Bostjan rode this in October 2009, here is his info on the state of the road:
i am in beijing, atlast_
experience trough the gobi was excelent and the road is
probably still the same as it was when you were there_
two or three km after choir asphalt ends and contimues
as a grawel fundation for future road_
i turned right
and rode awhile along that fundus that soon disappeared on the left
horizont_
then it's as you know it, up and down, choosing which
of the many grawels to take, and rail is the lead_
some 80 or 90 km before sainsand the grawel fundation reapears
(before that, i dont know how many km before, i even rode, maybe
10 km on that fundus, before it was gone), together with a
construction site plate, saying, that the road should already
be finisked (some 120 km of it), and lasts till sainshand_
it was quite bussy arround sainshand with construction works
on different roads, they were building road bridge across rail, ..._
i made mistake (or not) and asked one worker "zamin ude?"
(not urgen or erdene)_ he waved direction and i took it_
i rode
on the left side, along grawel fundament that was continuing from sainshand along prime transportation route to zamin ude (a lot of trucks, at least 10 per day) and much better grawel road than to sainshand_ future road fundus was sometimes covered with darker sand bitumenous colour and it looked from a distance like asphalt_
only later i realized, after no suply town woul appear, that something
was wrong_
i asked a herder "urgen?' and he waved way back_
i took shortcut to zamin ude, or the main road, which truckers are using_ luckily i was only 18 km from erdene in direction "left"_
10, maybe 15 km after erdene, the road joins the shortcut one that
i have left for erdene_
good thing was, that straight road from sainshand was in very good condition and i could progres faster and it is a bit shorter (maybe 10 km), minus is the lack of suply towns_ or you can rely on the herders - the one i met was very helpful, showd me the ger, where i cuold get suply if i would want_
when after erdene i got to the "main road" again it got crowded with construction sites, workers and trucks all doing job on the fundation of the future road_ some 50, 60 km before zamin ude they were all gone along with road fundus which reapeared some km before zamin ude_
if you ask me, it is going to take a while for the road to be connected and finished_ there are some difficult parts, that they didn't even begin to work on ..._