Silk Road Adventure 2017

A 16.000km, 3 months long journey between Paris and Taiwan, across Europe, Central Asia and China.
It's the big one. The one I spent many years dreaming about, until I gathered enough courage to undertake such a gigantic and intimidating endeavour.
It started from my doorstep a took me across 18 countries, over many mountain passes, in temperatures ranging from -5 to 40°C. Dusty deserts, snow capped peaks, great lonely plains, high plateaus, lush valleys; the landscapes were increbibly various and enchanting. I did not plan much ahead. I just needed a general idea of the countries I would visit in order to arrange my visas beforehand. Then I just improvised day by day, often changing my mind, sometimes listening to the advice of other travelers met on the road. The only thing that mattered was to be eastbound. For this trip, I used an Omnium CXC frame and fork, with DT Swiss R460 rims laced to a DT350 hub in the back and a Shutter Precision dynamo hub in the front. I mounted them with Schwalbe marathon supreme tubeless tires. I used an old Shimano 1x9 groupset and TRP spyre mechanical disc brakes. I carried very little gear in my Apidura packs. [I used GPX files retrieved from another website were they had been uploaded 3 years ago. For some reason, they show the route average speed rather than the actual average speed]