30AUG - Left at 08:45 and 413 miles later arrived Belogorsk at 18:30 (really 19:30 because we gained an hour). Perfect blue sky day. Good road and three rain squalls - we just rode through them. We saw three groups of bikes riding East - they didn't stop. Many cars honk, wave and flash their lights. Tomorrow we'll ride to Skovorodino, a shorter day.
No secure parking here. Fingers crossed the bikes will be OK.
What a difference ten years and paved roads make! You'll do in two days what took us three in 2004, with the section you'll traverse next being the absolute worst of it. I had to laugh at your photo of the Moscow/Vladivostok sign. There was a newly paved section of about 300 meters coming up to and leaving your photo spot. It was here that Putin had announced the "completion" of the highway a few weeks before our arrival, but in fact this was the only stretch of pavement we would see for the next four days. And when we took our obligatory photo it was raining so hard that the drops were bouncing off the tarmac like little hand grenades. 8-)
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