For all you lot who ask questions about the road, I found this website. You need a bit of Russian to navigate about and I've only just found it myself.

www.amur-trassa.ru

I think it might be very very useful.
Actually not as useful as I thought, but there are some good route maps there showing the new road in relation to the existing minor roads. Gives some idea as to the progress of the road and where it is precisely so you can add it onto your own map / road atlas.
Rgds

Les

[This message has been edited by 4wheels (edited 12 May 2005).]

[This message has been edited by 4wheels (edited 12 May 2005).]

A press report on the inauguration of this road published in Almaty Herold you will find on www.tlc-exped.net/Transsib-Road.html

Reinhart

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www.tlc-exped.net/

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www.tlc-exped.net/

In Russia "road is open" means "direction is open".
Anyway, useful site. Must have

Hiya Lads,

I'll be there in a couple of months and will let you know what the road is like.

I'm leaving Ireland on the 17th of June for Vladivostok. There are two of us on different kind of bikes I'm on a Honda ST1100. Read a report that a Goldwing got through last year.

Regards


Laurence

Yes i am not already traveller so my fingers were too fast. I sent reply without saying anything What i like to say is that road conditions between Cita-Habarowsk is not any secret. Anyone says what tey have seen.

When you have been there you can not tell more becaucse it depends. Is it rainy, dry, cold, or anything. I have been there, from Finland to Vlad and back on summer 2004. Gas is not problem and food either. Sometimes you have to drive slow but you can drive it thrue. I made it to both directions. Sorry about my english.

For those of you who don't read russian, here is the web address of the most useful map on the site...

http://www.amur-trassa.ru/images/history2/1.jpg

The map is in colour a3 landscape size.

The key is as follows...

red = finished - paved
blue = finished - unpaved
yellow = you must use a local road - unpaved
green = "pioneer" road finished - passable by construction machinery
grey = not yet built
blue / grey = underconstruction with detours

The plan is to finish the unpaved road by 2006 summer and pave the road in 2007 and 2008 . This seems optimistic. However, the map is 12 months out of date!

The website indicates progress of about 100kms / year until 2002 and 360kms in 2003 although the map itself shows only about 90kms in 2003 .

The difficult bits would appear to be sivaki-gonzha and mogocha-sbega. Local roads would be very bad after rain. Assuming dry weather, the gap would take about 4.5 days.

Rgds

Les

Kevin has just ridden Khabarovsk to Chita. It took about 8 days (left on 4 May, arrived Chita on 12 May), approx 1270 miles. A lot of the road is under construction but he says 90% of it reasonable dirt road now. He was with a group of 8 other riders. One favoured speed and ended up writing off his R1150GS.

This site has been taken offline.
Les

Have a look at this thread, started by martheijnens, with a detailed description about the roads. Information has been accurate in Summer 2004: http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb...ML/000037.html

Greetings

Marco
http://www.schnueriger.net

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Marco
http://www.schnueriger.net

The site www.amur-trassa.ru is now back online. It seems to have the same content as before and no update for the 2005 contruction season - detailed maps are still 2003 vintage.
Rgds
Les

This past August I rode this route east to west on a KLR 650. It took 4 1/2 days from Birobidzhan to Chita, equivalent to about 5 days from Khabarovsk. I think it would be more accurate to call this section "Birobidzhan to Chita," or vice versa, since the road is paved all the way from Khabarovsk to Birobidzhan, which is a pleasant small city with a nice hotel (the Boctoc). Unpaved areas begin a bit west of Birobidzhan.

As others have reported, there were mainly three types of unpaved roads: 1. Finished and awaiting paving. These were wide, usually straight, very hard pack with a thin overlay of loose gravel, easy to ride fairly fast (50+ mph), but dusty. Some of these stretches were finished except the bridges over the streams had not yet been built, there being rough surfaced bypasses built around the bridge constructon site, the streams going through culverts. 2. Under construction, which varied greatly from easy to ride to the worst, with large, looose rock surfaces which mandated slow speeds. Other areas had a decent, fairly smooth dirt-gravel surface, but over only 1/2 of the road (equivalent to one lane), the other half being ungraded. 3. Local roads, not yet upgraded, but usually fairly well maintained and easy to ride, often very dusty also. These were the least common of the three types. The most common was number 1, but there were also lots of stretches still under construction.

In my website devoted to my trip I've posted a day by day journal of traveling through this area. Unfortunately, I can't usually give precise locations for different types or roads because I usually didn't know exaclty where I was at a given time. My gps wasn't working and my Russian language skills so non-existent I couldn't ask where I was. The one exception where I knew my location exactly is a very rough stretch of road under construction that was both east and west of the intersection of the road running north from Skovorodino to Tynda, a section aptly described by someone who rode it in 2004 as a "slag heap." It's still bad but there was lots of active construction going on in this area, so perhaps by next summer it will be better.

Overall, I did not find this overall stretch of road, the so-called Zilow Gap, to be as difficult to ride as some have described in the past. I'm not sure how much of that is due to road improvements from the summer of 2004 to 2005, and how much to differences in equipment and dirt riding experience. I do know it's still an adventure, but it will become much less of one when it is finally all paved.

I hope this information is useful to someone. If anyone has any questions I may be able to answer, please check out my website and/or email me.

Mike
www.rtwrider.net

[This message has been edited by liketoride2 (edited 06 December 2005).]

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Mike

http://www.livejournal.com/users/hel...tml?mode=reply

about road

Thanks Shustrik - Very good link
Les