Eighty kilograms have been displayed at the luggage scale. We have been astonished ourself. Now everything is signed and sealed. The completely disassembled bikes block the rear part of the train compartment. Two nights and a day in the Turksib railway bring us, across the Kazakh steppe, into the Russian winter.

It's night. The undercarriage of the train knocks, awakes memories: Holiday in Southern France, traveling by night train. Our family occupies a six-compartment. The lower bed is folded down, used as space for the bicycle trailer with luggage. The top bed trap heat, the air conditioning doesn't work. Sometimes the wagon brakes, flutters over switches, stops jarringly. Station lights: Lyon, Avignon? A loudspeaker announcement, a locomotive is attached, then further through the night. The chassis knocks. Getting up at three, all are nervous, the train stop doesn't last long. The first time inhaling the French air, a little adventure. The wind is warmer than at home, yet it smells of iron of the rails, but there is also something unknown, something new. Waiting at the station until morning, anticipation. Once a conductor forgot to awake our family at the right time. The otherwise already nervous get off with the kids was hectic. Even now we are traveling with a lot of luggage - the arrival could be stressful. We both dream of bicycles that clamp in the door of the departing train, while one is already out and the other still inside...

Someone rumbles at the door. It's 8' clock in the morning. The train stops somewhere on a Kazakh steppe station. An important policeman checks all passports. On another rail we see a freight train full of wood and coal. Siberia is getting closer. Then open wide landscape again. Would we have ridden this route by bike, if the coming winter wouldn't sit in our neck? Have we could overcome the Argentine Pampa-Blues, which deters us from such routes since South America? On the second evening, the landscape changes. Dense spruce forests on both sides of the rails. The Russian border. In the wagon all luggage compartments are searched through. The lamp cover is screwed down. Dogs sniffle through the train. We are stucked for five hours. Welcome to Russia. In Barnaul, there's zero degrees, shortly after our arrival it begins to snow. The Lenin statue wears a white scarf. In some parks gas fires are burning. We grab us in fur hats and woolen gloves, cycle out into the snow. People shakes their heads in disbelief.

The road is covered with ice. The dusk starts already at five. A Russian in a snow plow stops, tells us that it's not so far until the next street coffee shop, thinks that we can spend the night there. It is dark when we arrive there. We get no place. The coffee shop owner shrugs his shoulders. What does him concern the two lunatics with their bikes? We pick up our tent two meters next to the coffee shop's door. Only the security guard is worried. That night it snows half a meter. The next morning the streets became smooth as mirror finish. It's impossible to cycle anymore. We stop the next bus. Without spikes tires we can't continue. A DHL Express parcel from Switzerland has to save us. However, it gets stucked in the Russian bureaucracy, finds its way only to Barnaul. At the end we have to terminate the express service ourself. 500 km by bus.

After the first pass comes the cold. The mercury drops down to minus thirty degrees. We get on only slowly. After fifty kilometers, the energy is gone. Where possible we try to spend the night beside a warm oven. Nevertheless, we can't avoid to camp. We learn quickly. To touch an aluminum pot without gloves - devastating. To park the bike in the evening in a too big gear - stupid. Although a tent peg can perhaps be hammered into the frozen ground, but in the morning then it breaks like a breadstick. The trick with the spit against fogged glasses no longer works, the spit freezes before wiping together with the fog. Sausage and cheese have to be cut small better in the store already. A shift cable splintered like glass and we're a little bit shocked when we eat 500 grams of pasta and two bars of chocolate for diner, but awake in the night with a growling stomach.

And then the wind comes. It blows up snow flags, sweeps us off the bike We estimate the windchill to minus fifty, fingers are numb and the face is burning. We are afraid of frostbite, begin to push to get further and to stay warm. The next village is still 30 kilometers away, another night in the tent is out of the question. We hold out our thumb, most trucks are too full, the few which stop, don't want to take us with. Ten kilometers we cover on foot. We want to reach a house, but are making only small progress, we are deadbeat. A white Jeep overtakes. We wave, expecting no help. The driver stops, asks if everything is ok. We're allowed to charge.

But coldness is also beautiful. Have you ever watched how a river freezes? At first it starts to steam, tempting as a hot bath, wrapped in white ambient haze. Then flocculate the water: Small ice pieces are drifting in the flow, break their hair-thin edges on the stones, hiss, crunch, bubble. If now in the evening you draw water, you dip the pan into a viscous mass, which immediately freezes. At the end, the ice sets on the shore, making ripples and wrinkles, a freezing lava flow. The river falls into a deep sleep.

The villages become rare. No more coffee shops at noon for warming up. If we now meet a truck driver, he flips us the bird. We blow him kisses. He can't know how magical it is to cycle through this silent, snow-covered landscape. First, there are still dense forests, but then the trees are getting sparse, the mountains flat.

People has again typical Central Asian faces. In this border zone Kazakhs live. They came before the current demarcation here to graze their cattle on the summer pastures in the Altai Mountains. The demarcation, according to the Mongolian revolution of 1921 has forbidden these migrant movement and the Kazakhs settled in the Russian and Mongolian Altai. Today they are free to return to their home country. But for many, their home is here. Above all, the Mongolian Kazakhs maintain their proud traditions. If you ask someone in Kazakhstan, where one can still find genuine Kazakh culture, then this border zone between Russia, China and Mongolia is often mentioned.

The light in Mongolia is warmer. Maybe it's the winter - the sun is flat, casting golden rays. An endless sunset. Red rocks draw long shadows on the satin matt snow. A man stands against the light, his arm is angled, on that the silhouette of an eagle: Sharp edges, fine feathers. It's Arianit, an eagle hunter. To find him, we rode two hundred kilometers to the northeast of the province of Bayan Olgii. Arianit is Kazakh, the origin of his knowledge in dealing with the eagles is dating back 2000 years. In those days the main reason was the precious fur of the hunted animals. And today? Somehow we had expected a dramatic spectacle. Maybe a bit too touristy, mainly geared for action. Rushing feathers, flying snow, a struggle for life and death. But accompanying Arianit is different.

His main goal is to keep his Kazakh tradition. In his house is no TV. Of course this could have been arranged for the tourists. But if we now see the man sitting on the rock with his animal after a long ride, feel the quiet strength between him and his fellow, we don't believe it. A tourist show would be superficial, more adapted to our fast-paced society. Many would not be satisfied with the tension, would like to see more. They would miss the moment when the statue suddenly makes a fine movement, the man turns his profile to the bird, their eyes meet, firmly holding each other. A black silhouette on white sky, an inseparable form. A mythical creature, half man and half animal. They would be disappointed, because the eagle didn't mangled the fox at the end, they would see only the shackles of the eagle and not the relationship between the animal and its hunter. When a golden eagle dies, it's buried like a family member.