Hi

Go this note some time ago from Paul Ackland which I found useful:

"re the weather in Turkey and Iran. We found the more northerly
route through Turkey (Erzerum, Dogubayzit) cold and we did this route with
winter gloves but no electric gadgets, heated grips or such like would have
been appreciated at this time. This route takes you over 4 high passes a
couple of which had some snow lying around but none on the road itself. The
snowiest of these had been cleaned by a snow plow (or something) as snow was
in small banks on either side of the road. We did this run in the last week
of October and some we can only guess that there would be more snow and it'd
be colder!.

On a positive the roads were not at all crowded, sceenery was lovely and
hotels were centrally heated. We really enjoyed a hamman after a cold day.

Road surfaces were excellent and the routes were very gradual- no steep
sections. Road speeds are enforced by the cops; we were stopped doing 65-70
once and told it was a problem. Dicussion immediately shifted to football
and the speeding thing seemed to have been dropped

We did deliberate about taking the southerly route entereing Iran west of
Orumiye. Other travellers travelled Eastern Turkey without any sense of
trouble re the Kurdish issue. More importantly this route allows you to
travel at a lower altitude much further east and only has one high pass.
Unfourtunately as we never went this why we can't comment on the road
surface.

If I was you I would consider this option as a possibly warmer way into
Iran.

Iran itself was not the hot desert country we thought it would be. We were
rained on once for a whole day; like the UK!. It could be warm in the sun
but once on the bikes it was 'wrap up as for a chilly day at home'. Roads
are really fine and once out of towns you can leave the traffic behind. We
found the north busier than the south. The country is made up of flat plains
with areas of rocky mountains out cropping which often are ridden around
rather than through.
Petrol is easy to get and costs about a quid to fill my 43 litre tank! So
far such a big tank has been unnecessary but convienient.

Like Turkey hotels and guest houses in Iran were warm. Some times too hot;
we wondered if the Iranian's were doing all they could to use up their oil
reserves ASAP. "

Hope this is of interest



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Sean

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Sean