Mörön to Möröи: two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure

Uncrossable rivers! Hospitable nomads! Rabid dogs! Marijuana fields! Hailstone flashfloods! Maidens on horseback! Underpants wrestling! Toxic mountain-top lakes! Stupid westerners! And the mountain-biking - so much biking your arse will hurt just reading it. This is what happens when two young idiots set out on a gonzo ride across the wilds of Mongolia.

In July 2010, Tom Doig and his best mate Tama Pugsley cycled 1487 kilometres across northern Mongolia from a small town called Moron to a smaller town also called Moron. Why? Because it was there. Armed with spandex unitards, Chinese steel-frame mountain bikes, unidentifiable meat product and a woefully inadequate phrasebook, these two morons blunder into some of the world's most remote and beautiful wilderness—and triumph. Sort of.

For 23 brutalising days—two days longer than the Tour de France—Tom and Tama slog their way over muddy mountains and across desolate steppes, all the time struggling to avoid...