Leo’s Mum didn’t disappoint us today either. The breakfast was excellent just like the previous two days and today we were going to cycle so we really needed all that energy.
It takes time to eat a big breakfast and then pack everything and load it to the bikes and we didn’t manage to leave until it was 11 AM.

Huge breakfast for a hungry cyclist.

I take care of most of the mechanical issues and navigation while Wej is in charge of the economy. Since we had stayed at Leo’s guesthouse longer than planned instead of camping Wej decided we needed more cash before leaving town.

Wej getting some cash at the ATM

The cycling went just fine and soon we found another touring cyclist who sat resting in the shade of a tree. He presented himself as Marko and he told us he had started in his hometown in Slovenia 40 days ago and was going east for 6 months. He was tired and needed to rest so we exchanged e-mail addresses and said we would try to meet once in Tbilisi.

The house in which Leo has created a guesthouse of his family’s apartment

Borjomi is a small provincial town and the road to it has not much traffic but after the Bojormi road joined the big main road leading from east to west through Georgia, the traffic immediately got a lot more intensive. We had to go back to our routine of Wej riding behind always looking in her mirror and blowing her whistle to warn me about incoming trucks. The road had a shoulder to ride on, but it wasn’t sealed so we often found ourselves riding on the uneven gravel beside. It wasn’t fun and it was difficult.

After a while Wej started to complain that her knee had started to hurt again. She had hit her knee when falling whilst crossing a creek on the mountain a couple of days ago. We had taken several rest days to let it cure, but now the feeling of uncomfort had returned. To have knees that don’t hurt is very important when cycling and we decided to stop as soon as possible and do the rest of the ride to Tbilisi tomorrow.

All of a sudden the bad road ended and was turned into a new 4-lane motorway with a wide shoulder to ride on and beside it some 7-8 km outside Gori we found a huge and very nice looking gas station with an adjacent restaurant and shop. We rode in, parked our bikes and found the best looking gas stations this far on the tour.

The best gas station so far 🙂

In the shop and restaurant section there was free wifi so we decided to have dinner there and discuss what to do next. As we sat there we felt very comfortable and wanted to stay on so we got back to our bikes and rolled over to the gas station part and were soon surrendered by the attendants. After a while of funny chat and jokes we played the trick we learned in Turkey which is asking if there is any camping site in town. The answer was immediately no, but one of the attendants pointed to the lawn between the gas station and the restaurant. Once again our resting place for the night would be at a gas station.

SOCAR is an abbreviation for State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic. Goodwill is a chain of modern grocery stores.

We parked the bikes and took our bag with the computer and went back to the restaurant to google on knee injuries. After a good nights sleep at the gas station we went back to have breakfast in the restaurant. Wej’s knee still ached and we didn’t know what to do so I wrote an e-mail describing the situation to friends back home who are doctor and physiotherapists. They soon replied that it possibly was some internal bleeding in the knee and that the best thing was to rest.

Interior of the restaurant at SOCAR.

After spending the entire morning googling and writing e-mails it was time for lunch. Since we were already at a restaurant we didn’t need to go far. As we sat there eating, we saw another touring cyclist approaching the restaurant. He parked his bike and went in to order lunch and we moved over to his table to have a chat. The guy introduced himself as Simon from New Zealand and told us he was on an extended tour with his son, who had taken the train to Tbilisi.

Food at the SOCAR restaurant. It looked a lot like some thai food.

Most other cyclist we meet are a lot younger than us, but Simon is a few years older and told us he had taken a sabbatical year from work life to go cycling across the Euroasian continent – something that sounds very much like our own situation.

Simon had to rush to meet his son so we exchanged e-mail addresses and said we would try to meet in Tbilisi. As we saw Simon leave we had still not made any decision what to do.

In the morning we saw Marko riding by, by lunch Simon came and left and we still hadn’t started to move. We had now traveled 4630 km from Sweden by our own muscle power but now we seemed to get stuck at a gas station just outside Stalin’s hometown. We still had 70 km to go on the nice highway to Tbilisi but Wej’s aching knee effectively put a stop to it and there was nothing else to do than limp into town and catch a train into Tbilisi.

The knee that stops us from riding…

The purpose of this trip has always been to explore what is between Thailand and Sweden and who the people living there are, but the longer we have cycled, at least I have got more and more attracted to the concept of the unbroken wheel track all the way to Bangkok. This seemed to be ruined now and while we have stayed in the guesthouse in Tbilisi the thought of getting on a train and go back to Gori to ride the 70 km here has struck me. But then again, we do this trip together and it wouldn’t feel good in the end if I have cycled from Göteborg to Bangkok while Wej only has cycled that distance minus the 70 km between Tbilisi and Gori.

Waiting for the train at Gori railway station

We both like Georgia and filling the gap between Gori and Tbilisi is a very good reason to come back another time…. 🙂

Soon we will start our first cheat on this journey

In Tbilisi we checked in at the hostel which we knew Thom was staying at. Thom is one of the british cyclists we rode with for a few days in Turkey and it was a happy re-union when we knocked on the door to the hostel.

Georgia is a wine producing country and in our hostel wine and coffee is for free. Thom and the two of us spent the evening drinking wine and sharing experiences and ideas in the hostel’s little lounge area.

The following day we joined Thom and Nick to the Kazakh embassy to pick up their passports. Then the hunt for a decent bike shop started and we all ended up at Tbilisi’s Velodrome which definately has seen better days, but behind it there were some bike shops were skilled mechanics worked. On the floor in one of the shops we found an old and well used steel frame with the logo of ”USSR Race Team”. A retro bike built on that frame would definately be one of the coolest bikes ever to cruise the streets of western Europe.

Tbilisi’s velodrom is old and in desperate need of repair.

The next evening we called in all the cyclist we knew were in town and went to have a couple of beers at a bar. Since we are all going the same way and are having the same troubles getting visas and ferry ticket to cross the Caspian, the topics for the discussions were obvious.

Fancy painted wall in the bathroom at the pub.