Today a full day of cycling on gravel. It is a slow, dusty and bumpy ride at times. The road is broad but we have multiple obstacles to slow things down: craters; large holes and also small ones crater fields; … Continue reading →
We started on gravel portions of the Amur Highway (also known as M58 or Чита-Хабаровск). We had 57km of gravel and 38km of asphalt in a long ride. The gravel road is wide, but is a tougher surface to ride. … Continue reading →
Paved road all day. Slept in tent. Position N51.90547, E114.48008. See Map Today we started on the road to Хабаровск. This was still a good quality paved road. We had some gradual climbs as well. Yesterday we stocked up on … Continue reading →
We reached the city of Chita today. During the past week our landscapes changed again as we cycled from Улан-Удэ. We went along several large open valleys without trees. Fortunately it wasn’t very hot, but the dry open valleys reminded … Continue reading →
Today a bike ride back to the big city of Чита. It was once again nice to get to a larger town. We had a brief shower as I went to pack the tent in, just enough to make the … Continue reading →
Some long fairly flat riding today. We continued to follow our broad open valley on the way to Чита. The road was narrow and surface was bumpy but it was flatter. We had some gentle grades. I left early and … Continue reading →
We crossed watersheds today. The rivers now drain to the Pacific Ocean instead of the Arctic Ocean. I’m not certain of the exact location, and it wasn’t a dramatic pass but somewhere between 41km and 45km among several low hills. … Continue reading →
When studying our maps, we noticed that the train distance from Бада to Чита was more than 100km shorter than the road. Hence, the small road along the tracks was intriguing. Was it paved? Our maps also showed few places … Continue reading →
A lot of climbing today, particularly since the last two thirds of the day followed a river valley. It was overcast and misty when I started out. I rode slowly and stopped to clear my glasses a few times. At … Continue reading →
We crossed some wide open valleys today and had long gentle grades to climb and ascend. We also crossed an oblast boundary and are now six hours ahead of Moscow (8 hours ahead of Amsterdam, 16 hours ahead of Denver). … Continue reading →