Dawn had given fresh colour and perspective to the grassy, oceanic expanse of the steppe. The deep green, gently rolling contours, flecked here and there by the tiny white outline of a distant ger, were now free of the bullying heat that had harassed me for the previous three days. After a mammoth train journey from London to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's congested capital, I was relieved to be on the road, under my own power. In a land of horsemen and women, I was back in my own preferred saddle, cycling through an adventure tourer's wonderland of rugged, remote country. From the lunchtime St Pancras crush to a balmy late afternoon Brussels, from Cologne's beery Saturday evening swagger to the sobering thunderstorms of Sunday morning Warsaw, I had just managed to squash my luggage - my dismantled
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