The Silk Road Mountain Race. 1700km of self supported bike racing through the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Eat and sleep when you like but the clock never stops. This is a test of physical endurance but it’s also the winner might not be the strongest on a bike. They might be the one who escapes illness, manages their kit best, copes with altitude or can handle exposure or isolation. It might also be that the winner is not the person who crosses the finish line first. 

Lee travelled to Kyrgystzan a month before the innagural Silk Road Mountain Race in order to explore the country and experience the culture at her own speed first. In doing so, she got so much more than she bargained for. 

Tickets are £20 and available from Ghyllside Cycles This includes dinner courtesy of the fabulous Chesters pizza oven and chef.

https://www.ghyllside.co.uk/silk-road-mountain-race-lee-cragie-tuesday-2nd-october.html#.W6IFna2ZPEY

This gives you time to attend Kate Rawles talk at Ambleside University at 5.30 first.

In 2017/18 Kate Rawles aka @CarbonCycleKate rode the length of South America on ‘Woody’ a bicycle made of bamboo that she built herself at the London-based Bamboo Bicycle Club from bamboo grown at Cornwall’s Eden Project. From Colombia to Cape Horn, (or as close as you can get to it on a bike), Kate and Woody – the UK’s first ‘home-grown bicycle’ - travelled for 8288 miles following the spine of the Andes through an astonishing variety of landscapes and ecosystems, from Pacific ocean to high Andes paramo; from cloud and rainforests to Bolivian salt flats and the Atacama desert. The aim was to explore biodiversity: what it is, what’s happening to it, why that matters and, above all, what can and is being done to protect it – and then to use the adventure story to help raise awareness and inspire action on this hugely important but relatively neglected environmental challenge.

https://www.cumbria.ac.uk/about/events/university-events/ambleside/iflas-open-lecture-kate-rawles.php