23 August

UlaanBaatar, Mongolia. I made it!!!!!

I had heard that the last 450km's was proper road so I decided to do it all in one stint.
I Ieft my hotel room at 7am, loaded up the bike for the final time, jumped on raring to go and the bike wouldn't start! I knew straight away what the problem was, dry battery cells......again!  (to all bikers reading this and thinking of making any distance tours in hot conditions, get a sealed gel battery!) I unloaded the bike again to remove the seat and as it was too early for the shops to be open to find any distilled water it had to be Mongolia's finest mineral water! The bike started immediately and I was off on the final leg of Mongolia with the Honda. There was a bitter cold wind and the water by the side of the road was frozen and within minutes, so was I! As predicted it was constant tarmac all morning, eagles by the side of the road, scared by the noise of the bike soared into the air and I was soaring with them. All the months of planning, weeks of riding, the highs and lows had lead me towards this day and UlaanBaatar. I stopped more than usual, partly because I was frozen and partly because I was wanting to enjoy my last day of freedom with the Honda and meet more people. After a while I was getting bored with the road, it wasn't the reason I had ridden to Mongolia, then, exactly five minutes later and 125kms before UB the road just ended and it became track again!! I wished I hadn't thought the road was boring! I threw all caution to the wind and 'went for it!' I put my 'Dakar race face' on and was flying past land cruisers and the like with ease and I was defiantly making my motocross tyres work!  I had a few hair raising moments as I was motor crossing on a fully loaded sports bike but I was loving every minute of it, putting all of my off road experience with the Honda to good use. It turned out that I wasn't that much slower than if I had been on the road! Then, 30km's before UB the road began again, brand new snooker table smooth tarmac. My motor cross tyres were humming on the brand new road and I was singing in my helmet as UlaanBaatar came into view! At the sign to the city I pulled over to take a photo, I really wanted a photo on me stood on the Hansen Honda, I felt on top of the world,  but I couldn't find anyone who could take the photo, so I had to make do with a picture of the Honda near to the UlaanBaatar city sign. Once inside city it was quite a culture shock, Mongolia has a nomadic, rural culture but UlaanBaatar is modern vibrant city not unlike any other city in the west. I then had the task of finding the location of the CDPF (childrens development and protection fund) offices so that I could donate the Hansen Honda to them. This was not as simple as I had hoped as the directions that I had were vague at best and the two contact numbers that I had were not working! After an hour or so of driving around I gave up, totally frustrated I called my wife to check through the charity rally emails and try and make contact with someone to guide me to the CDPF offices. An hour later I was sat inside the CDPF office, because it was  late Saturday afternoon we couldn't complete the hand over process officially, so I handed over the keys and paperwork, left the Hansen Transmissions Honda with them and arranged to return on Monday to officially hand over the Hansen Honda. Accommodation was arranged at a guest house and so ended my long journey with the Team Hansen Transmissions Honda. She had been a loyal and trustworthy companion and I don't regret for one minute my choice of motorcycle to make this long and difficult journey. The only real problems that I had with her were of my own making and I am sad to see her go, but I hope that she will raise a handsome amount of money to go towards helping poor Mongolian children. And now begins the very last stage of my journey, to travel to Tianjin, China to hand over the Hansen Transmissions 'green cheque' at their new Chinese premises for 88 trees to be planted to offset my carbon emissions. On my journey I have tried to ride as economically as possible, I have used a fuel additive every time that I have filled my tank which has increased my range and reduced my emissions by ten percent. Now, with the help of my team sponsor, Hansen Transmissions, I can fully offset my carbon emissions with 88 trees which will be planted around their new premises at Tianjin, China.