Going from that main road and directly heading for Dalanzadgad area is possible, but people who have done that are talking about horrible tracks, not easy to find, and possibly getting stuck.

Is your main interest the dunes?

What you can do is head North to Uliastay. From there you can continue the middle route, which has some interesting things. But from Uliastay you can also head north west direction to Zavkhan, which is realy nice. Lakes with coasts of made of sand dunes. Ulaagchin Khar Lake.

Along the middle route there are some interesting things to see, like Khorgo vulcano (the lake was not so interesting to me)
But of course, a lot of interesting stuff requires a detour.

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2011 Overland from Amsterdam to Nepal and back
2018 Overland from Amsterdam to Tokyo via Central Asia and Mongolia

The part from Khovd to Altai is stone gobi and a bit boring, but you can also see a lot of colourful mountains if you really watch.

If you continue the south route to the sand gobi, it might stay like this.

I personally recommend the middle route too

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www.klausmotorreise.com

I finally headed to Uliastay where I'm right now. I liked the idea of Gobi probable more than be actually there with 100 degrees trying to find the right tracks. The road to Uliastay was really beautiful a bit hard to not get lost with all the bifurcations appearing and despairing. I saw almost no cars for hours and got on a rain storm that made the road muddy but I really enjoyed it.

I may head tomorrow to Ulaagchin Khar Lake.

Thank you guys for all the advice/recommendations. I really appreciate them.

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NYC-TDF 08/09 Ride Report

Do you have good navigation with OSm or other maps?
There is not so much out there, in terms of people and so on. Also very little accommodations, only at the lake itself.

Southeast in this area there is a spring (mukhtaar or something) which is awesome but last kilometer is all soft sand.
Then from there you can reach the lake over a hill which features a nateral arch. And it is a really nice route in general.
Once you get to the lake, yoi can follow the south coast, which is nice and ends in dunes at the water.
From that area, where you will see some yurts at the lake, you can go east to continue to the main road again. You can also use that road as the entry road towards the lake as it may be more easy.

So if you can camp anywhere and navigate maps with tracks like OSM, then you can go. But not many people around there. And of course no signal.

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2011 Overland from Amsterdam to Nepal and back
2018 Overland from Amsterdam to Tokyo via Central Asia and Mongolia

I'm just following up on my question now that I experience myself some answers.

After I decided against going to Gobi and ended up with extra time on my hands when I reached UB so I changed my mind and headed to the Gobi desert.
To Dalanzadgad is an 8 hours ride, all good pavement except for the 70km after Mandalgovi, that has construction detours and big potholes.

From Dalanzadgad to Bayandalai, 100km is also new pavement. In that way you have the Yolyn Am Canyon, very beautiful.

Once you get to Bayandalai is all dirt, with the typical tracks in Mongolia going from one road to multiple ones and then merging again.
To the tallest dunes is 120km in total. The conditions are rough but not a big deal, just short sections with a bit of sand, some mud, small rocks sections, and a lot of washboards but not deep sand or river crossings. Although, I crossed several dry river beds, this was end of June, I don't now if at any other time there is water on them.
There is small gas station in Bayandalai just right at the beginning of the town on a dirt road to the right coming from Dalanzadgad (the other one is abandoned)

Please put some gas, I have more than 400km range, didn't and ended up siphoning from a car. The bike used way more gas on this 120km than on average riding. There is no gas at all after this town on this road.


The important part is to take the north road, so you get to the dunes with them on your left. I believe that the south road the one that lead to Servrei is the one reported as difficult (Didn't ride it myself I'm just speculating)

The experience is fantastic and probably is what I liked the most in Mongolia.

I have some details and pics on my ride report in advrider.

https://advrider.com/f/threads/madri...378256/page-10

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NYC-TDF 08/09 Ride Report