Day 30, to Uüreg nuur  88km , 2377km to date,  1099m up, 1468m end

A solution was found to avoid the un-crossable river - it involved a “shortcut”, i.e. straight up and over the mountain range.  Made for another extremely tough day, starting with a very hard climb - only a couple riders managed to ride, most of us walked.  It was both too steep for my lowest gearing and way to rough.  Once over the top the initial descent was reasonable, however after the 2nd climb the descent was awful - very rough (I was almost launched off the bike several times), then it flattened out, but back to the sand and washboard.  It was like Mongolia was in some weird way saying goodbye to us.  Today is our last riding day in Mongolia.  Tomorrow we are trucked to the border, across the 30km no-man’s zone, then to Russia.

I will definitely remember Mongolia very fondly, spectacular scenery, a fascinating cross of traditional and very modern (we had 3 kids riding bareback on horses come through our camp tonight).  The people are wonderful and very generous.  I will also remember the cycling in Mongolia as the hardest, by a huge margin, that I have ever done.

Only one pic: