In the end the border crossing proved to be relatively straight forward and something of a non-event. As planned all our bikes were loaded onto one bus, us and our bags onto the other, and off we went.
To leave China we had to collect both our bags and cary them through the customs/immigration facility, but it was all just formality – other than getting told off for not being in a straight line…! As has become the norm in China everyone wanted to take our photo – including the immigration officials…! We got photographed in our straight lines, and then once we were all through we got photographed in front of a building which (apparently) says ‘Silk Route’ on the top.
We had expected that the busses were going to take us into the centre of Zamiin-Uud but apparently it was going to be too difficult to get all the vehicles together to transfer everything across, so in the end the rendezvous was in a truck park near the border.
We’ve got five Russian 4wd vans to transport our belongings and the necessary camping equipment with us through Mongolia – these things look pretty comical, but even on the first day they’ve been able to get places off-road which our vehicles in China never could. They’re also really well set up for cycle touring as they have bike racks on the roof of each of them which can
Once we got started the ride on the other hand not so much – the wind was even worse today, coming much more straight at us and at times a direct head wind.
Stage seven rider notes
Rob, Ivan and I rode together again, taking turns at the front to try and keep things moving, but even the roads here in Mongolia make that much harder because they are so much narrower. In China we were on a two lane (each way) road, with a huge wide shoulder – once we crossed into Mongolia essentially the same road is a two lane (total) road, with no shoulder to speak of. Back on our bikes and 500m later we found the lunch van at the side of the road with lunch all ready to go at just on 38km.
They weren’t entirely sure where we would be stopping but thought it would be somewhere about 80km, maybe a bit further – but they had no way to communicate with the lead vehicles (very limited cell coverage in Mongolia) so weren’t really sure. Thus we set off with the ‘worst case’ being we had just over 60km to go before camp, best case about 40km.
As the afternoon progressed the wind was even more directly in front of us, and at times we were down to under 10 km/h as we fought our way uphill into it.
To our surprise we found marking tape at just over 67km leading us off the road and into something of a valley with camp being set up, including some very welcome hot soup. After a few minutes the baggage van arrived and we got to setting up tents and getting out of damp riding gear. I’m currently typing this sitting in my tent listening to it flap in the ‘breeze’ wearing four layers of clothing as it’s a ‘barmy’ 11ºC and with the wind that’s blowing that feels significantly colder.
While a 67km stop today seemed like good news at the time, it does set us up for a hugely tough day tomorrow – we’ve got 146km to cover to the next town, and our next rest day. We’ve already had two tough days in the wind, and the forecast for tomorrow is just as windy with the added ‘bonus’ of light rain to add to the fun. Based on today’s overall average of only 15.6 km/h that’s nearly 9.5 hours of riding which at this point seems pretty much impossible! Realistically, although we weren’t having a lot of fun this afternoon, we’d have been much better off all round if we had gone through to somewhere round the 90km mark which would have made tomorrow somewhat more achievable.
Apparently the logic of stopping so early today was to allow the slower riders to finish tonight. While I understand that logic, given that Ruth and Ron only got in to camp this evening at 1930, some seven (what must have been incredibly tough) hours after we left, I don’t see how they stand a chance now of finishing tomorrow, even given we’re starting at 0600, that would have them finishing at something like 2100 tomorrow night.
Riding data
I hope tomorrow goes well! Thanks for sharing. What an adventure.