My son Thomas and I arrived safely in Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest city, yesterday morning. Unfortunately, our bikes did not. They’re enjoying an unwelcome sojourn at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen airport, where we had a three-hour layover but they apparently lacked sufficient time to make the short hop from the incoming London plane to the outgoing Osh one. Standing at the baggage carousel in the airport in Osh at five o’clock on a balmy Saturday morning, it was a gut-wrenching feeling to see from checking the location of the air tag attached to my bike that it was pinging from 2,500 miles and five hours’ flying time to the west.

I’m no stranger to challenges on these cycling adventures. During the ride I completed just seven weeks ago from Turkey to Kyrgyzstan, the closure of a key pass in the Georgian mountains enforced a three-day rerouting of my ride, I was refused permission to board a sleeper train from Baku back up to the border town of Balakan in Azerbaijan with my bike, I battled a howling headwind in the Mangystau region of Kazakhstan, I developed an infection that required antibiotics, and a crash in Uzbekistan wrecked the mountings on one of my panniers. But being bikeless is a new, and clearly pivotal, kind of challenge.

Following a visit to the lost-and-found office at Osh Airport, and some telephone calls and WhatsApp messages with the airline, we’re assured that the bikes will arrive at some point (most probably Monday morning), but the delay is frustrating given that we should already be on the road by now in order to meet the tight schedule necessary for Thomas to be home for some commitments he has in two weeks’ time.

The connected flights that brought us to Kyrgyzstan on Friday tracked a good part of the route that I had previously cycled out here from the UK, and I marvelled at my proximity (albeit from 33,000 feet) to so many of the places that had punctuated that route and provided respite from the toughness of my days on the bike. Most striking was to be so close to, and feel such familiarity with, places that in all likelihood I’m unlikely to pass through directly more than the once I did earlier this year. The Silk Road towns and cities, in particular, which had felt so mystical and rewarding in the context of my efforts to reach them through my own pedal power, were now laid out effortlessly below me, although just as clusters of lights in the depths of night.

While we wait to be reunited with our bikes in Osh, the temperature is rising, with a high of 40c forecast for tomorrow. That feels intimidating, even if I know that I’ve recently overcome such intense heat in the Kyzylkum Desert of Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan is a country of mountains, with over 90% of its landmass covered by high mountain ranges, and while cycling with a 45kg set-up to altitudes above 3,000 metres is quite an extreme way to pursue more forgiving temperatures, cooler air will be very welcome where we can enjoy it.

Those that know Kyrgyzstan often refer to it as the most beautiful country on Earth, and while we don’t want our expectations to diminish the reality of what we’ll experience on our ride through the country, we’re excited about what lies ahead! Given the stunning landscape I enjoyed just on the bonus ride that nibbled into the mountains after I’d finished my ride from Trabzon to Osh, it promises to be spectacular.

From Osh, we’ll be heading in a north-westerly direction via the Koldomo Pass to Kazarman, and on to Chaek and Kochkor, before hugging the shores of Issyk-Kul, the second-largest mountain lake in the world after Lake Titicaca on the border of Bolivia and Peru, which I’m fortunate also to have visited. From the city of Karakol, at the lake’s eastern tip, we’ll head north into Kazakhstan (which, for me, will come 24 days of cycling after having left the south-west of the country to head into Uzbekistan), and finally we’ll turn west to ride into Almaty.

No doubt our spirits will be raised once we’re able to unpack and rebuild those bikes. Without them, we’re a little bereft!