It was at Gori – birthplace of Stalin – that my three-day diversion route reacquainted itself with the original route I’d planned, and there was satisfaction in that. Being back on track I mean. Not the Stalin connection.

I’ve lost a day from my schedule, which will have only a minimal impact on the logistics that will get me to Baku and across the Caspian Sea. All told, it feels like a great outcome in terms of what seemed possible as I stared mournfully into my mountain broth on Friday evening and wondered whether I’d caused greater damage to my ambitions.

The last three days have brought further challenges, and today was difficult in a meterological sense. Really cold. Really wet. I stopped at a supermarket in Mtskheta to get some food (including drinakble peach yoghurt, which is becoming a much-loved staple for me!), but had to wait ten minutes in the relative warmth by the checkouts to be able to retrieve my currency card. Riding for five hours in the bitter cold, even with gloves on, had led to my hands ceasing to function as desired!

Over on Instagram, where I’m posting a daily reel with some video highlights of each ride, my status as a budding influencer (yeah, right) may have taken a hit today given that I was physically incapable of operating my phone at a number of points when the landscape warranted attention. If that doesn’t put you off, and you’d like to check out my reels, you can find them at @ed_worldbikeride. Alternatively, they are feeding through to the ‘#VIDEOS’ tab of my Follow My Challenge web page (but usually with a lag of a day or so).

Passing the (fairly unobtrusive) ‘Tblisi’ sign on the way into the Georgian capital was rewarding. Reaching cities doesn’t excite me on quite the same scale as arriving at seas or country boders, but they are nonetheless exhilarating markers of progress.

First impressions of Tbilisi are great – a hugely vibrant city with a clear sense of its own identity and history. I’ll be leaving here in the morning to ride up to Sighnaghi, from where I’ll be performing some logistical gymnastics (more to come on that), but I’ll be back in Tbilisi in a couple of days and hope to get to know the city better then.