Planning the Route

Biking and public traffic
Iran is a tremendously large country. No way we are able to visit all corners of the country by bike with the maximum allowable stay of 3 months. So, we have to make choices and use public transport to travel larger distances. Luckily, Iran has got a good network of public transport and according to other bikers in Iran it is OK to carry your bike with you, so we will use train, bus and taxi quite a lot. Apart from the dimensions of the country, Iran has got another challenge: Visa. Although you can stay 3 months in Iran, you need to go to the foreigner police for a 1 month extension every month. And since this is possible only in a few larger cities, this needs to be well planned.
Finally, in January, there was upheaval around the political, economical and religious situation in Iran and there were some big protests with quite a few deaths and many people arrested. Therefore, we have to be aware to not end up in a protest marsh and avoid unstable regions. Fortunately, with modern technology it is possible to get warnings from foreign affairs ministries and anticipate.

Flexible mindset
Who knows what will happen, who we will meet, what advices we get and where we will end up? There are many reasons why our quite theoretical plan would not come together and it will be our challenge to be flexible and open and don't stick to the plan at any cost. After all, when on a vacation of 6 months, it is not a good idea to hurry and rush for the sake of a theoretical plan.

Route plans that may work out much differently. Don't take the bike routes drawn in red-solid as a realistic representation. They are merely artistic interpretations that do not necessarily coincide with real roads.

From Shiraz to Esfehan through the wild Zagros Mountains
We will start our journey in Shiraz, the city of poetry and home to beautiful parks and citrus trees. We will visit Persepolis (Residence of Archaemenid Kings (Darius the Great) dating back to 500 BC, Unesco World Heritage Site) and start biking from there through the Zagros mountains. On our way to Yasuj, our next stop in civilization, we will follow a very long valley (Doroudzan  river Valley) and then cross a pass (with skilifts). In the valley there are several natural areas of interest with romantic names like: Behest-e-Gomshodeh or Lost Paradise and Tang-e-Boragh.
From Yasuj we want to continue crossing the Zagros Mountain Range in NW direction and then bend eastwards to Shahr-e-Kurd, from where we plan to take the bus to Esfehan. This part of the trip has no to me known major points of natural interest, however, the pictures that I have seen of this region promise very spectacular mountainous scenery and it is the region where quite a lot of nomadic tribes such as Qashqai, the Qash Kuli and the Khamseh reside. A region of very wild, steep and dry areas interrupted by nice, green, landscapes with beautiful lakes and waterfalls.
After this wild part of the trip I am sure we will long for a warm shower, which we hope to find in Esfehan.
In Esfehan known for its  enormous square with numerous mosques and bazars, as well as many  bridges and a lot more (Esfahan is truly ‘half the world’, according to an Iranian proverb), we will take some time off to recover, visit the town and hopefully stay with a warm shower host. Moreover, here we'll need to extend our visa.

Esfehan to Kashan: a bit of desert
Somewhere a bit outside of Esfehan we plan to start riding our bikes again into the direction of Kashan, another beautiful city. On this trip we will slightly touch the big central desert of Iran (Dasht-e Kavir) and maybe we'll have the opportunity to spend the night in a caravanserai? Between Natanz and Kashan we will have to chose our route very carefully, as there seems to be a nuclear plant there, that we want to avoid. Not that passing the nuclear plant by bike is a big issue or dangerous. Several bikers were there and they are simply picked up by the police and transported to a spot further down the road, so you don't get too close and can't take pictures.

The weird hills of Golestan
Then a long train ride to the north east of Iran is planned, straight through the northern part of the central desert. First we'd like to visit the Province of Golestan, close to the border of Turkmenistan. Golestan has the typical hills that I have depicted in the background of the weblog. And since they look so funny, we would like to ride our bicycles through this weird landscape, by making a tour of a few days starting from Gonbad-e-Qabus. Here we will for sure have to ride some unpaved roads and on the tour we plan to visit another quite weird phenomenon of Golestan, a cemetery (Khalid Nabi cemetery), with the gravestones scattered in the landscape. Strangely, the gravestones all have the shape of a ... fallus.
And maybe, in between the hills we meet a man, riding his Turkoman horse...
In this region, the climate will change quite a bit, depending on at what side of the Elburz mountain range we are. At the side of the Caspian Sea the climate is humid with cloud forest and rice fields. At the south side of the mountain range, the climate is dry and hot.

Kaspian sea and Elbruz mountains
From Gonbad-e-Qabus we will more or less bike from east to west, just south of the Caspian sea, following the coast line or crossing the Elburs mountains and avoiding as much as possible the main coastal road. On our way to Tabriz close to Sari we would like to visit Badab-e-Surt, a natural wonder with terraced hot springs and camp there. Then in the neighbourhood of Tabriz, we will try to visit the colourful mountains (Ala Daghlar) and a Cappadocia-like valley (Kandovan). From Gonbad-e-Qabus until Tabriz is a longer stretch and in between we for sure will visit some Caspian sea coast towns to recover, get some fresh food (fish and caviar), and again extend our visa.

Tabriz to Armenia
In Tabriz, our last major stop in Iran, we will again take some time to visit the town (and world-famous bazar) and recover. All the Persian language that we have picked up so far, may have become useless, as we now are in Eastern Azerbaijani province, where an Iranian Azerbaijani language is spoken. From Tabriz we plan to take the train to the northern border, follow the beautiful Aras river valley and then cross the border to Armenia.