Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
Bikepacking to the Silk Road Mountain Race: Bishkek to Osh
Ahead of this year’s Silk Road Mountain Race, Josh Ibbett and Alex Kopp toured from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital city, to Osh, where the race began. It turned out to be the perfect way to ramp up excitement for the event and experience the region’s beauty. Watch the video Josh put together from their ride here…
Words and photos by Josh Ibbett
Kyrgyzstan has a certain draw that becomes even more compelling after you’ve experienced it once. The high mountain passes, wild terrain, and incredible landscape have an allure that’s hard to resist. I had been planning my return since my first visit to race the 2023 Silk Road Mountain Race, and so I found myself back in Bishkek once more, ready to race the 2025 edition of the race.
The race was to begin in Osh, situated at the western end of the country, around 400 miles away from the capital city, making for an enticing prologue. Given the high altitude, warm conditions, and cultural differences from Europe, it’s often sensible to spend some time acclimatizing and getting used to the way things work. What better way than a bikepacking trip from Bishkek to Osh?
Based on BIKEPACKING.com’s Celestial Divide route with some inspiration from previous editions of the Silk Road Mountain Race, I set out from Bishkek with Alex Kopp, aiming to cover the distance in around five days. We were joined on the second morning by Helene and Stefan, also racing the Silk Road Race, at the foot of the classic Kegeti pass. Topping out at just under 4,000 meters in elevation, you soon get a rough awakening to the realities of traveling by bike in Kyrgyzstan.
After Kergeti, we deviated from the Celestial Divide route down the Karakol Valley, with the intention of reconnecting to it later. However, like most best-laid plans in Kyrgyzstan, things didn’t quite work out the way we had envisioned. We were not covering enough distance each day to complete our original route in time to reach Osh before the race began, and so we looked for an alternative. That came in the form of a Toyota Land Cruiser 4×4. If you’ve ever wondered if it is possible to fit four fully loaded bikes, four cyclists, and a driver into a Land Cruiser, then I can confirm it is certainly possible; however, it takes some creativity and a little discomfort!
The three-hour journey to the town of Kazerman put us back on track and left us with two reasonable days cycling left. We replotted our route and set off again, glad to be pedalling rather than cramped in a car. As we crested one of the smaller passes, leaving town, we saw a cyclist repairing an inner tube at the side of the road. The cyclist looked familiar; surely it couldn’t be? Sofiane Sehilli was standing at the side of the road, patching his tube for the second time that day. Like us, he had also had to change his route plans, and luck would have it that we ended up on the same random dirt road pass at the same time. Sofiane was heading towards China on his Trans-Eurasia record attempt, so it was great to see him and hear some stories from his journey before he headed off.
As we approached Osh, the temperatures soared. I saw 40 degrees Celsius by midday on our final days of riding. Thankfully, as we approached the flatter part of the country, there were more towns, and with them, more shops for us to buy cold drinks and ice creams to keep cool.
Our journey, at least the bike portion, ended in the city of Uzgen. The one part of our original plan that stayed was that we would take a taxi for the final miles into Osh to avoid the busy highway. Our journey ended at a busy taxi rank in the middle of a dusty, polluted town. It was a stark contrast to the five days of high passes, wild camping, fresh air, and mountain vistas we had just experienced, but it left us wanting more and ready to take on the Silk Road Mountain Race.
Further Reading
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