Chris Hatherly - Off The Rails. 10,000 km by Bicycle Across Russia, Siberia and Mongolia to China

TIM COPE was born in 1978. At sixteen he travelled to Nepal, and at eighteen was part of a GAP exchange program in England. After a short time studying Arts/Law at the Australian National University, he was accepted on a scholarship to participate in the prestigious International Wilderness Guide course in Finland and Russia. At the age of nineteen he qualified as a professional guide the first Australian to do so. Since the recumbent bike journey, Tim has been part of a world-first expedition rowing the Yenisey River through Siberia to the Arctic Ocean, and been involved in documentary-making for National Geographic and ABC television. He is the author of On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads, and he has written pieces for newspapers and magazines, and speaks regularly about his travels.

In 2001 he was awarded the Young Australian Adventurer of the Year by the Australian Geographic Society for the Yenisey River journey, and was selected one of the top twenty-five athletes/explorers in the world under the age of twenty-five, by Outside magazine in the USA.

CHRIS HATHERLY was born in 1978. When he was fifteen he spent a year in Germany as an exchange student. At eighteen, he rode a bike around Australia in eleven and a half months. He is currently studying psychology at Australian National University and plans further travels with his wife, Natalie. He has also written travel articles for Australian Geographic. Chris received the 1997 Australian Geographic Young Adventurer of the Year Award for his around Australia ride. Together with Tim Cope, he also received the 2000 Spirit of Adventure Award for the Siberian recumbent bike journey.

On the Trail of Genghis Khan

ON THE TRAIL OF GENGHIS KHAN

Guided by a Kazakh aphorism To understand the wolf, you must put the skin of a wolf on and look through its eyes adventurer Tim Cope undertook a journey not successfully completed since the days of Genghis Khan: to travel by horseback across the entire length of the Eurasian steppe, from the ancient capital of Mongolia, to the Danube River in Hungary.

Alone except for a trusty dog, Copes journey took him an incredible 6,000-miles and three years to complete, through the haunting extremes of wolf-infested mountains and forests, sub-zero plateaus and scorching deserts, and into the heart of a people who embraced him with traditional hospitality the linchpin of survival on the steppe. A celebration of and an elegy for the nomadic way of life, On the Trail of Genghis Khan is an immersive, enlightening look at a land, its fascinating people and their complex past that rests precariously in the fast-changing realities of the post-Soviet modern world.

I suspect that here we have a classic, likely to inspire generations to yet unborn
DERVLA MURPHY

To Mum and Dad,
for your unending love, courage and support, and for
letting me see the world through such a special lens. TC

In loving memory of Jean Brown:
your love made this journey possible. CH

Find out what you want, find something you really care about. When you know what you want the rest follows. But dont just drift off into something because it offers security. Security is never worth a damn. Were meant to live and to live means living dangerously, half on the edge of trouble, half on the edge of achievement.

Hammond Innes, The Strode Venturer

Toward the end of 1999, we began our journey on recumbent bicycles across Russia, Siberia and Mongolias Gobi Desert, to end in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. We were twenty at the time and spoke minimal Russian. To complicate matters, we knew very little about Russia itself, and almost everyone we spoke to said we were on a suicide mission.

Why did we persevere?

Beyond craving for adventure and wanting to turn a dream into reality, we wanted to prove to ourselves and to others that alternative ways of living exist; that with hard work and perseverance dreams can be made to come true. In the spirit of youth, we believed that the world was brimming with endless possibilities. We didnt want uncertainty to stop us from living our dream.

Writing a book about our experience was something we wanted to do from the beginning. The process would complete the dream, providing the opportunity for us to reflect on our journey and, just as importantly, to share our experiences with others. To do that, we had to write from the heart, honest and truthful.

We approached a few publishers, to no avail. After many frustrating months, out of the blue, came an e-mail from Executive Publisher Julie Watts, at Penguin Books. Shed heard us being interviewed on radio and thought we were role-models for young people. Our chance to run the last leg of the journey had arrived.

Writing the manuscript has proved every bit as difficult and rewarding as cycling across Siberia. To complicate matters, we had agreed to write the manuscript together, alternating chapters throughout the book. After fourteen months of living in the same tent, would our already weathered relationship survive another epic?

In these pages we wish to share the people, landscapes and insights that made the journey special. We also hope that our accomplishments will infect others, so they too may turn half-baked ideas into reality. If two twenty-year-olds can ride couches on wheels half way across the world, then surely anything is possible.

Tim Cope and Chris Hatherly
January, 2003

Tim

The Finnish border guard looked bewildered.

Are you crazy? You are sure you want to do this? He shook his head.

Yep, I replied, feigning confidence.

Well, just be very careful. You know what those Russians are like. Russia is dangerous! Even we Finns dont go to Russia alone, especially for such a long time. But an Australian, by bike?

With a look of sincere pity he stamped my passport and handed it back. I offered him a nervous smile and strode out of the swish customs building. My Russian chauffeur, Alexsei, was waiting outside.

Cmon, cmon, Tim, faster. We are running late! He nagged in Russian from behind the wheel of his clapped-out old van. As usual he was wearing a worn-out leather jacket and a lopsided baseball cap over his thinning hair.

After several attempts at starting the engine, it spluttered spectacularly into life. I leapt into the front passenger seat and before I had even closed the door, we lurched forward under the rising boom gate.

Then Finland was behind us.

It was only a kilometre or so across no-mans land to Russian customs but it dragged out in a long dreamlike sequence. I held the ill-functioning door shut, and felt my head bobbing up and down with the convulsive rattle of the van. For many months I had been working towards this day but in all that time, I had not clearly thought out the reality of what I had decided to do. My plans were still as vague as they had been from the beginning: I am going to ride a bike with my friend Chris, 10 000 kilometres across Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and China to Beijing.