BikeCamp 2018

A few days ago, I found out about a bike camp that was going to take place over the weekend. The camp involved camping, kayaking, and, as the name suggests, biking at Lake Sevan. I am not particularly fond of biking, but I have improved over the past year and now prefer biking as a mode of transportation. I have also participated in several Critical Mass bike rides in Berlin. From there and from my friends, I know that the biking scene in Berlin is quite lively, so I thought it might be the same for the community in Yerevan. The ticket for the camp, including food, train ticket, and campsite, cost 14,000 AMD, which is about 30 euros. The team arranged a bike for me, and I invested around 20 euros in camping equipment.

Biking is not very common in Armenia. So, the hostel staff seemed surprised when I told them about my plan. My coolness factor went up. Wow, biking? Adventurous girl! Together, we looked at maps to see how I would get to the meeting point at the train station the next morning. It was only 7 km, so I thought I could do it in half an hour. However, the boy looked a bit concerned. He told me that the route was quite hilly and recommended that I plan for an hour.

As planned, I set off at 6:45 in the morning on my blue city bike. The meeting point at Almast Station was set for 7:45. I quickly realized that "hilly" was an understatement. The 7 km route was steep uphill. With every turn, I hoped for a flat road, but instead, it continued to go uphill with gradients between 7 and 15 degrees. I was on the verge of tears. My legs were burning, and time was passing too quickly. I would never make it in an hour since I had to push the bike at several points. And then, the chain came off! Yippie! I gave up on reaching the train station and tried to fix the chain. Fortunately, an Armenian guy saw me struggling with the bike and luckily, he knew how to handle bikes. In a few seconds, the chain was back where it belonged.

Panting, I arrived at the train station at 8 am, only to find out that the train was scheduled for 8:30. About 10 of the 30 cyclists were also at the station, looking at me critically. I realized that I was the only non-Armenian among them. Moreover, I looked like a casual cyclist, while many of the men in the group were dressed like professional cyclists. However, a helpful Armenian guy took care of me, and we chatted for a bit. He told me that it was his first time riding such a long distance on a bike since he is usually a climber. Well, still athletic. The next Armenian guy told me that he could "relax" and ride the 7 km uphill in one hour, but he had done it in 30 minutes before. What? What elite sports camp had I stumbled upon here?

In Shorza, we arrived at the train station and cycled together for 7 km to Artanish. My legs were still burning from the morning ride. I was struggling! But I was not alone; I was in the middle of the group. There were some who were even slower than me, including the athletic guy with a six-pack who clearly had strong arms but lacked cycling endurance. Like me, we collectively blamed our slow pace on the rental bikes.

The camp was beautiful. The lake shimmered in deep blue, the nature was green and sandy, it was hot, and I couldn't wait to jump into the cool water after setting up my tent. It was indeed chilly, but since I was German, they assumed I wouldn't find the water cold. I couldn't let them know how cold I actually felt. It was a great day. Everyone made an effort to include me, and I didn't find anyone among the 30 participants whom I disliked. The only challenging part was that I understood only about 5% of what was being said during conversations, as they were all in Armenian. I didn't mind not understanding most of it, but sometimes I thought it might be relevant to me. So, I was always the last one to join the meals because I never knew when they started. In the evenings, at 8 pm, I didn't have the energy to sit with groups that I couldn't understand and who didn't know how to include me (or didn't want to, as almost everyone knew English). I went to bed. Shortly after, I got up again - I couldn't spend 12 hours in my tent. So, I gathered the motivation to find someone from the group. A young guy took me to the common room, where the group was watching a movie and where there was a raffle for bike vouchers. I wasn't particularly interested in an Armenian movie, and his attempt to cheer me up by saying it might be in Russian didn't help much either.

Surprisingly, the movie was in English. Yippie. And, I won a 100 euro voucher for an Armenian bike. Yippie. I passed on the voucher to someone else; the movie was not particularly exciting. Nevertheless, I was happy again. The following campfire confirmed this. Camp romance. Especially when they started singing in Armenian... uiii.

The next day, we were going to face a 128 km route. I already said that I would only ride the 50 km to the Sevan train station. However, the organizer was convinced that I could do the whole route. She planned 6 hours for the route. Oops. That would mean the entire group would have to ride at a constant speed of 20 km/h without any breaks. And I had already seen on the way there how slow we were as a group. I didn't want to label the organization as naive, but I considered it naive.

And then we started. My legs had recovered from the previous day, and suddenly, I found myself in the front quarter with the "racers." Of course, they were still faster overall, but since the rest was much slower, I was the queen of cycling. Never in my life had I received recognition for my athletic achievements, especially not for biking. Biking had contributed to the failure of a previous relationship because I was so slow and breathless. So maybe it had paid off that I had been biking almost every day for a year. Thanks to all the endorphins, I persisted. 10 km, 20, 30, then the racing guys and I took a break and enjoyed Armenian sausage sandwiches. Since I knew they would catch up to me before I could count to 5, I detached myself and started riding again. I rode alone for a long distance. There was no one behind me, and no one ahead of me. And then the romantic lakeside route changed, and I had to ride about 15 more km on the shoulder of the highway. It was scary and not entirely safe. I waited for a while, but no one from my group came. Since it was not ideal to wait on the shoulder, I decided to push on and ride all the way to the Sevan train station. Well, I wasn't entirely alone; a white 4-wheel drive vehicle followed me. It would slowly pass by me, cut in front of me, and brake. Then, I would pass by it, and the window would roll down, I would overtake it. We played this game at least seven times until I shouted, "WHAT?!?!?!" Undeterred, he also turned towards Sevan. I took refuge at a gas station, where there were some people. The white car slowly passed by me, and I gave it a stern look as it turned away. Phew! He was gone! My mood was still tense, though. An Armenian couple with a fancy Mercedes offered to give me a ride to Yerevan, but since I expected to meet more people at the train station soon, I declined the offer.

In Sevan, I had to wait for two hours for the train and passed the time in a pizzeria. And suddenly, I saw one of the fast cyclists from the group. A ray of light. Yay. He was also happy to see someone. While the other guys continued to Yerevan, he had a sunburn and didn't feel like riding another 70 km. So, we waited together, and finally, I had a longer conversation with an Armenian about the country, the people, the youth, the naive organization of the camp, and the significance of the genocide.

In the train, we met some others from the group. I must say I was surprised to see that a large part of the group probably rode to Yerevan (or maybe took a taxi? They weren't on the train).

A truly memorable weekend, thanks to the Touritracks Bike Camp. If this is the biking scene in Yerevan, I'll move to Armenia and open a bike shop :D