sickly flocks of sheep compete for the few favours of a land otherwise indelibly marked by the hydrocarbons that have been both a boon and bane for its inhabitants.
Oil is everywhere -- in the obscene wealth that has migrated to those members of the ruling family and its small cadre of hangers-on, in the smell of the air, in the black soot that lines the inside of your nose and in the brown scum that laps the seashore of the Caspian sea. A long time ago, flaring natural gas seeping from the ground gave rise to one of the fundamental elements of one of the world's first monotheistic religions: Zoroastrianism. Back in the mid-1880's, the first industrial oil boom brought money and made the fortunes of many Azeri and foreign oil barons -- including the Nobel family. The city of Baku built out of the old oriental walled city that had served as the centre of regional power under independent and then Persian rule and became quite a developed and western-style agglomeration where the Azeri, Jewish, Armenian and European populations lived in relative harmony under the relaxed brand of Shia Islam that still is observed by the locals today. Much of that harmony (and especially the relations with the Armenians), for a number of reasons, went out the door after the short-lived first Republic of Azerbaijan in 1917-1919. I won't go into the politics of the various conflicts that have marked the country since then but will just say that they have been bloody, brutal and have left a seemingly indelible mark on the population.
.... Back to the ride report....
Flying in and out of Baku is not as straightforward as flying in and out of many cities in Europe -- planes only come in and leave on certain days. Thus, my travel schedule, built around a 2-day conference, had 2 mostly free days on which I planned to ride. My bike, however, would have none of it and decided that the airport seemed so bleak that it preferred to stay on the plane. It travelled on to Ashgabat (capital of Turkmenistan), from whence it went to Kiev in the Ukraine before being brought, kicking and screaming, back to Baku two days later via Frankfurt thanks to the kind offices of Lufthansa. Luckily, I had my work clothes in my carry-on. I am, however, the proud owner of 2 pairs of Azeri socks and underwear! So, my first day of riding was shot -- but seeing as how the Azeris follow a very loose interpretation of the traffic code and view red lights as a reminder to honk before crossing an intersection at full speed -- I wasn't too put out. I spent the day exploring the city centre of Baku which, traffic hell notwithstanding, is really a rather pleasant place.
After the conference, I headed out early Saturday morning east towards the tip of the peninsula on what I will with full confidence categorise as the most hellishly unpleasant 2.5 hours of bicycle riding I have done in my life. The soviet-era decaying appartment blocks thin about 10 kilometres east of Baku just in time to signal the virtual border beyond which the roads department has not laid asphalt down since Leonid Brezhnev was a glimmer in the politburo's eye. I thought I knew potholes -- but let me tell you, I knew nothing! The roads out east of baku give a whole new dimension to the word "BAD". In all fairness, they did spiff up near the airport -- just in time to be swamped by a constant flow of antidilluvian Ladas and soviet trucks whose lack of functional brakes was directly commensurate with the speed at which they traveled.
I stopped once to get directions back to Baku and breathed a sigh of relief once I entered the maelstrom that is Baku traffic -- it reminded me of Paris traffic -- Paris traffic on crystal meth! But at least the flow was slower and predictably unpredictable like urban traffic can often be. I headed up to the velodrome on the northwest side of the city and spent an hour inside doing sprints and kilo runs -- just to make sure my lungs would be good and coated with a fine membrane of the everpresent diesel particles that hang in the air. After that, I tootled through town on my way back to the waterfront and my hotel.
What follows are mostly pictures from that ride interspersed with some pictures from when I was walking around.
But first a bit of context for the geographically challenged. 2 maps: one of Azerbaijan and the second of the Baku region with my ride in red.
Also, one of the hotel front with the omnipresent Azeri police. The Sign is the title of the conference where I was presenting.
