12 days OFFROAD through Mongolia on motorbikes - EP 115

Welcome to Mongolia, the land of vast and unspoiled wilderness. Nine guys, nine enduro bikes and 2500 kilometers through the steps all the way to the legendary Gobi Desert. The point is to explore this country, meet the local nomads, ride as a team, overcoming all the challenges. Ready? It's fun, fast-paced, muddy, wet and dusty. Everyone who's here signed up for this. We start together and we'll finish together. We go motorbike riding in wild and remote Mongolia. We are Nick and Mathilde and we've left everything behind to travel the seven continents with our Land Rover Defender, the Albatross. Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica, Australia, Asia and Africa. A world tour for real. We want to see it all. Join us for the best, the worst, the fantastic, the boring, the headaches, the beauty of every single moment of this journey around the world. This is the next Meridian Expedition. After months of preparation, I am ready to lead eight other riders on enduro bikes through Mongolia. I do it every year, always in a new and remote country and with, for the most part, a new team of guys. The only certainty is that it always ends up being 12 days of pure adventure. 2,500 kilometers through Mongolia. The plan? Rent nine bikes, leave Ulaanbaatar, ride through the steppes, the mountains and the Gobi Desert. Meet the locals and hopefully make it back to the capital in one piece. Time to meet the team. Good morning. So today is the setting up the bikes day. We're here in Ulaanbaatar. So we have this as a chase truck and we have this one as a second chase truck. What it means is, as you can see, they'll be carrying our camping gear, a lot of our food, some of our clothes and the same thing goes in this one. They'll be bringing an extra backup bike and water, extra fuel, things like that because we're going to be in the middle of the Mongolian steppes. It's a great trip but it's also a bit dangerous sometimes just because there's no roads. You're just riding around, there's dips, there's rocks, there is sand, river crossings, boulders and so we have two cars just in case someone gets hurt because there's no helicopter service. So I'm not trying to scare anyone here but... Matt, you good? Yeah buddy. You ready? Yes sir. Woohoo. Eddie, something's wrong with this bike. Working on it. Oh, what's wrong with it? I don't know yet. That was the first time I did that. Paul, all good? I think I'm going to change it but... Change bike? No good? This one? Yeah. Okay, what's wrong with it? The axle won't even come out. Oh really? Okay. And all the spokes are loose. Almost every single spoke is loose. Everything going good in here, Paul? Yeah man, I'm good. Sweet. Pretty similar bike I got home, not too far off. Oh yeah? Sweet. Oh you're gonna... piece of cake for you. All good on this side? What you're working on? Setting up the wiring so we can charge everything. Oh that's smart, yep. We need electricity on this trip. It's too late to ask for the short bus. Chris, what you doing? Huh? What you doing? Putting my mask on. All right. What are you doing? I'm just, you know, filming you, working hard. You're just harassing people? Exactly. All right, you're usual. Usual. That's me, still setting up the electricity and changing the battery. You changed the battery? Cool, thank you. Legendary Mongolia, we're ready. But before taking on tracks, we need to take on Lamator's midday traffic. And boom, we are in the steppes. No tracks needed in these unforested, green grass, hilly landscapes. Time for us to test the riders and bikes, making sure we're all ready for the coming up in the next 12 days. Good job, boom. Mohamed, good job. Do it again, boom. Making me walk, huh Paul? Come on, yes. Endure riding can be dangerous and the slightest mistake could mean the end of the journey. I have to stop here, let's wait for the others real quick. F***ing fun, yeah. My favorite's on the turns where you're just bam, and then the back tire just slides back in. I'm waiting for you, Eddie. And on day two, that's what happened to Zach. Wet grass, a slippery patch, and that was it. He got picked up by our chase truck and brought to Lamator. Evacuated to be hospitalized in South Korea before being repatriated to the USA. First man down. Bummer. Today is day three of the ride. Unfortunately, yesterday, we lost a rider, Zach. He's fine. I think his shoulder popped out or something. He fell, but he's at the hospital. He's doing good and we'll get more information soon about him, but I think he's okay. Yeah, that's about it. So we're good to go now. Hoping no one else would get hurt, we take on a new set of valleys. The challenge today, my personal favorite, rivers. Unpredictable and wide, they put on a real challenge, but that's where you recognize a good team of riders. When the day gets too long, when everyone is wet to the bone, you'll still find guys ready to help the others feed in the water. In these remote regions, we start crossing our paths with the nomad herders. Hello. Good English. We look like dirt bags, but they still kindly invited us in for some milk, yogurt, and cheese. So this is where we stopped real quick. Tammy, that's here. They have four kids, I believe, and the two parents. I think they keep some cows in there. Now they're all out pasteurizing somewhere and they have this Prius, they have this vehicle. Hey. Hi. Cool. Cheers, boys. What is that? Milk tea. How is it, Matt? Good. Cody. Nice. We got a yogurt staff. We're in a Gur here. Got invited by some Mongolians to come over and taste some different meals. Gave them a toolkit, and in exchange, they wanted to offer us a little bit of their tradition. And it's actually pretty good. And this is their house. And the rain has started. All right, we'll get the picture with the bikes. We're taking a picture with the bikes now. After the rivers, we prepared to take on the mountain passes. And that same morning, I got news of Mathilde, who is also in Mongolia, riding horses with a group of friends. I've got cell reception, which is awesome. So I'm going to send Mathilde a message. I'm wondering where she is. She sent me a message two days ago that she was somewhere up in the Altai Mountains, that something happened to the horse. I think it twisted its ankle on a bridge. And I think that they were supposed to ride camels back. But I didn't really get the full story. So I'm going to send Mathilde a message. I really do want to see a picture of a camel. Just got a message from Nick. I think he's really, really curious about the camels. Look at those beauties. I honestly didn't think we would get network until here. It's insane that we can still send messages up in the mountains. This time we went with an eSIM called Oobiji. It's so convenient. We arranged everything from the Oobiji app when we're still in Australia. It actually works for the entire Asian region. So I had a layover in Seoul and I already had internet and network. I arrived in the middle of the night in Ulaanbaatar and we already could contact the driver. We could already contact the taxi. So it's so, so easy. You don't have to do lines, find the right operator at the airport. You don't have to get scammed at a random booth that is selling SIM cards. So it worked really well and it seems I can stay in contact with Nick. I'll take a little selfie and send it to Nick. Oobiji is an app that offers eSIM data plans, making it super easy to stay connected in more than 200 destinations. Selfie! With the code meridian, you get 10% off your first purchase on Oobiji. Tip for you, the camel. If you ever need to travel, try with an eSIM. It's so much easier. We'll put all the links in the description. We're now going to the top of that mountain over there. It's 2,500 meters of altitude. The hardest part of our trip so far. We are eight riders. We split into six and two. Six will go to the top of the hill. Two will go around and we'll meet up somewhere on the other side. 150 kilometers through mountain ranges, mountain peaks. There's snow at the top just a little bit. Ready to go. This is the last day of riding in the green landscapes of Mongolia before heading out to the desert. So we enjoyed the ride to the max and even get to taste some of the mud. I was like, this is small. I don't need to lift the front tire. Wrong. Camping in the heart of the Mongolian valleys, in the absence of trees, Mongols make fire using dry cow poop. We're up for the full culture experience. So we do the same. The end of the mountain marks the beginning of our mechanical challenges. Some bikes are showing signs of fatigue and breakdowns come one after the other. The mount that's attached to the muffler, it's completely detached itself. Plus the subframe is broken in two spots. More importantly. I don't think there's any spark. If there's enough to turn it, there'd be enough for spark. That sounded like you just seized it. So that engine's dead? It's dead. A seized engine, nothing we can do for this one. Luckily, we can count on the generosity of the locals as we wait for the chase trucks with a replacement bike. Hi. Does look good. A little bit of sugar in here. Thank you. Thank you. How is it? Original. Direct. Sweet. You want to try some? It's actually really good. Oh man. It's got a bit of a bitter taste to it. Your name? My name is Winfried. My name is Ojos. He's got a smile to his face. Basil, we have a problem. My engine. Well, yeah. The other one's broken, right? They're both broken. The sand dune is going to be fun with this. On these trips, there are a lot of breakdowns. Today is day seven, and out of the nine bikes, we've got five of them, which are pretty beat up. Two of them, which are practically not working anymore. My bike, the engine seized yesterday, and so they're sending another bike to us, another KTM, so that it replaces mine. For now, I take another one where the subframe is broken. Things like that. It never ends. Anyways, today for day seven, we are going to the Gobi. We're 150 kilometers away from the Gobi. Saddle up and ride on. My replacement bike for now is the one with a broken chassis, so I just need to make sure it holds together before a new one is sent from the capital city. It's like I'm going to stay seated the whole time. Definitely a good laugh. I'm just riding and someone's hitting my leg. I'm like, what the f**k? And then I'm going to go down and I don't see the ceiling. We finally make it to the dunes of the Gobi, sixth largest desert in the world, and the land of extreme temperatures ranging from 45 Celsius in the summer to minus 40 degrees in winter. A massive playground for the riders. In the desert, we lose track of time and distance, so much so that we end up losing our chase trucks. The same chase trucks that carry our fuel and water. Some bikes start shutting down as they run out of fuel, so we start transferring fuel between the bikes with bigger tanks and do that until we reach our destination. We'll finish together. We struggled, but we made it, even if it meant pushing two bikes through the finish line as they ran dry 500 meters to the finish point. We've just reached Zagbaren. Out of nowhere, after driving for 200 kilometers through the desert, luckily we just made it with the fuel. We were pouring fuel from one motorbike to the other just so that we could make it till the end and two of our bikes now are completely out of fuel, but we're all here. Crazily enough, they have ice cream. Ice cream? They only have milk flavored ice cream. That's fine. In the middle of the desert, they have waffles. Thank you. Is the ice cream on the waffles? No. Looks like we found the fuel. Luckily, some people sold us the fuel. Now we're filling up the bikes. Nice. For our last days in the wild, we left the desert and went back to the green hills that we enjoyed so much. A river, a herd of wild horses and a fire made out of dry cow poop. The Mongolia we love. From this enduro motorbike expedition in nomad country, I will remember the superb wild tracks through the steppes, mountains and desert. This team that pushed through together and the encounters with the herders, their hospitality and kindness wherever we went. Mongolia, thank you. And for next year, it's already on my mind. I'll plan one in Africa. Stay tuned by subscribing to the channel. For now, we go back to Australia where our 4x4 Land Rover awaits to continue our lap of the country. Hey, you here? What? It's Eva. How's it going? Good. How are you? Good. What are you doing? I've come here to see you. Awesome. Riding bikes for the next two weeks with me? Yes. No. Unfortunately, no. I'd love to come. I'm here for something else. I'm doing a stupid race. It's a 250 kilometer ultra marathon over five days, six days. We can't do that. We can't do that. We'll stay on the bikes. You do the run and we'll see you after. Sounds good.