Where is the bloody tiler?

Yes, you have to see that. There is price you have to pay - it's called collateral damage.

Great stuff Racki I love the pics on the plains and it's a good read too.

On the women thing, my girlfriend says that it is allright to look, thats normal and everyone does it. If I didn't look every now and then she would start to worry about me.

Keep it coming

I'm laying at home on my coach and will be for the next 2weeks as I just had surgery due to an unexpected double hernia
and reading your report and loving it. Cant even ride my bike at the moment.....:ddog
Your photo's are fantastic so much so that my better half is even showing a slight interest in looking at them as well.
Would love to know a bit of detail on how your bikes are going and your opinion on the bigger 2cyl vs single and has it's weight been an issue at all.
And whats the fuel octane levels been like.

Keep it coming Bart !

Horseman474

Excellent images and tales to match -

'Multiple choice dirt highway' looks like so much fun!

Hey Mate I hear your point on the looking at woman thang, But I got to say after my girl read your report on the high heels and all how all the women look like models and your comment on how you'd be tempt to rape in daylight... Well its not something the other women in your life would like to hear their bloke say... and that leads to them getting all sorts of thoughts in their heads... My girl would be spewing at me if I wrote a report like that... great report and excellent photos.. have fun. MY girl would say remember the ones that love you are at home waiting for you...

Well - I meant if it was by the end of long trip, spent with other stinky guy then it could be hard to stay cool. But I agree - I got carried away a bit, apologized and explained the best I could. My girl is spewing at me too and she's right. I was a bad, bad Bart.

Your report has been talk of my mates and their girls for the last few days. Def got them talking. All the girls dont blame your missus for spewing they reckon they wouldnt be waiting for their man to get home, they would run a mile look look as much as you want, but keep those ideas to yourself that way the missus dont know. Im sure your missus will eventually forgive you. Keep having fun on your ride. I got a trip coming up in Nov will be away 3 weeks from my Girl and she is already starting to warn me about the women thing, but its only nature she says all women do it if they really love the man they have and if she didnt say anything upfront to me before I went she would be stressing the whole time im away riding the USA roads. She is the love of my life and I will be asking her to marry me (before she runs) when I return from my trip, there is no way I want to hurt her by making crude comments, so take it a big lesson to be learnt for all of us blokes, we need to treat our women like gold otherwise some one else will tear them away.

Let's see some fuckin' wheelie action !

I 2nd that....
Bart your report has been great ! keep it coming man...

Day 15 – Ulaanbaatar – lawn 250 km west of Ulaanbaatar
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Road into Ulaanbaatar is nice, until you get really close to it – it seems the closer to the city the worse. And it’s not just the road – everything seems to deteriorate. It might be because I’m not a fan of cities, although something tells me it’s Ulaanbaatar’s fault. On the way in we got stuck in traffic. The plan was to get into the centre and start looking for a place to stay. We didn’t get that far. Oil light on John’s bike went on right when we were passing Oasis – motel/refugee run by Germans. It was good timing, so we stopped. The only places left were tent sites, so we took it as it came with free shower. It felt like German embassy almost – high fence, watchtower by the gate and a lot of travellers inside, mostly moaning about hardship of travel. It felt like they had enough of Mongolia and wanted to forget about it for a night or two. And whine a lot... Nice place none the less.


Plan for the next day was to parade through the city and head west. It didn’t work out of course – bloody oil light came on again. Oil level seemed to be too high and my reasoning was that when super-hot it was causing the alarm. We got overtaken by some guy on KTM 690 – the same bike I used to have, but in modest trim. He stopped to have a chat and check if we need help. Very nice of him. He took us to BMW dealership, but they were unable to help us as the only sell cars and don’t have diagnostic tools for a bike. Then he took us to Apple store, so we could use internet to search for a solution. I posted a problem on F800Gs thread and skyped Procycles in Sydney to see if they know anything. I’ve been told roughly what I expected. It always feels good when my half-arsed theory is confirmed by expert! Guy’s 690 had the worst case of engine cut-outs I’ve ever seen – on average it died every 500 meters. His exhaust were gutted, but ignition map stayed the same so there is no wonder it struggled to run.
They've got camel toe in UB!


Decision was to ride and see what happens. We were clear of traffic and nothing happened.
We took road west out of town and let me tell you – I was never happier in my life to leave capital city. What a dump it is. It looks like it was designed to be a horse market and never got far from it. Few nice buildings, the worst traffic ever, lack of respect for road regulations, dust, exhaust fumes – everything is just below bad. It’s such a contrast with the rest of the country it’s hard to believe they made it a capital city. My disappointment was also inflated by the fact that so far Mongolians were telling us how beautiful Ulaanbaatar is. No, it’s not – it’s the rest of the country that’s beautiful.



Random city:


Road out got nice after some 20 km. We took it all the way until tarmac suddenly stopped. It was a surprise, as the road wasn’t even on gps and it was hard to tell on the paper map. But paper map is Canadian so I guess they might not know the best.


Road works, there is John in the middle of the picture and yes - it was pissing!

Bridge - hurry up, it won't last forever!



Anyway – due to the lack of tarmac we continued on dirt road. It was traditionally awesome. I tried to navigate to the nearest village, but it was just a dot on a map so we freestyled our way through. It was pretty easy. We didn’t get there, but we got close enough to set up camp on some huge lawn among horses, goats and whatever else there was.




Stats:



Map - http://ridewithgps.com/trips/313673

Bart

Day 16 – Lawn – Butt Crack Mountain
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What a day! It seems like every next day brings something better. In the morning I had nothing better to do than to try and figure out how to make Scala work. I got two paired units before the trip, but one broke few days prior to departure, so I got one more unit while waiting for a warranty claim to be processed. I had no time to pair it at home and of course it was nightmare to do it since we started riding. It was great to listen to the music, but I couldn’t figure how to talk to each other. Finally I went through all the permutations of the setup, I even read the manual, which is very girly of me. This morning when Jonahton spoke, I could hear him. After a while we started to regret that as none of us is a great thinker and listening to our intellectual product is just a waste of time.
Mongolian thinker:


Buddhist temple:



Local shop with staff and stuff:



Proof that Aussies are good people - this guy run ouf of petrol, it happens I always have plenty so gave him 2 liters



Dirt road (double track most of the time) was great – it took us to the town called Tsetserleg. First really nicely organized town – it even had some sort of suburbs! So far all the towns looked like they were designed by some lunatic so this was a nice surprise.



From there we took road south – thin red line on Canadian map, solid line on gps. Easy enough, it seemed. The only problem was that the road climbed to the mountain pass at some 2800 m, most of it was just stones and there were about 253243 water crossings. Apart from that it was just gorgeous. With every corner our jaws dropped by a little. The best road so far in my opinion – a bit hard to ride due to the stones, but very rewarding in terms of scenery.

Racial segregation Mongolian style:



Local beauties are checking us out:



There were yurts every kilometre or so accompanied by a massive amount of animals. Quite often people were flagging us down and we always stopped for a chat. By now we became masters of a game, in which you have to say something complicated without using a word. One family gave us fermented horse milk – it was good at that time. Strong smell, strong taste. The problem was that it left aftertaste similar to the one you have after puking.






Local boys wanted to test other means of transportation - we are always happy to stop and have a 'chat':





The horse - very minimalistic edition:





Underwater road:





At the end of the day we decided to stop by the stream. We were riding across it many times today, but right when we wanted to stop it got surprisingly deep. We needed to cross it so I went for it – right when it was too late to sop I noticed that it was waist deep right on our side, so I just gave it all hoping that front will lift and the rear will somehow manage. I was right – it worked well, I wasn’t even wet. Then it was Jonathon’s turn . Before he took off I told him over Scala that there is shallow part just 30 meters further, but it was too late – he was committed to become our new dare-devil. The only problem is that he’s got zero dirt bike experience, so he didn’t know about whole front wheel lifting idea. His front went too deep too hard, he went ass over tits and bike followed him. I saw it and it was quite entertaining. The problem was that bike was submerged, John was submerged and there was about 80 km to the next town, over dirt road made of stones. Fuelled by the panic, John jumped from under the bike in about 5 milliseconds, fired it up and surprisingly the engine worked. Water spray from exhaust reached about 3 meters, but engine worked ok. After a while all the dashboard ignited like a Christmas tree, so I disconnected battery and we went to sleep. It was a very cold night – we were still high in the mountains.

Freshly washed:





Camp at the Butt Crack Mountain:




Stats:




Map - http://ridewithgps.com/trips/313669

Bart

Day 17 - Butt Crack Mountain - lawn


That’s the shortest day in terms of mileage so far, but at the same time the more challenging. To begin with we were woken up by two guys, who visited us the evening before. This time they came on horses, had rifles and a dead animal. I think it was groundhog or something. They were proud of their hunting skills and even though our Mongolian vocabulary still doesn’t exist it was easy to tell. We hoped that they don’t hunt for tourist.




Daily ride:





John's straps require constant adjustments:





Road out of the valley to the nearest city presented a serious challenge – it was covered with stones in all shapes and sizes and crossed the river about 200 times. Every next crossing was deeper as river grew in size. It started ankle deep, ended with all wheel under water. We dropped bikes few times, but never drowned them. By the end of it we were wet, exhausted and happy it’s over. The views were spectacular, but it was hard to focus while dodging big stones hidden under water.





Road got narrow:





..and then got wide again:






We got to the city and it was as nice as the previous one. As I understood it is low season now – during winter most of the yurts are being relocated to the city and that’s when it’s the most busy. We had something to eat, got some supplies, refuelled and continued west. I also had to find short in electrical system - water made it a bit funky.





We were seriously shagged and it was easy to tell – it was hard to concentrate, John had problems picking the line between potholes, I was riding in my sneakers as my riding boots were drying at the back. This time I was Gypsy ambassador... After about 90km it was time to head to the nearest village for some water. It was 8 km cross country – easy in this terrain. After just one kilometre I spotted some old lady pulling buckets of water from the well. Perfect! She not only filled our water bladders but also invited us to her yurt.





I’ve heard before that you can’t say you’ve been to Mongolia without being in the yurt. I disagree. In my opinion it’s not fair to invade private life of local people just so I could tell I’ve done that. I’m happy to visit if I’m invited though and she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. We followed her to the yurt, where she lives with her daughter, son in law and granddaughter. In fact they have two yurts, but we’ve been to one of them. They feed us with all sorts of goat products – milk, cheese and meat. Recipe for meat soup is simple – water, pieces of dried goat meat and onion, cooked for a short while. Surprisingly fillling buta bit tastless - there are no spices at their disposal. We felt really honoured to be with them at their house. They leave the hard life, there is no doubt about that, but at the same time they are so happy to share whatever they have. In return we gave them most of our provisions, suspecting that it’s not the stuff they have everyday – canned fish and few Snickers. They were really happy to have some sweets, so I guess it was a good present. It was also the time when we felt like a morons for our lack of Mongolian. It would be really polite to say at least few words in their language. Bottle of fresh yoghurt was their last gift for us.








It was getting late, so after saying goodbye to our host we moved some 2 km and set camp for the night. So far it seems that every spot is better than the previous one.







Stats:





Map - http://ridewithgps.com/trips/313670


Bart

Alert! Hypocracy report!

Absolutly loving your report and the photo's are excellent.

Thanks!
We made it to Almaty, Few problems along the way, including major one. But there is nothing that could stop us!
I'll try to get up to date in next day or two.

looks fantastic .... how you getting on with the rm damper?

I'm super happy with it. My ass was saved couple of times, there is no doubt. I tend to go too fast into sketchy stuff and that's when I need it the most. It fits nicely - no rubbing against TT tank or anything. Good design!

Cool man...!Nice RR,one of the best...makes me think of Mongolia as an ultimate destination for any adventurer, biker or not...Keep going, keep posting!

Day 18


That's what I saw that morning:




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Petrol station in nearby village:






Dirt road changed from two-track to multiple choice dirt highway after some 50 km or so. We worked out that it’s the best if John goes first and then I chase him. It doesn’t take long before I’m right next to him. On one occasion though I stayed a bit longer – had to change batteries in Spot and gps, switch music on and have a drink. After all when I started chasing he was way ahead. It took me good 20 km before I saw a dust cloud far ahead. Another 20 km passed before I got the cloud, made by truck. Hmmm... He must be ahead then. Unlikely, but possible. 10 km more and there was a village without John in sight. So far we established some rules for such occasion – leader needs to see chaser at least every 5 minutes. If he can’t then he stops, waits and eventually tracks back. If there is a village, leader waits at the entry. When we are lost altogether we have to get back to the spot where we last saw each other. If that doesn’t work then we are properly stuffed.






So there was no John. I thought that maybe he went wrong way somewhere, so he will track back and eventually will get to me by following gps. After an hour it was trackback time for me though. Some 30 km into it I spotted some guy vigorously waving his shirt, fighting for my attention. He was on alternative track, some half a kilometre away, so it was a miracle I saw him at all. He wasn’t a normal guy – he was a messenger. On a piece of paper he gave me was a message from John – ‘Bart, my bike is broken, I’m at the last spot we saw each other’.





20 km more and there he was. Bike wasn’t reacting very well – controls were on, but engine wouldn’t tick over. Dead battery. The only way to check it was to put mine in and see what happens. So I did. By now I’m an expert in taking the tank off, spraying gasoline all over me and losing some nuts and bolts. With my battery inn everything seemed ok, bike was charging. The next step was to get new battery then. There should be one in the village I was waiting in, now 50 km away. It seemed that the best way will be to tow John – foot peg to foot peg. Of course the fact that it was a sandy dirt road and it started to rain didn’t help, but we made it there. John decreased resale value of his bike in a process, but it was his first towing exercise. He sourced some Chinese battery, smaller than original but it somehow fitted after filing terminals a bit. We had enough juice in us to get some 50 km further for the night.





I was frustrated at this stage – it was the second time when we lost half a day to fix something in his bike (well, the first time we didn’t fix anything, but we lost half a day none the less) and I slowly had enough of it. I sort of volunteered to be a support truck, but I didn’t expect that. Atmosphere was a bit sour in our camp that night.





Stats:




Map - http://ridewithgps.com/trips/313671