Day 1 Tusheti crossing – Tbilisi – Zhinvali Reservoir – Guest house near Chargali.
I landed in Tbilisi at 2:30am. The plan was to ride around 90-100km that day. I had a nice breakfast at the airport in an attempt to wake up and also wait for sunrise to come up.
Instead of building the bike at the airport I decided to take a taxi to the northern side of Tbilisi and spare myself riding on the busiest roads. The taxi took me to a park I had found in my research, where I built the bike and threw the box out in a nearby bin. Time to ride.
Exiting the city was still painful, loads of main roads, drivers were mental, at least 20ish dogs encountered, some pretty aggressive.
Made it to the outskirts and started to get into the mountains via an old hiking trail. The day was really hot in the valley and the hike-a-bike was brutal. 10km took me close to 4 hours. Lots of steep rolling hills, riding down was fun, pushing up painful.
Eventually made it to the smaller roads on the other side and stopped for some refreshments and to have a break in the shade.
The route took me through a lot of old roads, gravel, forest paths between the small villages and vine orchards. I enjoyed that part.
Made it to Zhinvali reservoir and the views were spectacular. More encounters with dogs. Had to stop a few times and keep the bike between me and them, slowly trying to walk past them.
The road from Zhinvali was smooth tarmac and an absolute joy to ride. It was getting dark and I booked a guest house. 20km to go. The clouds started to gather, I pushed on.
The last 5km rode in a thunderstorm, lightning hitting the tops af the hills above me and around, rain chucking it down.
Made it to the guest house, owner was confused but quickly saw my booking and got me some dinner, warm tea and I got a shower. A tougher first day than I imagined but made as good a progress as I could have wished for.
Overall, route was about 60% gravel/singletrack/trail