CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Dashbalbar it runs 255 km to Dashbalbar; allow about 6 h 52 of riding. It goes by way of Mongol Daguur SPNA, Landscapes of Dauria and back through Mongol Daguur SPNA. It crosses from Mongolia into Russia - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 59 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go — slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
For 38 km this is Chita to Dauria Reserve, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Open steppe, a few shallow lakes and a very large sky: that is the landscape of Dauria, the borderland where eastern Mongolia meets Russia and China. The Chuh-Nuur lakes lie in the Mongolian part of it, a region of rolling grassland dotted with salt-edged basins that fill and shrink with the rains. UNESCO lists the Landscapes of Dauria as a transboundary site, because it is the migration crossroads that matters, not the border drawn across it.
Read the complete Chuh-Nuur Lake cluster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chuh-Nuur Lake cluster is where the day begins. Next is Mongol Daguur SPNA.
Mongol Daguur is a strictly protected area in the far east of Mongolia, in Dornod province, where the steppe rolls away towards the Russian and Chinese borders under a sky that seems twice the size of any other. Together with Russia's Daursky reserve across the border, it forms the Landscapes of Dauria, a World Heritage site covering one of the last great intact steppe ecosystems on Earth. There are no fences, no villages, barely any tracks, just grass, lakes, wind and wildlife.
Read the complete Mongol Daguur SPNA write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mongol Daguur SPNA comes up 49 km in. Next is Landscapes of Dauria.
Dauria is the great steppe that straddles the border between Russia's Zabaykalsky region and northeastern Mongolia, and it is one of the last places on earth where you can see a grassland ecosystem working on its own terms. UNESCO listed the landscapes of Dauria in 2017 as a joint Russian and Mongolian site, recognising the importance of its steppe, wetlands and wildlife. The scale is vast: rolling grasslands stretching to the horizon, dotted with lakes, under a sky that seems to go on forever.
Read the complete Landscapes of Dauria write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
97 km in you reach Landscapes of Dauria. Next is back through Mongol Daguur SPNA.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mongol Daguur SPNA write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mongol Daguur SPNA, late in the day. Next is Chuh-Nuur Lake cluster.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chuh-Nuur Lake cluster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Chuh-Nuur Lake cluster. That is the ride.
Chuh-Nuur Lake cluster → Mongol Daguur SPNA is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mongol Daguur SPNA → Landscapes of Dauria is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Landscapes of Dauria → back through Mongol Daguur SPNA is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mongol Daguur SPNA → Chuh-Nuur Lake cluster is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.