From Svyatoi Nos to Ulan-Ude
A nearby and very beautiful destination of Ust-Barguzin is the peninsula Svyatoi Nos (Holy Nose). But the road to get there is rather bad (with many stones and big potholes on the otherwise sandy road).
Otherwise, the only possibility is to ride southwards to Ulan-Ude. The first section of the route (up to Gremyatshinsk) leads along the beautiful Lake Baikal most of the time and is completely flat. It is true that the road mostly consists of gravel, but riding is still much more pleasant than on the island of Olchon or on Svyatoi Nos. From Gremyatshinsk you have to turn your back on Lake Baikal. Now you ride on very loamy ground with many potholes, which prevents you from getting on very fast. Riding becomes especially hard if it has rained before for some time and the water cannot drain on the loamy soil. Consequently, the road can offer you a true glissade.
Another disadvantage of this route is that up to the village Kika the forest is so dense that it is hard to find a suitable campsite at first go. It gets even harder when it rains, because the forest is situated a bit lower than the road, and therefore all the rainwater draining from the road spreads on the soft forest soil.
But there are some good news, too, because in August 2003 one began to tar this road and as a biker you were able to use sections of this road already, even though it was not opened to traffic yet. Generally you can say that there is very little traffic on the whole section between Ust-Bargusin and Ulan-Ude, most frequently you will see big motor trucks that transport wood and whose drivers honk friendly when they meet bikers. For the rest of the route to Ulan-Ude you ride on a quite good tarred road. Only shortly before reaching Ulan-Ude, where the distance profile shows long ascents up to the mountains, the road gets somewhat worse again.
