From Irkutsk it's about 70km on a busy mainroad to the small village of Listvyanka on the shore of lake Baikal. There are several buses a day or you can hire a private taxi if you don't want to cycle this stretch.
The described route then leads you along the western shore about 600km north to Severobaikalsk, with a short detour to Olkhon Island, which is just before half way. The small town of Severobaikalsk is connected to the TransSib rail network. In the Platzkart compartment (third class) it is possible to take the bike on the upper luggage compartment without extra charge in the same train.

For save winter cycling on lake Baikal we highly recommend to get in contact with local people (some contacts below) and to inform you about the current ice and weather conditions. Our route description should be only one of your planning instruments. Don't underestimate the lake!

Before setting off check the daily updated satellite imagery. There you can see open water and where the lake has been snowed in. Try to contact Youri Nemirovsky, a very experienced English speaking tour guide at baikalcomplex.com. In our case he was an awesome information source.

The ice on lake Baikal get's normally thick enough in the end of January and lasts till the end of April. Mid of February, beginning of March will probably be the best time for this trip. But with climate change you cannot count on this time frame any longer.

If you arrive at Lake Baikal and it has no ice, we can recommend the Kolyma Highway from Yakutsk to Magadan as a backup plan. The route is completely mapped on OSM and the starting point (Yakutsk) can be reached by train from Lake Baikal.

The conditions on lake Baikal can change very quickly from wonderful black ice to exhausting deep snow, from perfect sunny weather to a whiteout with extremly strong and chilly winds. The ice is always working, opening and closing huge cracks and making scary sounds. Most of this cracks you will find around the capes and between the northern end of Olkhon Island and the Holy Nose. If you have to cross an active crack, look out for the place, where the ice plates are pushing together frontally. Avoid to cross when there is water on the ice or at points where one ice plate has sunken under another. Fine ice crystals on the ice (see picture above) indicate newly frozen water. The ice can be unstable at these points.

Mobile network is working only in the southern part. In a real emergency case try to call EMERCOM helpline +7 (499) 216 99 99
 A SPOT messenger or a DELORME can be a useful gadget in an emergency. 

The route on lake Baikal will differ from year to year, or even from day to day. But there is always a lot more snow on the eastern shore than on the western side. Usually you will cycle from cape to cape, in best case you can follow car tracks. In our roadbook we have collected a lot of waypoints which are helpful to navigate along the west shore, but other as in our normal route descriptions it does not include a gps track (because it is useless or in the worst case even dangerous). The waypoints are visualized in a map. Aditionally you can find another helpful english map on www.baikalex.com It shows in detail all shores, capes and bays.

Infrastructur / Logistics

There are hotels/guesthouses in Listvyanka, Boljoi Goluznoje, Bukuldeika, Kushir, the hot springs at Koteinykovski cape, Baikalskoje and Severobaikalsk. Further there is the possibility to stay at the houses of the nationalpark guards, by private persons or in open week-end huts/saunas. You can find this possibilities directly in the waypoints GPX file. Taking into account that private huts could be closed you should make sure to carry a winter adapted bivouac/tent.

Smaller Russian towns usually have very good supermarkets with a lot of dried food, which are ideal for a bikepacking tour. It is best to buy luxury products and provisions for the first section in Irkutsk and then to stock up in Kushir on Olkhon Island. In addition, it has smaller shops in the larger villages of Listvyanka, Boljoi ​​Goluznoie, Bukuldeika and Baikalskoje. In Severobaikalsk at the northern end of the lake, there is again a large supermarket. The cold and the short days make your daily stages shrink to about 50km, sometimes even less. You should therefore have room for up to six days of food.

For camping on the lake, you will need ice screws instead of normal pegs. Practical is also a small ax for chopping firewood or ice blocks for water melting - and of course good thermos bottles, so that the melted water does not freeze immediately. For sure you have to equip yourself and your bike for the low temperatures and the icy surface! A small equipment guide for bikepacking tours in extreme winter cold will follow soon on this website. You can also find helpful information in the "winter bikepacking guide" on bikepacking.com

And some more facts about traveling in Russia: The visa is available only in the home country, but with the help of a visa service not a complicated matter. We also sent our passports home twice with DHL and organized the visa that way. But that does not work from any country (Nepal and Mongolia were easy - Nepalese trekking permit or notarized passport copy needed). In Russia, "Russia first" applies, with English you do not get very far. A small basic vocabulary in Russian helps enormously! In large supermarkets it is possible to pay by credit card, everything else only in cash. Take enough rubles for the whole tour with you (ATM only in Irkutsk and Severobaikalsk)!

Difficulty

The success of this expedition depends not only on the preparation, the physical fitness and mental strength of the bikepacker, but above all on the ice conditions and the weather. Therefore, in addition to the described requirements, you also need a bit of luck. To cross the entire length of lake Baikal with the bike without outside support is despite the hardness one of the most impressive bikepacking experiences we have ever made. The tour is a real pearl, and you do not get a pearl just as a present. Äto Baikal!