As someone with general bike travel experience, I will tell you the following:

(1) You will not know how much is too little or too much until you know how much you like to ride each day. Some people like to get up early, hit the road at 7am, and ride non stop 12 hours till 7pm. Other people like to wake up at 9am, hit the road about 11:30. Stop for lunch 13:30-15:30, then squeeze in a couple more hours before end of day at 17:30. Thus achieving 4 hours per day in the saddle.

(2) How much is too much or too little depends on how much you like taking detours to see interesting things locals suggest to you

(3) how much you ride per day depends on whether you want to do a fair bit of off road on your trip or not.

Only you can answer those questions and you will PROBABLY only be able to answer them 3-4 weeks into your trip.

- Between Samarkand and Almaty you are taking the least interesting option (the highway) when the glorious mountains of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan beckon.

- take spare bearings. do NOT take spare light bulbs. They are standard sizes and everywhere. And they will smash in your luggage leaving tiny bots of glass everywhere.

- Carring tyres sux and should be avoided at all costs. On top of that its heavy, unbalances your bike, screw your handling and is generally "uncool". Contact Dean (a Russian tyre distributor who is a HUBBER) as per this post http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...strachan-76491 and have tyres waiting for u in Astrakhan.

- Do carry a spare front and rear tube. Do fit heavy duty new tubes (and new bearings and seals and oil and filter and chain) before you go. Do not start with an "OK" chain and sprockets unless you know where you are going to be able to buy new ones en route.

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