Steve's Cycling Blog

Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving the trip, and loving the riding, but after six days of riding and camping I’m looking forward to a shower and a day off the bike!

The good news is that despite some disruption overnight (farmers, sheep, thunderstorms etc passing through), the rain and the wind have gone, so getting there’s going to be relatively simple.

Stage 17 rider notes

My camping neighbour decided that he needed to be up at 0450 this morning and as he was quite close by that meant I was awake then too, so was waiting for breakfast at 0600 and on the road by 0610.

The climb from camp through to 1700m went pretty well – it wasn’t particularly steep, but was definitely a constant climb. At times there was a little wind, and the odd sprinkling of rain, but generally cool and cloudy. I passed Erwin and Paul shortly after leaving, Grant and Jackie a little later, and Ivan just after 42kms.

With the early start, and steady climbing I was at ‘lunch’ shortly before 0900, and with the long descent into town I was at the hotel by 1000.

Happily they had a room ready, so I was enjoying my first shower in a week very shortly there after! Washing, tent drying, and some general sorting out followed before ‘real’ lunch and uploading yesterday’s blog post.

Three observations from the last couple of weeks in Mongolia;

• given how few vehicles there are on the road (in the last three days of riding on a major highway we wouldn’t have seen more than 100 vehicles per day), there are a ridiculous number of petrol stations – coming into, out of, or past any town there will be at least four different brands on offer,
• the same can be said for banks – in a country where the average annual income is $425USD, the main street of every major town is pretty much wall-to-wall banks on both sides of the road,
• they like their roofs bright and colourful, but it turns out it’s hard to take a decent photo of that, when you’re on the road coming into a town it’s too small to see, when you’re at ground level looking up you don’t get the effect, but here’s my best effort…!
  

  Brightly coloured roofs

This afternoon I’ve taken a wander round Mörön and discovered that there’s not really a lot to discover, aside perhaps from the Danzadarjaa Khiid monastery! There’s talk of some people going up to Khovsgol Lake tomorrow, which is considered to be the ‘mother of Mongolia’, so I may see if I can join them. Alternatively I might just stay in bed till late, and practice taking naps!

For another take on our trip, check out Charlie and Will’s blog or their photo gallery.

Riding data