Everyone who knows me well will know that I have a real complex about only one part of my body and that is my big butt. However my posterior has taken a seriously beating on this trip and I do feel very sorry for it.

Anyone who rides bikes will know just how hard it can be on ones gluteus maximums especially when spending up to 10 hours a day in the saddle. I am seriously happy that I bought my Corben saddle as it is damn comfortable and I only gets monkey butt after the a few hours unlike the original DRZ saddle on which I could not ride for more than 2 hours.

Feeling bruised and saddle soar my posterior then had to endure the copious number of mozzie bites it received especially while in Russia, remember I’m peeing in the same place as the bears so no respite from hungry mozzies and they are not fussy about what part of one’s anatomy they are feasting on. Thank goodness I picked up some cream to use on insect bites as it came in handy one day when I sat on a thorn bush while peeing in the woods. I kid you not, I genuinely sat on a thorn bush during our arrest by the Mongolian border patrol. Thereafter I took extra special care when squatting.

Since half our journey has been in rain one of our biggest problems is trying got keep our gear dry. My riding pants are always wet or damp even when I wear my rain gear as that makes me sweat anyway.  I have a removable kind of quilted lining in my riding pants so took that out but this has led to what I can only describe as some kind of nappy rash. Now try and imagine describing this to a pharmacist who speaks no English…well I didn’t I just used that insect bite cream and it seemed to work a treat clearing my rash up in no time, I may just tell the manufacturers 🙂 Needless to say no matter how hot or cold it is the lining stays in my riding pants.

As if this was not all enough the final straw in my poor butt saga came about when we stopped for petrol at a Russian gas station. I walked around the back to take a pee and was promptly bitten by a rather large ferocious dog. Now fortunately his bark was worse than his bite and more fortunately he was on a long chain. One minute I’m scoping out a pee patch and then next hear a very angry bark and feel a decidedly sharp pinch on my rear end. I turn see the dog, I spot more teeth coming my way and promptly high tail it out of there but just to the end of his chain and on realising that he was now stuck told him he was a BAD DOG and nonchalantly continued to find that bit of inviting grass I was searching for in the first place. So there I was in on a nice patch of grass staring my attacker down and wondering just how strong that chain was.

The one thing my poor butt can be grateful for is the fact that it was not bitten by a horse fly. I was washing my hands in a stream one day and did not notice a horse fly bite my arm until it was too late. Damn it hurt like …, an hour later the bite on my arm had swollen to the size of half a peach and by the next morning was like two halves next to each other and really hot. Cleary my body did not like the idea of a horse fly bite and was having a reaction a few antihistamines, pain killers and a day later and all was well again but boy do I watch out for those things now. We bought extra strength insect spray and just dosed ourselves in the stuff constantly and it sort of helped. I thought the rain would keep all those little buggers away but no it makes no difference.