CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
On the way it passes Tsagan shuvuut, Mongun Taiga and back through Tsagan shuvuut. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Mongolia into Russia - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Far to the north-west of Mongolia, past the salt shores of Uvs Nuur, the country folds into a high rim of mountains where the steppe meets the Siberian forest. Turgen is the name of a river and a mountain massif here, in the Uvs basin, a region that UNESCO treats as one of the great closed drainage basins of Central Asia, with a lake so salty that fish barely live in it and an extraordinary spread of habitats, from desert to tundra, in a short distance.
Read the complete Turgen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Turgen is where the day begins. Next is Tsagan shuvuut.
Tsagan Shuvuut means roughly white mountain-range in Mongolian, and the name fits. High in the far north-west, near the meeting point of Tuva and Mongolia, the range rises into snow and rock, and the slopes are dark with larch and cedar taiga lower down. This is the Altai-Sayan country, where Siberian forest meets Central Asian steppe, and it feels like both at once.
Read the complete Tsagan shuvuut write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tsagan shuvuut comes up about 85 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mongun Taiga.
Mongun-Taiga is the highest peak in Tuva, a snow-capped mountain of nearly four thousand metres on the border with Mongolia, where the Altai ranges tangle with the Sayan and the steppe fades into rock and ice. The name means roughly the silver mountain, which suits it, and the area is a wild upland of glacial valleys, alpine lakes and wide, windy pastures that are grazed in summer by yaks, sheep and horses belonging to Tuvan herders.
Read the complete Mongun Taiga write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 178 km into the recorded legs you reach Mongun Taiga. Next is back through Tsagan shuvuut.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tsagan shuvuut write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tsagan shuvuut, late in the day. Next is Turgen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Turgen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Turgen. That is the ride.
Turgen → Tsagan shuvuut is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Tsagan shuvuut → Mongun Taiga is 93 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Mongun Taiga → back through Tsagan shuvuut is 93 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Tsagan shuvuut → Turgen is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.