Very strange, as I clearly remember the tall one saying it could be possible if you are an experienced rider and the shorter one saying he didn't think it would be possible. They talked about it amongst themselves before we met. Anyway, I did not say they said it shouldn't be done, they told me they had doubts if it could be done, as I mentioned. Big difference between should or could huh...?
But in the end, who cares? I did it, Adam did it, so it has been proven that one can do it on a bike. What is impossible for one is easy for another and vice-versa...

Amen to that!!! I don't understand why everybody wants to go to Mongolia, Pamir is way more interesting than Mongolia in my opinion...

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I just hope the area will get some more attention, it deserves it. And at least for that track it makes sense of having offroad tyres...

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They are really great guys and I had fun talking with them over breakfast. They do think cyclists should be doing it East to West.

Unless you get a track from Walter, get hit by a Lada, arrested, put in quarantine and make some friends along the way

The landscapes in the Pamir are like a different planet and the people in the Wahkan valley are just so exceptionally friendly. Interestingly, quite a few of the older people speak passable German. They had it in school. Can't get my head around that one. What were the Soviets thinking when they came up with that plan? German, of all languages?:confused1:


Cheers,
Steffen

Hi SEB i think you have judge this guy to fast, he used to travel a lot taking his time but his boss at work has limited his yearly time off too only 3 weeks.

When the weather is good at weekends he spends his time mostly riding his bikes (i think he has 3) in holland.

Now he has to pick his routes/trips carefully due to his limited time off and this year it was Tajikistan. He could of caught a flight there and rented a bike but he would rather spend any free time riding his bike as petrol runs through his veins. He planned his trip out carefully beforehand so to him the ride to Bishkek was just to get to his destination just like someone takes a plan i guess but he would rather crunch out a lot of KMs a day on his bike than rather take a flight to maximize all his time off riding.

Once he got to Osh he rented a sensible bike (XT600) from Muztoo and made his way to Tajikistan taking his time as this was his plan.

I met him near Khorog and again on the Pamir highway.

On my last night in Osh i caught up with him for a where he explained all this to me and also told me about all his other past trips which are very interesting and mainly unknown due to him keeping no blog ect ect

Some people choose to do things like these and are not as lucky as yourself taking alot of time out or also like me riding my bike and ditching it to head back to work offshore from time to time.

On my travels i have met many people some who only ride 150km aday maximum and some who crunch out a lot of KMs so what works for them and makes them happy may not be the same for others so i feel it is wrong to judge anyone on this but we are all entitled to our own opinion i guess

As for the dude on the 996 it will be interesting to see how he gets on with the low quality fuel in remote areas (homestays ect act) and even the rough small pass between the krgy & tajik border which is off course nothing on a DRZ but to a Ducati 996 with the very low ground clearance it will interesting to say the least

We love Peter and his DUCATI. Pizza forever. He made it back in one peace. Broken luggage carrier was all. his TCK 80 180/70 17 !!!
I keep it as a souvenir, or until the next DUCATI needs a tire like it.

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HA! GREAT!

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I am still waiting to see your pics from after Tsengel ! When will you be home?

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Shame on me! Life on the road: so much to see, so little time. I'll have a few rest days in Osh after I get out of Tajikistan. I put it on my to do list.

Was great to see Seb minutes after he got out of the Batang Valley track. Talk about first hand account. Life is full of coincidences and "Yana Track" survivors seem to have a special cosmic connection.

:d

true!

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Or get ripped of your bike...

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tut tut tut Adam, it's time to go to the oculist my friend...

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It is really a nice valley, but I doubt if motorbikers rushing through is the kind of attention the Bartang deserves. Interestingly we met different guys, that did it by foot this year.

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Cycling in Asia: Thailand to Turkey, Siberia and Central Asia

Any tourism Tajikistan receives im sure will be welcome be it on bicycle or motorbike but as Seb mentioned this route will not be for all motorbikes as it is clearly only possible on smaller type enduro bikes so i dont it is going to be nuremberg ring road anytime soon

At least in the bigger cities, in USSR schools you could usually choose between learning English or German, sometimes even French and Spanish. But I'm quite sure in rural areas it all came down to the teachers available. As there were a lot of German speakers relocated to Kazakhstan, that probably explains your observation.

What a legend, characters like this are what's going to save the "Adventure motorcycling" trend from just becoming another generic form of tourism, whereby everyone follows a pre-set plan/itinery, does the same things, and generally go and ruin otherwise lovely unspoilt parts of the world.


I think the natural tendancy for the world to become 'smaller' is fast at work, and in 10 years time the idea that you could explore Mongolia or Tajikistan on a trailbike pretty much as you saw fit (or as the landscape saw fit!) will seem hard to believe. And harder still to understand would be the idea that locals would treat you as honoured guests rather than loathed tourists (thinking back twice in Tajikistan lone boys threw a stone at me as I passed on the main Pamir highway). I'm sure Mr Colebatch will recall going for a ride in the hills around UB in Mongolia, and in-inadvertently ending up the wrong side of security walls and gates for private villas/estates.

I'm insanely jealous of you all. I did about a third or so of that Bartang valley road four years ago as a day trip from Horag, and also some of that Roshtkala valley road as well. The latter was abandoned because I seemed to have found a dead end, which doesn't really make sense when you're following a road that follows a river... If any of you have tackled that one I'd love to see a few photos because if I think about it, I'm still bugged to this day that I couldn't work out where the hell the road had gone, plus whether the dodgy part on the other end I'd had a look at was actually part of that road.

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UK to Mongolia 2009, on a DR350