In his new book, *The Cyclist on the Roof of the World*, Albrecht Schulze, together with Hardy Krüger, looks back on his life as a cycling adventurer. In total, he covers a good 13,000 kilometres, cycling across vast high plateaus inhabited by nomadic families with their herds of yaks and crossing passes up to 4,600 metres high. We present an interview as an extract from his new book:
Interview by Hardy Krüger with Albrecht Schulze:
Krüger: You’ve been cycling for many decades, including in Eastern Tibet. Now you’re 78, and life is settling down. How are you finding that?
Albrecht Schulze: My curiosity has remained, and above all, my desire to delve deeper into other cultures. These driving forces are still at work. So cycling adventures still appeal to me, but my body …
Krüger: You still cycle, after all – just not in Eastern Tibet any more.
Albrecht Schulze: Yes, most recently I cycled from Magdeburg to Wolfenbüttel. And during the pandemic, I cycled from Potsdam to Gdańsk. Provided it’s not too steep, I can still cover 120 to 140 kilometres a day.
Krüger: What sort of bike do you ride?
Albrecht Schulze: A sporty trekking bike that I can also use on forest tracks.
Krüger: Do you still carry that little doghouse of a tent about with you and sleep by the roadside, like you did in Eastern Tibet?
Albrecht Schulze: Yes. Although the truth is that the tent doesn’t belong to me; I’ve been borrowing it from a friend for ages.
Krüger: But journeys into the unknown aren’t without risk and sometimes come at a high price. Take you, for example – eight toes. How did that happen?
Albrecht Schulze: That was in 1985 on Lenin Peak. Back then it was the Soviet Union; today it’s Kyrgyzstan. I was travelling with a few friends. Through a series of coincidences, we’d managed to get hold of a service visa for the Soviet Union. This allowed us to explore certain freedoms – such as where and how to spend the night, or which modes of transport we could use even without presenting a ‘valid travel document’.
So we travelled to Asia, into the Islamic sphere of influence, where things were still rather wild back then. It wasn’t as densely populated as the European part of the Soviet Union. I’ve always been fascinated by mountains, and Pik Lenin was considered quite easy. Although it’s 7,100 metres high, you don’t have to climb or use a rope. The three of us set off. Without official permission. The ascent was incredibly beautiful – a proper wild ride.
When I got back home to Potsdam, the doctors were at their wits’ end.
Albrecht Schulze loses his toes
At 6,400 metres, one of us came down with altitude sickness. The two of us then carried on to the summit, but on the way back, the person suffering from altitude sickness grew slower and slower, so we had to endure two nights in a storm. Snow was forced through the supposedly waterproof tent wall, and we got very cold. During the descent, I was already in excruciating pain in my feet, and on top of that, I was snow-blind. At base camp, we received basic medical treatment, then we travelled down by bus. When I got back home to Potsdam, the doctors were in utter shock. Apart from the two little toes, all the others were dead and had to be amputated.
Krüger: What did that mean to you?
Albrecht Schulze: I was shocked. But I was also incredibly lucky. I soon learnt to walk again. And I could still cycle, anyway. You don’t really need your toes for that. To this day, I still lean slightly forwards when I walk.
Krüger: You were out and about without permission. How did that work back then?
Albrecht Schulze: Back then, many people travelled through the Soviet Union without authorisation. There’s even an association today called UDF – ‘Unerkannt durch Freundesland’ (Unnoticed through a Friendly Country). The trick was to claim you were travelling to Romania – and thus through the Soviet Union. That’s how you got a transit visa. Technically, you were supposed to leave again within 36 hours. But every summer, thousands of people from the GDR were travelling through the Soviet Union. If you were caught, it cost 140 roubles. That multiplied by three in Ostmark – so 450 marks – would have been the fine. Anyone would have paid that straight away.
I found it incredibly presumptuous to decide: ‘You’re allowed to go there, but you’re not allowed to go there’
Krüger: You lived in the GDR until the fall of the Berlin Wall. What did the Wall mean to you?
Albrecht Schulze: I was one of the 95 per cent in the GDR who could not accept that. It was a declaration of surrender by the system. I found it incredibly presumptuous to decide: ‘You’re allowed to go there, but you’re not allowed to go there.’ And it just got worse and worse. The pressure in the cauldron kept building right up until 1989.
Krüger: Did you have any dream destinations behind the Wall?
Albrecht Schulze: Yes, two in fact: India and a trip round the Mediterranean. I was planning to go hiking in India, and I wanted to explore the Mediterranean by bike.
Krüger: What became of it?
Albrecht Schulze: Nothing. When the Wall came down, I’d already got the Silk Road on my mind. As soon as we got West German money on 1 July 1990, the three of us set off. By bus, not by bike.
Krüger: And what about the Mediterranean leg?
Albrecht Schulze: I never did that. It had lost its appeal. I’d rather have gone to the Far East and quite quickly settled on China. India was a different matter. I’ve often wondered why I never went there. Culturally and in terms of scenery, it would certainly have been incredibly interesting. I’ve never been to India.
Krüger: But I’ve been to Eastern Tibet ten times. What were the biggest challenges there?
Albrecht Schulze: At the start, it was mainly about finding my bearings and getting to grips with the road conditions. I was making very slow progress. Of the 1,400 kilometres on the first tour, 1,000 were on gravel. And there were often no kilometre markers, so I didn’t know where I was. Once I came to a fork in the road and was lucky because, by chance, two locals were there and helped me. I’d already been a bit worried at that point. But I always thought ahead about how I’d find my way out again. All the routes had junctions where I could take a shortcut if I was running out of time. After all, I always had to catch my flight back home.
Krüger: Was it dangerous?
Albrecht Schulze: Crash barriers weren’t introduced in China until 2008. If I’d fallen off the road – even if it had only been two metres – nobody would have seen me. And certainly nobody would have heard me, because the Chinese lorries were incredibly loud back then.
Albrecht Schulze buys his bikes locally
Krüger: On your first tour, you took your own bike with you; after that, you bought them locally. What was the quality like?
Albrecht Schulze: It wasn’t always great, but it kept getting better. Once, my friend Jochen and I left a bike behind after three days and got ourselves a new one. It had cost the equivalent of just 60 euros, and we’d bought it in a small town where there were hardly any options. I usually bought my bikes in Chengdu.
Things are completely different today. Many bikes on the German market are ‘Made in China’. Giant bikes, for example, are now available everywhere in China. They’re good quality. You just hop on and off you go.
Fit the saddle bag and handlebar bag, adjust the saddle height and set off.
Krüger: Lots of cyclists go to great lengths to get themselves measured and then adjust their bikes to the nearest millimetre. How did you go about it?
Albrecht Schulze: Fit the saddle and handlebar bags, adjust the saddle height and set off.
Krüger: Why didn’t you bring your bike with you from Germany?
Albrecht Schulze: Because it was easier and more practical. I often flew to and from Chengdu because there were direct flights from Amsterdam. That meant I didn’t have to change trains in Beijing or other cities with my luggage. From Chengdu, I’d then travel by bus or train to my actual starting point. It was never clear whether, or how, you could take a bike on the train. I never managed to find out whether there was such a thing as a bike ticket, or whether you had to send the bike ahead – thereby losing two days – and then have to deal with Chinese bureaucracy at your destination. Buying one was much easier.
Krüger: What would you say to young people who dream of travelling as you have, but don’t dare to?
Albrecht Schulze: Start in Germany! You don’t have to travel far straight away. Germany has an extensive network of transport options to fall back on if things go wrong: buses, trains and so on. Why not plan a shorter trip to begin with – just a few days? There’s so much to discover in Germany too.
The interview is an extract from the following book:
The cyclist on the Roof of the World
Of yaks, singing monks and guardian angels in Tibet
Albrecht Schulze, Hardy Grüne
Ever since Albrecht Schulze first set off on his bike in Eastern Tibet in 1997, he has been captivated by the landscape and the people – nine further journeys were to follow. In total, he has covered a good 13,000 kilometres, cycling across vast high plateaus inhabited by nomadic families with their herds of yaks, crossing passes up to 4,600 metres high, and being caught unawares by a severe earthquake in 2008. The geophysicist travels with minimal luggage and usually spends the night in a tent. The Potsdam native recounted these and many other stories to the author Hardy Grüne during long conversations. The result is a book about a man who, even back in the former GDR, seized every opportunity to satisfy his wanderlust and ultimately lost his heart to Tibet.
