More Day-by-Day Reviews

Feature: Transsyberia Rally

August 4th, 2007 by Laurance Yap

Moscow to Mongolia race starts from Red Square!

Click Image to Enlarge

It’s a 7,100-km race from Moscow to Mongolia, with a route that cuts across some of the most varied geography in the world. A rally that passes through old cities, mountain ranges and skirts along the Gobi desert before the end, 14 days later, in Ulaanbaatar. It’s the Rally Transsyberia, a challenge for man, woman and machine and one of the most grueling long-distance events you can participate in.

Click Image to Enlarge

There are few better ways, then, to do the Transsyberia than behind the wheel of a factory-backed and prepared Porsche Cayenne. It’s tough, capable
and more importantly, comfortable over long distances. 25 out of the total 39 entries this year are Cayennes; a team of two privately-entered models won the rally outright last year. I’ll be co-driving the Canadian entry along with Kelowna, B.C.-based endurance racer Kees Nierop - and with any luck (who knows what the Internet situation will look like outside of Moscow) will be writing a blog entry or two along the way.

The rally begins later today as all the entries cross the starting line in front of St. Basil’s Cathederal in Red Square. Stay tuned!

.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 12:13 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

9 Responses to “Feature: Transsyberia Rally”

1. AVToller Says:
   August 07, 2007, 02:57:56 pm Just out of curiosity, when did Siberia become Syberia? 
2. mmret Says:
   August 07, 2007, 03:03:57 pm Hmm. My dad's company crosses Mongolia in Land Cruisers.
   Never knew the Cayenne was such a serious off-road vehicle. I bet 99.9% of them never see anything worse than a bad speedbump.
3. wing Says:
   August 07, 2007, 03:05:22 pm AVToller, since Porsche decided apparently, not sure why they changed it.
4. Mitlov Says:
   August 07, 2007, 04:02:10 pm
   Quote from: mmret on August 07, 2007, 03:03:57 pm
   Never knew the Cayenne was such a serious off-road vehicle. I bet 99.9% of them never see anything worse than a bad speedbump.
   
   
   The Cayenne shares a platform and a lot of R&D with the Tuareg, which is basically VW's Land Cruiser.  But you're right: just like most Lambos will never see a race track, most Cayennes will never see a dirt road.
5. tpl Says:
   August 07, 2007, 05:27:35 pm I would think that a REAL trans Siberia  would stay north of Mongolia and end at Vladivostok... maybe there are no roads and gas stations up there.
6. davidm Says:
   August 07, 2007, 05:51:50 pm tpl, you've hit it on the head.  For an amazing read and a real appreciation of what trans-siberia really can mean check out http://angusadventures.com/circumnavigations.html .  The guy walked and biked across the whole of Siberia in the friggin winter.  I know Julie his partner, have yet to meet Colin.  Crazy stuff.  Makes the rally look like driving to the mall
7. PJungnitsch Says:
   August 07, 2007, 06:00:16 pm Cool! Really enjoyed watching Ewan and Charlie tackle that terrain in 'Long Way Round'. The last bit to Magadan on the coast was extremely tough.
   
   I crossed Siberia in 1991 the lazy way, on the train. Three hundred bucks Beijing to Warsaw.
   
   http://www.angelfire.com/trek/mytravels/Trans_Siberian.html
   
8. Scaerio Says:
   August 15, 2007, 10:07:05 am PJung,
   
   That is onne of my dream journeys!  Will have to do it some day... Thank you for sharing your adventure.
9. PJungnitsch Says:
   August 16, 2007, 05:01:12 pm You're welcome.
   
   I see people can take a virtual journey on the Trans-Siberian here:
   
   http://www.eng.rzd.ru/images/flash/
   
   Looks like they've cleaned it up a bit but prices haven't changed much.

Comments are closed.