By Tobin Fitzthum
Peter Kesting is an adventurer and an athlete. After four years excelling at both at Olympia High School, the recent graduate is setting his sights on his biggest challenge yet: riding from Lisbon, Portugal to Magadan, Russia on his own.
As a prolific track runner, Kesting has spent the last four years pushing himself physically. Unlike many of his competitors, however, Kesting also continually tested his mental strength outside of track. A perfect example of the two coming together came when Kesting spontaneously decided to run to Centralia on his own. It was about a 50 mile trip and the sun was already going down as he left his house in Olympia. Kesting has a history of undertaking challenges that others deem absurd. He also has a history of succeeding.
Last summer, for example, Kesting rode 1,600 miles on bicycle from Oregon to Mexico. His journey took him through deserts and challenged him mentally and physically, but nevertheless his friends on social media could expect a timely picture of Peter Kesting and his bicycle beside some road sign; a sign of progress. Before long he was on his way back via bus. A cavalcade of friends and family, all converted to fans, met him at the bus depot.
Having graduated from Olympia High School in June, Kesting is now setting his sights on an even bigger challenge. Again he will take his bike, but this time he will ride it almost ten times further.
Kesting’s journey will begin with a flight to Lisbon, one of the westernmost points in continental Europe. From there Kesting and his older brother will head east through Portugal, Spain, France, and Eastern Europe. After two months, the older of the two Kestings will return to college and Peter will ride on alone, facing about 10,000 miles of unfamiliar and unyielding terrain. If all goes to plan, Peter will be entering Asia when his brother returns to school.
In this portion of the journey, Kesting will have to pedal his way through much less densely populated countries with fewer English-speakers and harsher weather. The final portion of the journey will take Kesting through vast stretches of lonely Russian countryside.
Although this new adventure is in many ways similar to Kesting’s previous escapades, it does differ in one key area: spontaneity. Most of Kesting’s aforementioned challenges have had literally no planning. As the scale of the undertaking increases, however, more planning is required. He has found that substantial planning is now a necessity.
Ask Kesting about food on the trip, for example, and he is quick to say that he’ll have a budget of $10 a day for “buying locally from markets and rarely eating out.”
What’s on the menu? “In a lot of places, it’ll be pretty basic such as beans and rice,” he reports.
Kesting isn’t worried about the language barrier either. “I’ll be fine in Europe where many people in their mid-twenties and younger speak English.” Kesting plans to learn basic Russian during his four months in Russia. Everything else will probably come down to hand gestures, but Kesting isn’t going to Eurasia to talk. The biggest danger, he says, will be, “losing my mind in such an isolated part of the world.”
And does planning take away from the adventure? “Absolutely not,” says Kesting. “It gets me more excited especially when mapping where to go and envisioning myself there.” Not all parts of the planning are that fun, however, specifies Kesting. He has spent a considerable amount of time navigating the bureaucracies of countries he will pass through to procure all of the necessary documents. Recently he has had to refigure part of the route after learning that he would not be able to enter Iran. Instead Kesting will likely travel further north through the country of Georgia.
While many people in this part of the world may have various preconceived notions about the areas Kesting will be traveling through on the second part of his journey, the struggles that he will face will likely be different. For example, most would think that Kesting would need to bring warm clothes to face the harsh Siberian weather, but actually the average temperature in Siberia during the four months that Kesting will be traveling through it, is in the mid 60s. Having already ridden through Death Valley, Kesting isn’t worried about warm weather.
People might think that Kesting will be away from civilization for months at a time and while portions of his journey will take him far from any other humans, he will also pass through large cities. His destination of Magadan, Russia, for example, has a population of almost 100,000. Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan has more than 8 times that many people.
The most accurate description of the trip is perhaps that it will challenge Kesting in more ways than he can now imagine and expose him to more cultures, climates, languages, and people, than he can conceive of. Come August 2016, he will be happy to tell people about all of it.
Follow Peter Kesting’s progress on his blog, A Tale of Two Tires.
