Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

y?

Beats the hell out of me.

pretty simple...........an abbreviation for 1000 is k..... then 2k=2000 so.... makes since that 2k8 = 2008......

just like y2k = year 2000!!

I think the why question was more along the lines of "why bother?"

is it so much shorter and easier to type 2k8 than 2008? why not just 08?

My point exactly.

....and now back to your regularly scheduled program.....

+1

Us thinking that it was the kinked hose for sure we rebuild the bike and Rod took it for a ride.
We all hoped that we could still leave the hotel today and finally start the trip in the afternoon..........
But when Rod came back with a limping bike we booked the rooms for another night. And we took it apart AGAIN!!!!
Walter, Terry and Linda could switch from Kvas to пиво

The problem still felt like a fuel issue, so we took off the fuel tank again.
Found the hose wasn't kinked again and nothing else odd to find.. Just to do something we changed the fuel filter.


We also rewired the Montana power cable.. By the time everything was done it was getting pretty late.

The mosquitoes had tried to kill us long enough at this point.
Rod did put the last screws in the bike and I went to sleep.

The next morning Rod told me the bike was running fine when he took it for a test ride at night.... So far so good...

Day 39 began with breakfast as soon as the hotel kitchen would serve it to us (about 9am) then we again packed up the bikes and tried again to leave the 3 fishes hotel.



We we making good progress and got to the new centre of Astana:



Where we pulled over at an ATM and made sure everyone was cashed up for the days ahead in the Kazakh wastelands.





Terry was just happy to be back on the road again. All in all, Terry and I had been in Astana for a week now, and were keen to get back into the riding action:



The sight of 5 foreign motorcyclists loading up their pockets from the local cash machine was an interesting one for the locals ... apparently:



But we were soon on our way, zooming through the streets of Astana:



Past the Presidential Palace:



Until it all came unstuck .... We had turned incorrectly through an intersection ...



After a considerable amount of time, I managed to talk our way down to a spoken warning for the group and a stern talking to about Kazakh left turn rules.

Beemster meanwhile, found it all very entertaining:

$5.00 says Prutser's airhead has zero problems on the trip.

Make that rubles and you're on

Walter, Terry, Rod, Pruster, Beemster-
Thank you for doing this ride report. I finally just got caught up and went back to the first page and looked at all the photos that have not made it into the story yet. Holy smokes.

Put $5 on the mighty Airhead for me

They're just doling it out in little dribs and drabs. Come on, we're hungry!

Hello Walter, rr great as always, a question, really worth wearing helmets open and give up the security of a full face helmet many kilometers??? sorry for my bad English.

Walter has said he enjoys being able to the locals see his face. I believe they trust him sooner than a FF rider. But I also think he said in the tight stuff like a trials rider, he can "read" the terrain sooner.

Great RR guys, I'm loving it. Rod, I reckon you're bang on with the doubts about the early 690s. I had an 07 690SM (the ugly ones) and while it was great fun when it was going I had endless issues with it. In the end I lost all faith in it and sold it on (and have been bikeless since ).

Thanks for posting this RR. The fortitude of all involved is quite admirable.

We left Astana, filling up both the bikes and our stomachs on the outskirts of town at a roadside cafe.







My route has us leaving Astana on the highway for about 35 km (20 miles) before turning off the begin the dirt trail, that went past some sort of small military base. Looked like an air defence battery for Astana.



We had done no more than a mile or two on the dirt when we came to our first challenge ... Water



---

I had gone along to one of Prutser and Beemster's weekend offroad training rides - partly to have some fun, and partly to see how Beemster was riding. I guess its a natural prejudice we guys have ... if a girl is coming along on an offroad ride, you want to check out her riding to make sure she wont slow the project down at all. Well I totally needn't have worried. Beemster was throwing her X-Country around the tight trials / motocross track with speed and grace. I am not used to tight riding, so I could barely keep up on a borrowed X-Challenge. I told Beemster (who also seemed concerned not to hold back the testosterone fuelled guys on this ride) that she is going to be fine. She wont hold us back at all.

There were only two questions the varied motorcross track didnt allow Prutser and Beemster to practice ... the high speed riding, and water crossings.

Here Beemster confessed .... she was absolutely petrified of water crossings.!

And on the first few miles on the dirt, on the first day of the ride for her ... we had a BIG water crossing.

For all of the new guys, Rod, Prutser and Beemster ... this was the ultimate way to say "Welcome to the Sibirsky Extreme Trail" ...