Mongolia Aug09
 

Hi,

I'm hopefully gonna travel Switzerland-Vladivostok with a detour through Mongolia starting at the beginning of July 2009 and ending at the end of September. I think Mongolia will be the best part and that's where I wanna spend most of my time (all of August) and also where having company would be nice. Planning on entering Mongolia in the west (Altai area), go through Ulaanbaatar and exit as far east as possible. If possible, I would also like to do some hiking/mountaineering in the Altai and elsewhere (now that is a bit of a novel idea!). Also having a month time should be enough to allow for a few detours and chilling.

Here is a post with possible routes in mongolia:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...light=mongolia

The rest of the journey will probably be something like Italy-Slovenia-Hungary-Romania-Ukraine-Russia-Mongolia-Russia-South Korea. Kazakhstan would also be an option for a detour.

Well, let me know if anyone is about for any part of the journey and in particular Mongolia. Btw, I'm riding an Enfield Bullet 500 and will not be going too fast.

Mauro

Hi there,

Two of us will be In Mongolia (with luck) for the last week of July, first two weeks of August, entering through Altai region.

Leaving UK May 24th via France, Italy, Slovenia and the rest of the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, the stans and Pamir highway, Russia, Mongolia, Russia to Vlad, then (with extra luck) Korea, USA and Pan American.


Al

Hi Al,

you also posted on the http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...k-2009-a-37706 thread, which I've read. I thought that you would be too far ahead (some of the guys there definitely are), however I might be able to make it in time to hook up. I'll let you know about my progress... And if I don't make it in time I'll be interested in information of you, e.g. I also want to head across to Vancouver (I'm moving there).

That slight detour through Turkey, Iran and the Stans sounds cool, a shame I cannot start a bit earlier than July!

Cheers, mauro

I wish you all the very best for this planned ride. I hope you are able to get further than me and a mate did last year on our Bullets.
We had to leave 2 fully servicable 500 Bullets in mid Kazakhstan, so if you do detour into Kaz and find yourself near Maqat needing spares you might be lucky and find our bikes are still there.

Thanks, I probably need a bit of luck. Well, I'm not currently planning to go through Kazakhstan but if I break down I could go and try to fetch one of your bullets... You're not planning to go back there then?

I'd love to go back and finish the trip and get all the way to Mongolia. But at the moment there is a bit of a problem with finances. But maybe one day once I have some funds together again.

I really do envy the you and the prospect of riding east.

Have you thought about doing this as a charity ride? The charity organisers we rode for are Charity Rallies They have some really good causes to support.

We were lucky enough to gain sponsorship for fuel, spares and visas as well as raising over £2500 for charity too. The only reason we were not able to ride further than we did was due to my riding buddy getting injured in a crash and he was not able to ride his bike. We had always said that as we had started together if anything was to go wrong then we would finish together, unfortunately this turned out to be a few thousand miles sooner than planned.

Those funds, I'm still struggling with them too! I might write to Hitchcock's and ask them if they're interested in giving me some discount in exchange for some advertising. About the whole charity thing, I'm not so sure: could I not just stay home and donate the money I planned to spend on the holiday? I guess it seems to work, at least in Britain, however, here in Switzerland the doing holidays and raising funds for charity is almost unheard of. Charity Rallies wouldn't be the right thing for me anyway, as this whole trip is because I'm moving to Vancouver, where I would like to have my bullet too.

I can tell you from personal experience that Hitchcocks are a tough nut to crack. We hit them from the charity angle and didn't get anything better than trade price for parts.

Wassels were much more helpful by donating 2 pair of shocks and brand new primary and final chains for both bikes. But I feel that we only got as much support as we did because it was a ride to raise money for charity, I don't think it would have mattered if we handed the bikes over or not but the fact we were raising for good causes.

I would recommend fitting new, mild steel heavy duty spokes in the wheels though before you leave. We ended up having to replace a number of them in my bike in Ukraine and then a full re spoke in Volgograd. The up side to this though was the number of fantastic people we met while waiting for the repairs to be done. And the guys at BikeCity in Volgograd are absolute diamonds, I would suggest anyone heading that way to look them up.

You can see a few photos at Mongolian Charity Rally - a set on Flickr These cover prepping the bikes, the lead up to leaving and a few from the road. It might give you a few ideas as to how to load, or not load, the bike.

Thanks for the tips and pics. yes, i'll try to take less stuff... That your spokes broke so early on seems a bit strange, up to Volgograd the roads are fine, or not? I've been to norway last summer with my enfield, two up, also on unpaved roads and have not had any spokes breaking. but i'll definatly take spare spokes, a few more now. and i'll look out for the BikeCity if I need repairs to be done.

I guess if riding for charity finding sponsor would be easier. I might see if there are any possibilities here in Switzerland.

change of plan
 

So, not going to Mongolia after all and instead to Morocco. Well, I certainly hope to go there sometime with my Bullet. Mauro