I traveled some of the countries along the way last year, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (by hiking and offroad vehicles). The landscape is beautiful, but be very prepared to survive in the scorching sun and dust in the desert for days without any option to resupply food and water. We met some solo cyclists along the way, I have great respect for those individuals. For example, this is how the main road looks like in some parts of Tajikistan: https://i.imgur.com/MlZauBn.jpeg The traffic on these roads consists mostly of Chinese trucks and an occasional crazy traveler like us. Note how a secondary track emerged along the side of the main road because the original one became so filled with potholes.