From 50-degree heat to snowstorms: how Nathalie Schneitter won one of Kyrgyzstan's toughest ultra-bike races

At 2 a.m., in complete darkness on Kyrgyzstan's Ukok Pass, Nathalie Schneitter pushed, dragged and lifted her loaded mountain bike through a snowstorm. For seven hours, she had moved it centimeter by centimeter toward an altitude of almost 4,000 meters.

There was no road to follow. The Silk Road Mountain Race route appeared only as a line on Schneitter's Garmin, showing where she should place her next steps in the darkness. Earlier, at a supermarket below the mountain, she had bought two yogurts and some pickles because there was little else available. On the summit, that food and the race itself seemed far away. She imagined that if her direct rival had been there, they would have held hands and prayed. Victory and defeat would have mattered little.

The pass formed one of the biggest challenges in a race that covered 2,000 kilometers and 35,000 meters of elevation gain. Schneitter completed it in 9 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes, winning the nonstop event. Temperatures had reached almost 50 degrees at the start, then later fell below zero. In the thin air above 3,000 meters, repeatedly pushing the bike became especially punishing.

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In retrospect, the story may be cool. But it wasn't there.

The 40-year-old describes herself on Instagram as a cycling chameleon. She raced at the Olympics in mountain biking, finished 15th in Beijing despite a concussion and later became world champion in e-biking when the discipline was newly created. She has now found another way to test herself through ultra-bikepacking, this time without a motor.

Looking back over coffee in Zurich, Schneitter said, "In retrospect, the story may be cool. But it wasn't there." She told organizers the experience had come "very, very close to the limit" of what such an event should ask of participants. This year's finisher rate was 36 percent.

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Very, very close to the limit