Silk route: start in Turkey or in China? and through Kyrgizstan or Tajikistan?

[betto]

After some great advice from people on an earlier post, my friend and I from Holland decided that we will cycle more or less the silk route later this spring/summer on our first major cycle tour. We basically want to bike the stretch between Istanbul and Xi'an or Urumchi in four months May-August. The countries we are thinking of going through are Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan/Kyrgyztan, and China. However, we are still wondering if people have some tips on the following:

- Whether to start in Istanbul and bike east or to fly to China and then bike back, considering the climate differences between May/June and July/August, especially in the mountain/desert stretches? Also, we think it might be cheaper to book a relatively cheap flight in advance to china right now, rather than arriving somewhere in china in august and perhaps having to pay a lot for a flight back to europe + bikes on flight on the spot.

- Whether to go through Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan or both? Considering the hassle and cost of visas, it would be great to only have to go through one of them. Based on what I've read so far, I get the impression that both offer tough and beautiful mountain rides, but that the Kyrgiz mountains are a bit lower and have better (paved) roads than the Tajik mountains. IN fact, there seem to be a lot of glaciers and few roads in Tajikistan, so not sure how easy it would be to get across it from CHina to Uzbekistan without entering kyrgizstan. Kyrgizstan however seems to have more roads and options for getting directly to Uzbekistan. Comments?

- Any other specific suggestions about which route to take and issues along that route?

Many thanks!
betto

 

[Creamcrackered]

Tajikistan - it's tough, but an amazing ride. It would be a shame to miss it. On of the reason's it is a good idea to go west to east is that by the time you hit the mountains you are pretty fit.

 

[HelenD123]

Tajikistan - it's tough, but an amazing ride. It would be a shame to miss it. On of the reason's it is a good idea to go west to east is that by the time you hit the mountains you are pretty fit.

That's the approach I took with Canada (going east to west).

 

[Kirstie]

I know that Uzbekistan visas are extremely hard to get - it's completely hit and miss. Apparently they don't just issue a visa, they issue you a letter inviting you in, which you need to produce at the border. There are plenty of agencies in London who claim to be able to get these, but a lot of them don't come up with the goods. Start well in advance if you want to go there, would be my advice.

If you want me to put you personally in touch with someone who has done the Stans and will have loads of info, then please PM me.