Bishkek lies at the foot of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too, the northern range of the Tian Shan, and on a clear morning the snow peaks seem close enough to touch from the city's long boulevards. The capital of Kyrgyzstan was a small fort and trading post in the nineteenth century, and was then rebuilt as a Soviet city named Frunze, after the Bolshevik commander born nearby. The legacy is a grid of broad, straight streets lined with poplars and elms, Soviet apartment blocks, wide squares, and statues, including the one of Manas, the hero of the national epic, who stands in front of the main square, Ala-Too.
For riders, Bishkek is the logical start of the Issyk-Kul loop. The city has about nine hundred thousand people, and it has everything: fuel on every main road, supermarkets, bike shops and mechanics of variable quality, and a wide choice of guesthouses. Traffic is dense, with minibuses called marshrutkas stopping without warning, and the driving style is assertive, so keep your wits about you. Pavements and drains can be uneven, and potholes can be severe on the edge of the city.
The Osh Bazaar is a good place to spend a morning, a noisy market of bread, dried fruit, nuts, spices, meat and everything else, and the food stalls offer plov, laghman noodles, samsa pastries and manty dumplings. A bowl of beshbarmak, boiled meat with noodles, is the national dish, and kumis, fermented mare's milk, is an acquired taste to be tried at least once. To the south, the Ala Archa National Park lies about forty kilometres away, a mountain valley with glaciers and alpine meadows, easily reached by a road that climbs steadily.
Heading east, the road to Lake Issyk-Kul passes through the Chuy valley, past the Burana Tower, an old minaret left from the medieval city of Balasagun, and then through the Boom Gorge, a narrow, dramatic canyon beside the Chu river. The road is usually in fair shape but wind, trucks and roadworks can make it testing.
The best months for riding are from May to September, with heat in July and August and possible snow on the passes in spring and autumn. Carry cash in the local currency, the som.