Mongolia Roads Compared to Chita->Vlad
 

How will the rutted and sandy tracks of Mongolia compare to the road between Chita and Vlad?

Are there many cafes and villages on the road to get a bite to eat or should I carry plenty of my own food?

I'll be on that road in about a week and figure I should get properly scared before heading out;)

edde

Do not quite understand of which region you want information about.

No problems to get food, fuel and accomodation between Chita and Chabarovsk, the far east is very developed anyway.

As to Mongolia: I stayed more or less in the Ulan Bataar region and the tracks were not as bad as I thought they would be. Also, I saw pictures of western Mongolia which suggest that, as always, you'll have the choice whether to ride the main, relatively good tracks (rivercrossings might be challangeing though) or the minor, difficult ones.

I did not experience difficulties of getting food and fuel, but of course we did plan my trips a bit more closely than we would have done in other countries with a better infrastructure.

Also, it would not hurt to carry food and water for one or two days.

Lars

Plenty of Food
 

We came the other way Vlad to Chita.
Heaps of gravel and dirt/dust.
We ate at Road side Cafes every day. saying that we sometimes only got one meal a day.
We carried bags of pasta and and Olive oil for emergency cook ups. I think the most we went with out any cafes would have been 2-3 days. But there are heaps of farms and often people selling fresh vegies on the road side.
And keep an eye out for holiday camps. we stayed in quite a few for free.
In return the kids practiced English on us and challenged us on the table tennis.
and the food was home cooked.
You will be fine, its one big farm from Chita to Vlad.

Good Luck
Scott and Laura on two Yamaha XT250

Thanks for you guys input...definitely helped!

I did the ride a couple weeks back and managed to post some pics on my website for riders that might be interested...

Siberia_Road_Construction

Food is easily found at road side cafes and magazins...fuel is no issue...I swear 92 is available almost every 150km...there are many camping in the wild spots to be found, but you MUST choose carefully...road can be quite a superhighway when the gravel get good...

BUT the road is a lot tougher to navigate(traffic/dust/safety wise) for those going Khab->Chita than the reverse direction...so be careful...its a great ride and very doable!

Lastly, I personally found the Chita->Khab road an easier ride than the heavily rutted roads of Mongolia...so it will help you prepare for Mongolia or vice versa...

HTH

Ed,

How's the new shock holding up? Pretty useful for some of the sections no doubt. We rode through the major construction late in the day so there was less active construction but still enough trucks to dodge. Where are you now Vlad? The motorcycle club guys there are great and very helpful if you need to tweak anything on your bike before you hit the ferry to Korea.

Cheers,

Tom

the Shock

The above link provides you details on my shock...but the short answer is that I sorted out the damping problem and adjusted the preload and it worked like a charm...definintely a great value for the money!

Anyways, i'm in Korea and should arrive in Seattle on Tuesday...hopefully my bike will clear customs by then...will look you up...

Hoping your broken foot has mended!