Russia/Mongolia fuel question
 

I have a two part question regarding fuel in Russia / Mongolia.

1. Going west from Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian Hwy to Ulan Ude, south to Ulaanbaatar, west via Altai to Olgii. What is the longest distance in miles/km between known, "reliable" fuel stops?

2. What is your experience regarding drop of mileage/gallon (increase liters/100km) due to fuel quality in approximate percentage?

If recent information has been addressed in another post, please point me in the right direction. Thanx!

See link, hope this helps

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb/members/flid

Chris

Yes, thanx, that answered my question from Vlad to Ulan Ude. Read "Flid's Travels" blog. Captivating writing, nice photography.

But, couldn't find any fuel info on Mongolia...

mongolia and russia
 

i didt it 2 months ago. fuel is normally aveleable in mongolia for every 300km or so. i didt only use my spare 5ltr ones in the mouantins. i had fuell with mee for approxmately 500km and never had trouble.
naerly all the village in mongolia in a good size have fuell, but sometimes you maybe need to drive on 80 octane:scooter:.
and sometimes it can take some time to find the guy in the village ho can open the "gas station" but usally peopple is helpfull "and queriuos".

in russia fuel is not a big problem in russia.
from kharbarrovsk to ullanude just check the fuel staions on a russian map or do like i didt, fill up every time you see a fuell station...
if you are going by the main route somtimes you might need to make a turn an ride 10 or 15 km in to a village to find a stastion

hope it helps

Fantastic! My bike holds 550 km worth of fuel under worse case scenario. No need to carry any extra :w00t:

Thank you for the info :thumbup:!

i have done mongolia 3 times, on as little as a 10 litre tank (last year) - maximum distance was 225km between fuel.

Buy the very good Mongolian Road Atlas when you are in UB from the tourist counter at the central post office. It shows towns where fuel is available.

I just did the northern route this year - UB to the Western border - and fuel was at least ever 120km or less.

Interesting they call it a road atlas;)

Nevertheless, I think the 225km max distance between fuel you're referring to is on main "roads". If one decides to go off these, then they should revise their assumptions/estimates.

The "Road Atlas" I highly recommend ... it has proved 100% reliable with the info about what towns and villages have fuel. I would use that to plan where you can expect fuel. Especially since he is planning to enter from the North first, and travel via UB. The catch is that more remote towns may only have 80 octane.

I would be very surprised if any location was more that 250 km from the next fuel along any route. The standard UAZ 4WD vans only have a range of 270 - 300 km on those kinda "roads" (60 litre fuel capacity and 20-22 litres per 100 km consumption). And they are the main vehicle all over rural Mongolia and can be found anywhere and everywhere. Thats the benchmark. If your fuel range is bigger than the standard UAZ van, then you will have no problem to go anywhere in Mongolia.

Hi Colebatch, anywhere else I can buy the atlas you refer to? Or has anyone got a copy of this atlas they would be prepared to sell? I will of course cover P&P etc. Will be travelling west to east so UB is too late.

Not disagreeing with you on the Road Atlas being a good resource regarding fuel stops, etc., but when I finally got my hands on it at the State Store in UB, it was a good laugh as it resembled a Michelin atlas without the tarmac roads;)

But for those that don't begin their travels in UB and without the benefit of the Road Atlas, I think they need to make a presumption of how far they can go before refueling with 92 octane. Off the main roads, I'm sure gas is available but without an octane booster, some of the newer bikes may not do well with the 80 octane. I went off some of the main routes and discovered this dilemma. Luckily I had a few bottles of octane booster at the time.

As far as I know its only available in UB. Its not particularly ethical, but a few key pages between the western border and UB might be scanned for the reference of bikers going across the country. I have a worn out copy of the atlas, but I know a guy in the UK with a pristine scanable copy! Might be able to arrange something when I get back.

As Edde says ... you look at it and you think its talking about highways all over the country ... really they are just "trunk route wheel ruts" and "local yokel wheel ruts".

Having said that, in most directions, you can get 300km + from UB now on the main routes and still be on asphalt. But as soon as the asphalt stops, you are instantly in the boonies.

I am collating waypoints for Mongolia (see Northern Asia section) and have a lots of fuel stations waypointed, covering most of the Southern Route, Northern Route, and the Middle Route between the western border and UB. Having the fuel stations on the GPS is a big help. As is having decent GPS maps of the country

Many thanks Colebatch, I will be travelling alone and any pre planning I can do will reduce stress levels. Saw your other posts on GPS work, and this will be fantastic help. Chris

@colebatch

Is diesel, to your knowledge, available at all the Mongolian fuel stations? If not, then how far do you reckon there is between those that do?

Mongolia Road Atlas
 

If this is the one, it's available here
Mongolia maps from Omnimap, the world's leading on-line map store with over 250,000 map titles.
and
Mongolia Road Atlas

elo Colebatch
could you please point to where these GPS maps can be got? or are you talking about the OS map? or is garmins world map any good in your opinion?
ta

Diesel is available in almost all stations. You'll be fine with the normal fuel range of a diesel car. I recall some Gobi stretches which were perhaps 300km between towns, but that was heading out into real wilderness. There is no problem with obtaining diesel. The only thing is the variation in price. Currently, T1270 get's you a litre in UB, while the most expensive I found was T1500 in the south of Gov-Altai aimag. Generally, the further from UB or an asphalt road you go, the higher the price. It's normally around T1400.

Daniel

See at the bottom of page for digital map download
Landkarte Mongolei (1:1.600.000)
They are also selling other excellent maps

Driving&Navigation in Mongolia is anyway quite relatively easy. Last summer we had papermap, one Garmin and one PDA-GPS equipped with OziExplorer and Mongolia map downloaded from Reise-Know-How (my GPS)

I never actually felt that i was lost. I knew roughly where we were all the time but sometimes roads disappered and at least once we just headed direction where next city should be and eventually found road. Few times we had to search for the track and we did some extra driving. Also sometimes Garmin showed different route what reise-Know-How map/digital map and there were new roads which werent on my map/GPS nor Garmin but you could always watch where cars were driving and ask from locals (but dont show them map :) )

I think longest distance was something like 250km-280km in so called central route whichout fuelstation but beside that you could find fuel from almost every bigger village. Last option would be also always to find some ger and try to buy fuel from locals (we got petrol sales offer once in one house near lake) In eastern part 80 octane was more common but toward aimags capitals and UlanBataar 92 started to appear. We had our bikes once filled from canisters. After that always from pumps (many times pumped with hands)

That Roadatlas of Mongolia seems nice but quite expensive. GPS information of fuel stops could be usefull even though situations can change and you can see abandoned gas stations in villages. So it doenst mean that if there has been once station that it will be there next year. If I was feeling that i am unsure about petrol availability i tried to ask from village and i think Mongolians and i spoke equally bad russian so we did fine.

Mongolia is great country and now when i am putting my ride report together from last summer and watching videos, photos and tracks from GPS i really want to go back there summer 2011.

Thats the one! highly recommended

(1) Garmin world map is completely useless.

(2) I would get both GPS maps and the atlas mentioned above.

The GPS maps available from Worldwide routable Garmin maps from OpenStreetMap are the best I am aware of for Mongolia