Rain on my tent, but nice and dry inside. We also had some rain showers come through last night. Fortunately, the riding today was dry. We followed the shoreline of the lake with some climbs and descents, particularly in the first half of the day. The mountains came down to the lake and hence we would climb over the low ridges. The second part of the day we saw the lake less and it was also flatter.

I left Култук early and had quiet cycling through Слюдянка. After that there were a few steep hills to climb over. We could see the lake below and could also see the opposite shoreline. At 35km I refreshed my rear brake pad which had worn with all the hills. After this, we saw more people along the road selling strawberries as we came into the small town of Утулук. There was a cafe here at 42km. Not much further was the larger town of Байкальск with a large smokestack and factory and more strawberry vendors. The road turned inland after this and we didn’t see much of the lake. It was flatter cycling and we road to the oblast boundary and a cafe at 82km.

We went into Выдрино to find a store and refill on water. From here the road surface was a bit worse. We cycled out of town and found a place to camp along a small river. We had just enough time to get situated before the rain came.

108km today, 8962km across Eurasia [Photo:1087, 1088]