Here we provide some detailed information of our tour, most probably this will be interesting for long distance cyclists.

Season: For personal (job) reasons, we had a fixed start date, it is better to start 1-2 months earlier in the year, you don't have to take the bus as much as we did.

Cycling: Is really great in this region, mostly people are very friendly and enthausiatic when they see you.

Equipment: There are lots of lists available, generally less is more (i.e www.velosophen.ch, www.betzgi.ch) you will suffer when you have to carry a lot of weight, you might want to consider taking folding bikes (very nice when taking on the bus/train is needed). The recumbent bike did a good job and is quite an attraction, consider riding one if you like strange vehicles.

Visa: There are a lot of blogs about this, everybody seems to get his visa in a slightly different way needing different documents, here we write down how we got our visa, it is unlikely that it will be the same when you apply. Generally we think it's smart to apply in one city, cycle and pick up the visa in another city. However, we copied this trick from www.touroman.ch who also made good experiences using this procedure. Embassy/Consulate opening hours are subject to change and information is hard to get, we usually just went there or called ahead (better!!), we could usually do everything also when the embassy/consulate was actually closed (there is always somebody there). Embassy adresses: www.travelo.ch.

Iran:
Applied in Switzerland at the embassy in Berne (by mail). Issued within 10 days, women need a photograph with covered hair. We got a 30 day visa.

Usbekistan:
Applied at the consulate in Istanbul, picked up at the embassy in Ankara around 2 weeks later (30 day visa issued in one day in Ankara, all documents had to be filled out at both places though). Documents: Photograph, passport copy, printout of application form from evisa-website (evisa.mfa.uz), confirmation of payment to specific branch of HSBC bank (easy because close to embassy), NO letter of invitation needed.

Kirgistan:
Applied at the consulate in Istanbul, picked up at same 5 days later. Documents: Photograph, passport copy, confirmation of payment to specific branch of some bank (easy because next to consulate, don't try another branch, costs money), NO letter of invitation needed.

Turkmenistan:
Applied at the consulate in Istanbul, telling the consul that we want to pick up the visa in Ankara → no use, consul has not started the application procedure, even though we called him to remind. Applied again in Ankara (very nice English speaking ladies there are very helpful, it's also easy to call them as they give out numbers where they can be reached directly). We picked up the visa in Mashad without major problems (the consul is not a nice guy though), note that the embassy only processes tourists in tuesday and thursday if I remember correctly.
Documents: Photograph, passport copy, copy of visa for Iran/Usbekistan/Kirgistan, Letter of recommendation from Swiss embassy needed (got that letter in Ankara, costs 40 CHF)

China:
We got a 30 day visa in Tashkent/Usbekistan, we did pick up our passports after 4 days. Its a real hassle to get inside of the embassy to apply. We don't recommend to apply in Tashkent if you can do it somewhere else, such as Tehran or so, we humbly believe it's less of a hassle there. We could only enter the embassy by making the swiss ambassador call there to request that we can enter, that was the main trick.