Thursday 19th July 2018
I slept like a log after yesterday’s marathon effort, I visited the SPAR for my breakfast sitting at their mini bar not quite up-to Japanese 7eleven standards but definitely well on the way!
The weather has improved and so has the main road now almost as bad as the UK, in fact I saw a team filling in the potholes using a truck mounted Hydrog PA-5000 Patcher (Cambridgeshire CC please note).
Riding along the dam into Zavolzhe was tough with a huge headwind and seemingly never ending. It was interesting to see the huge derelict power station at Balakhna with all the decaying district heating pipes the whole vast place now just used to house cell phone masts a real sign of the times.
I stuck to the very busy main road as much as possible although given the narrow width of the lanes & the size of the trucks it is a tad scary at times.
Nizhny Novgorod Is a huge city and really tough negotiating all the tram lines curving across the busy road. I finally made it to the river bridge to be confronted with a 200foot climb into the city with the heavens opening up as I crawled up the hill. I made it to the Ibis Hotel suitably soaked 🙁 I thought I would award myself a rest day here unfortunately you have to stay 3 days to get any laundry done! (most countries it’s overnight or even a couple of hours).
I now have less than 2000km to go to the Caspian Sea!
