This is the travelblog of Cyril Ducau and Niccolo Manno on their adventure from London (Cyril), Munich (Niccolo) to Hong Kong on motorbikes.
It took us short of 3 months to do 20,000km on bikes, trains and planes. We crossed the following countries together:

Austria - Italy - Slovenia - Croatia - Serbia - Bulgaria - Turkey - Georgia - Azerbaijan - Turkmenistan - Uzbekistan - Kyrgyzstan - Kazakhstan - Russia - Mongolia - China - Hong Kong

On this site you will find some info on both of us, our bikes, some of our friendly helpers in Hong Kong and London and loads of pictures on our trip. 

Latest top picture

Latest top picture
Thanks for watching our blog - Enjoy as we did it!

Our path

Our path
Click picture to download Google Earth kmz file !

Thursday, May 15, 2008

The Gobi - the end it is...or so it seems right now

Yesterday was a good and a very bad day...good as the weather was alright and we finally left Ulaanbaatar to go into the Gobi desert for a 5-day tour, the last destination for our bikes...bad as my rear suspesion broke down in the middle of the desert! This meant, riding back ultra slowly (1st and sometimes 2nd gear) and with no traction on the rear tyre, finding a small truck and then riding in the truck back to UB. We left at around 10ish and arrived in UB in the guesthouse at dark past 21h30, hence a long but fun day of driving for Cyril who felt like a Paris-Dakar competotor. By the way, Cyril's carbs were playing up a bit again, so both bikes suffered in the end...it seems they are just screaming STOP!!!
Unless I find someone that can repair the suspension today or tomorrow, this means the end of the trip for the bikes (they'll thank us for that).
The desert was interesting as so different from all the other places we have been so far in Mongolia. It was great riding again and the track were ok. I realised that Cyril and I had really got the hang out of the offroad riding as we weren't scared of sand, corugated tracks etc... and mastered the bikes well and with quite high speed.
This morning we washed the bikes - in case someone wants to buy them and mine was full of oil from the suspension - and Cyril also cleaned his carburtor one more time (full of dust - the air filter is definitely dead).

The next steps are shipping the bikes back home (not so simple...), taking the Transsiberian to Beijing next Thursday and flying to HK on Monday 26th. This will mark the official end of the trip.

We've posted new pictures in the photo album.
See you soon!
Chopat tu vas prendre cher.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

C'est la fin les amis.
On voit que vous en avez bien profite et j'ai l'impression que vos aventures ne sont pas completement terminees.
Cyril, tu dechires sur ta becane dans le soleil couchant.
Nicco, j'espere que le trip en minibus etait confortable.
Even with all the small problems, it seems like Honda wins in the end ;-)

Bixx

Anonymous said...

Hey Guys what happened to Niccolo read suspension? Did you leave the dampening knob on full to keep the boxes from sagging? or was it just a premature failure. I have the same r1200gsa white and red, brand new and ready for a world tour. I am doing the same trip to HK from England in 3 months with the exception of seeing all of europe for an extra month. I do have my doubt about going through china, (if i cant get permission).
Hey do you guys know a Aaron Kim who works for UBS in Hong Kong. Great trip you guys, been following you from the beginning. Niccolo, maybe I will catch you on the streets of HK. Will be living there for a year, Fiance is living there already.

A BIG THANK YOU TO:

Cyril:
- Maddy, the head of our "London HQ", special technical and weather advisor, and because she is simply the best and has been so supportive over the last few months
- My family and friends for their understanding and moral support
- Robert Roe (alias Bob) from Motoselect Franham for preparing the bike with such good care
- Anastasia from thevisacompany for helping me deal with so much red tape
- Claudio von Planta for sharing his valuable experience on Long-way Round and Long-way Down and answering so many of our questions
- Ronnie, Emmanuel and Benjamin for their enthusiast support and precious advise
- The Techtransalp team for their excellent website and advertising our adventure

Niccolo:
- clearly Manon as she has always been supportive of this trip even though this means 3 months without me
- My mother for not giving up on me, for receiving all the parcels at home in Austria and for not freaking out!
- Amy and Steve for pushing over several months to keep focus on the organisation
- Xavier, for trusting me to be in France in June and be his best man at his wedding
- Cyril, for posting our tracks on the blog
- Louis, for looking into getting Continental to sponsor us
- Romain, for getting us the Turkmen visas
- My friends for all telling me "DO IT"!
- Claudio von Planta, Sambor and Maciej for sharing their great experiences on their numerous motorbike trips
- Henry, Yau and Tan from BMW HK for their support with the bike, the preparation and the bike sale
- Yasser, Mark, Michael and Christoph from BMW Munich for their help with all the accessories and the last minute bike purchase
- Bertrand and Alice for your help with the tyres in Almaty