From Estonia with love (Round the World awesome ADVenture!!)

[bergsteigen]

Great pictures. I'm sure after riding for so long, hanging around during the winter must be a nice change. As much as I love riding, I still enjoy winters. Greatly enjoy your photography and writing. Keep it up...

[kwakbiker]

and yes, still loving those pics

That one with the grass in the lake, captures it lovely(the transition between autumn and winter I mean)

[jussaral]

awesome pictures !

[julien]

As usual, you make us a very nice gift with these pictures.

Thanks a lot Margus, merry christmas for you and Kariina.

[CrustyD3mon]

Amazing selection of pictures as always....merry christmas for you and your girlfriend...

[buzzlightyear]

Thanks for sharing your snowphotos with us, they are out of this world!

[D K]

Häid Jõulupühi!

[micro_fresh]

Merry Christmas!!

Thanks for sharing your amazing photos!

[shrekk]

Merry Christmas to the both of you. Thank you both for sharing you adventure and photos with us. It makes me want to get out on my own as soon as possaible. I wish you both the safest ot travels in the coming years.

[Chev.]

Originally Posted by tsiklonaut

"Unlimited" budget dream travel: a modded HP2 for me as a "mothership" + a modded and lightly loaded WR250R for Kariina.

I just love the HP2 concept, especially with the HPN mods, light wheels + high end suspension, below 170 kg dry - i.e. Simo Kirssi endurance racer replica but with a big fuel tank.....

Many thanks for your considerate comments. The very best wishes for both of you in the new year.

[Welshman]

Originally Posted by tsiklonaut

I got those couple of river and a lake shot basically just moments before the ice started coming in

In the evening there were ice islands forming already - this year it got cold very late but also very rapidly. On one of the reflection lake pics actually you see the ice coming in the distance. Now everything is under the thick ice sheet of course - no chance for nice reflection pics with snow. Only the very fast flowing rivers are more or less free of ice and usually only in the center.

Merry Xmas Margus, Johannesburg is a cool 32C at the moment and quiet, holiday season is like a lemming run for the coast so we stay home, glad you to see you about here still, I still love to visit the report for insperation, just for interest I saw the chinese / Taiwanese bearing discussion, I rebuilt my 1999 gearbox recently, the bearings were all "Made in England".

[timk519]

Thanks for the update!

[rummyogray]

I've been following your journey from the first post and oddly enough, I never thought to leave a comment. Thank you for taking us along on your travels. I, through your eyes and words had a chance to see things I've only dreamed of. You never know what lies ahead, keep hopes alive and one day the dreams become reality. Happy New Year!!

Aloha,
Monty
Honolulu, a small town in the Sandwich Islands.

[dubsider]

Hey Margus, your photographs are wonderful in every respect. You may have answered this, for your analogs, what scanner do you use to digitize?

[tsiklonaut]

Cheers guys!!!

Originally Posted by Welshman

just for interest I saw the chinese / Taiwanese bearing discussion, I rebuilt my 1999 gearbox recently, the bearings were all "Made in England".

Good to hear, hopefully all goes well in JoBurg and Pretoria area!?

I reckon the bearings will be allright if they get the materials and design put right in the first place. Definitely a lot better mechanically than anything "Made in China".

Originally Posted by dubsider

Hey Margus, your photographs are wonderful in every respect. You may have answered this, for your analogs, what scanner do you use to digitize?

Most of the previous stuff is scanned with Epson Perfection 4490 which I consider a very average consumer scanner: relatively poor color rendition (can be improved a lot with IT8 calibration, but still not fully satisfying) and very poor resolution (it's quoted 4800ppi but it realistically it does 2000ppi at best), for web-use it does OK though.

But recently I got a new "hobby" by getting my hands on a dead drum scanner belonging to a local print museum with a deal if I can make it work I can use it for free. So the last batch of the scans with film info on the frames is with the ScanView ScanMate 3000 drum scanner that I'm still working on (which I brought back to life but it's still damn unstable - the system crashes almost every second scan) but I have a couple of more ideas left on how to stablilize the 66lb weighting monster. Now that I've got a taste of it, IMHO there's really nothing that compares to PMT (Photomultiplier Tube) sensor scans that only the drum scanner offers - just the character, soulfulness, geometry and sheer fine detail in the images. But it takes a lot of knowledge on how to operate, maintain a drum scanner and I'm slowly learning the dying art of drum scanning: calibrating, wet-mounting, apertures etc. So for me it's really worth it to make it work properly since I'm hoping to rescan most of the RTW frames with it - fingers crossed.

Margus