Cold Comfort

My eyes watered as I strained to see through the thick clouds enshrouding us, all but obscuring the rock-littered sliver of singletrack we struggled to climb. With visibility limited to only a few metres, we had little idea of what was ahead, though the path was clearly getting steeper. I stared at my feet, cautiously placing one in front of the other while fighting to maintain purchase in the loose, slippery debris. Due to the heavy backpack and bike on my shoulders, every morsel of progress was met with an almost equal measure of backsliding as the brittle shale shifted underfoot.

We were barely 30 hours into a mountain bike circumnavigation of southwestern Russia’s Mount Elbrus, and we’d already run the gamut of hardships. The previous day’s ascent up Elbrus’ boulder-filled flank had been far more brutal than expected, with lung-busting hike-a-bikes up a seemingly endless succession of scree slopes. What we had estimated would be 1,300 metres of elevation gain had turned out to be more than 1,900 metres, and the descent from our first major pass had demanded more mountaineering skills than actual bike-handling prowess.