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.
The stops in between: Uvs Lake, Ubsu-Nur and back through Uvs Lake. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Mongolia into Russia - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 18 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Uvs Nuur is a lake in a basin, and the basin matters more than the lake. The depression lies astride the border between Mongolia and the Russian republic of Tuva, ringed by mountains on three sides, and it is the northern end of the Central Asian steppe and the southern edge of the Siberian taiga. Within a few hours of each other you can find desert dunes, steppe, mountain tundra, glaciers, forest and salt marsh. UNESCO listed it in 2003 as a transboundary site, and Russia and Mongolia manage their sides separately.
Read the complete Uvs Nuur Basin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Uvs Nuur Basin is where the day begins. Next is Uvs Lake.
Salt water in a landlocked basin, with snow mountains behind it and a horizon that goes on and on: Uvs Lake is a strange, quiet sight. It sits low, at around seven hundred metres above sea level, in a basin on the Mongolia and Tuva border, and it has no outlet. Water arrives from the rivers, mainly the Tes, and leaves only by evaporation, which is why the lake is salty and why its shape changes from year to year.
Read the complete Uvs Lake write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Uvs Lake comes up about 137 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ubsu-Nur.
Ubsu-Nur, or Uvs Nuur, is a lake in a land of extremes. It lies in a closed basin on the border between Mongolia and the Russian republic of Tuva, in the middle of Central Asia, where there is no outlet to the sea, so the water simply evaporates, leaving it too salty to drink. It is the largest lake in Mongolia by area, shallow, with wide marshes and reed beds, and it sits between the Altai mountains to the west and the Sayan range to the north. The Tes river, which feeds the lake, gives its name to a part of the basin, and the whole area was listed by UNESCO in 2003 as the Uvs Nuur Basin.
Read the complete Ubsu-Nur write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 509 km into the recorded legs you reach Ubsu-Nur. Next is back through Uvs Lake.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Uvs Lake write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Uvs Lake, late in the day. Next is Uvs Nuur Basin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Uvs Nuur Basin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Uvs Nuur Basin. That is the ride.
Uvs Nuur Basin → Uvs Lake is 137 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Uvs Lake → Ubsu-Nur is 372 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ubsu-Nur → back through Uvs Lake is 372 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Uvs Lake → Uvs Nuur Basin is 137 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.