Enjoy, I will also be on the road, riding from Moscow to Vladivostok, via Mongolia. I'm aiming to be in Ulaanbataar mid to end of July if you're about?

I'm riding a sportsbike, a Suzuki GSXR1000, so should be easy to spot! I'll be the one pushing a broken bike ;-))

Cheers

Bruce


www.teapotone.com
Riding the world on 2 wheels

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Mongolia by van...
 

Hi all,

I might be traveling to Mongolia by van from London. The van is not my first choice... actually it's no choice at all due to financial reasons. I have to travel to Mongolia and this is the only vehicle I've got: an LDV Convoy with four wheels at the back, which might help off road. I have seen several videos and it looks like it's possible to make it to UB with a non off road vehicle. My only concern is river crossings, due to the fact that the van is not a 4x4.
Can anyone (who has been there) tell me which is the best time of the summer to find rivers at their lowest level? I have to enter Mongolia from the North-West and I have to go through Altai city. I am planning to spend a couple of months there and then return to London.

Thanks!

There are not rivers as such on main roads in Mongolia. A major "route" will have bridges where necessary.

What there is there, is watercourses that can run or flood after recent rain - for an hour or two or for a few days sometimes.

Thats not a "seasonal river" issue. Its a "luck of recent weather" issue.

River seasonality is for places like BAM and old summer road in Siberia

Thanks Walter!:thumbup1:

I'll be entering Mongolia by the first week of August and try to be in Ulaanbaatar at the end of that week, beginning of the newxt, will you still be around? Which route are you taking before Mongolia? I'm in Budapest at the moment.

I'll be crossing into Mongolia from Ulan Ude tomorrow, I hope. I plan on heading south into the Gobi, and then West towards Altai.

May see some of you en route. Keen to hear how the "roads" are!

Northern Route
 

I just finished the Northern route from UB to Altai. (sorry I can't post a link right now, Google maps is not working correct for me)

"It is to muddy" they said. "you won't make it" they said. I had dry,dusty,rocky, desert like riding the whole way. With the exception of of a few small river crossings and this one just south of Moron. N49.5844 E100.1513 The bridge is down. Not bad.. maybe 30cm deep.

There is no place to cross the Boh Moron River here. N49.7369 E90.2087
I went north until I was 20km from the russian border. There were some place where it looked like people in 4x4 crossed but I was not about to try on the KTM.. alone.
You have to go south of Achit Nuur Lake. There is a small river crossing on the east side of the lake also.

How long did it take you?

Thanks, i will be at the border in 3 days, and the get slowly to Ulanbataar

Hope to meet someone around

We are in Olgi at the moment and there are some problems, first there is quarantaine in the moment, so they wont people get up the northern route, but this might change in a few days.

But:
We met people, they are traveling here in Mongolia since mire then 10 Years and realy know the country ( know them personally)
They are around with a big Unimog 4x4 and they dont do the northern route at the moment, because the weather this year iss unusual, there was a lot of rain the last days, and the snow is melting ( prety long unusual snow season this year ) so itn is hard to pass northern route at the moment.

We decided to go a little bit the southern route and then go up to the center route to Tsertseleg ond on....

We just arived in UB after taking the northern route.
We meet Snoah for grilling at Blue wolf in olgie and followed his advise. The route was no problem at all. It was very dry, and we only had a small river crossing. The water barrely reach the axels of the wheels.

I'm back in Astrakhan with a broken rear rim, the bad road between Dossor and Aktobe is to blame... :(

I have a replacement in Barcelona that will ship out on Monday, and then depending on how much time and money I have left, I'll weigh my options.

I can't risk breaking another rim on really bad roads, and I can not enter Kazakhstan again because my tourist visa only allowed one entry, so I'm considering riding to Irkutsk through Russia and then down to Ulaanbaator, but I fear that route might be too boring, any advise?

My other option is to go north to Moscow and then Saint Petesbourg and keep going to the Nordkapp.

Noes knapp mate, defo. I've just ridden across Russia, Moscow to Vladivostok, after riding around Europe - incl up to Nordkapp. Russia is an amazing country and the people are fantastic, but it is a pretty boring place to just ride through. The roads are also very bad in places so if your bike's crook already, I'd head north to Nordkapp. Norway is without doubt the most beautiful place I've ever been, hands down. The people are great too. Nordkapp's a hard slog, but great once it's done.

There's a cracking wee campsite just outside Alta, right beside a lake, that's well worth staying at either on the way up or down.

I'd also really recommend riding back along the west coast of Norway. Will take a bit of time but the views are stunning.

Enjoy


www.teapotone.com
Riding the world on 2 wheels

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Bloody phones!

Meant 'Nordkapp' in opening line above.


www.teapotone.com
Riding the world on 2 wheels

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Thanks for the advice! The rim is already repaired, it looks good, but the Russian guy who did it told me to avoid bad roads, so the decision is taken. Change of plans, I am now heading north!