The BAM Road - ultimate test of man and machine

Warning: this thread will contain images of killer roads, awesome forest, riding across collapsed wooden bridges, Russian girls in rather small bikinis, extraordinary hospitality and 3 experienced riders pushed to the absolute limit by one of the greatest adventure biking challenges still out there ... the BAM road!

The BAM Road is one of the (if not THE) toughest adventure roads left on this planet. The Road runs 4300 km (2700 miles) across extreme Siberia from Vanino on the Russian pacific coast through Komsomolsk, Fevralsk, Tynda, Severobaikalsk, Ust Kut, Bratsk and back to the Trans-Siberian Highway near Taishet.

The road is split in half roughly at Tynda. There are only a few people who had ridden the western half, between Bratsk and Tynda. Only one pair of guys (Poles of course) had ridden the eastern part (from Vanino to Fevralsk).

Never before our journey, had someone seriously attempted to ride the whole road.

So how tough was this road? Compared to say, the Road of Bones?? Well put it this way ... the Road of Bones took us 3.5 days ... the BAM Road would take us a MONTH!!!

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This thread is designed to follow on from the Road of Bones thread posted here: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=529114.

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Lets start with a brief pictorial summary (with some small pics) - a taster for what will unfold over this insane journey across Siberia!

WOW! Serious road. Or, should we say TRAIL? Thanks for sharing. Oh yes, the girls make those bikinis look good.

OMG, that looks like fun ...

subscribed

Get to it.
Looks like an awesome ride.

Terrific !

In like Flinn! Can't miss all the eye candy. Thanks for sharing.

Excellent!

Looks like a lot of dismounted recon getting done...

in....

Hell yea....Will be grabbing a cocktail and checking in here

Tony and I were the same two chaps who had just ridden across Eurasia the hard way, as per the Road of Bones thread. But to recap ... Tony is a 67 year old pensioner, with 500,000 miles and 50 years of motorcyling under his belt. He spend most of his younger days in the European car rallying scene, but now prefers to get his kicks exploring Russia on two wheels. He lives part of the time in Moscow and part of the time in London. Tony's steed? an F650 Dakar.



Terry is the new boy in the team. Terry, a fellow Englishman, is midway between my age and Tony's. Terry's motorcycling pedigree includes racing enduros for 20 years. Terry had a huge amount of off road experience, and has got into the more adventure side of things recently. His extensive enduro experience would be a huge asset to Tony and myself when the going got tough. Terry had very limited experience in Russia however, and pretty much no Russian language. Terry's ride? An XT660R.



And then there is me ... on my G650 X-Challenge.

We left off in the Road of Bones thread with Tony flying down from Magadan to Vladivostok to meet Terry. Terry had flown himself and his bike from England to South Korea, ridden across Korea and taken a ferry from South Korea to the Russian port of Zarubino. From there he rode the 4 hours into Vladivostok to wait for Tony to arrive.

You might think, for a fresh visitor to the country, and with no language skills, Terry would keep a low profile and await Tony's arrival. But no! Terry had immersed himself into Vladivostok's famous summer biker party season and had won a whole bunch of new Biker friends in town.

Sadly I wasnt there to witness the next couple of days ... I was in Moscow working, but this is how Terry was adapting to life in Russia:

Terry is the smiley one in the middle:

Subscribed!!

Why mix with the boys, when there are so many Vladivostok girls about ?!

Yep, no doubt about it, Terry was doing it tough. Russia was clearly a frightening place! The Iron Angels bike club was obviously some kind of hell on earth.

Luckily Tony arrived to rescue Terry from this drunken debauchery ...





Then the Mariachi hats and Lenin Banners came out ...



And I don't know about you guys, but i am not sure I like where this one is leading ...

So in.

The partying went on ...



and on ...



and on ...



and on ... to the following NWS places that I better link to! (it was a biker party, after all!)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2437/3770708674_5cbf59bb9b_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3570/3770708010_3ac3a0e0cf_o.jpg


I kinda think these boys were happy we had to wait 5 days for the bikes to arrive on the ship from Magadan!

You sure you aren't in Sweden? All those blond haired blue eyed gorgeous women.

the teaser pics were a bad idea. I know i'm going to be hooked on this one.

Colebatch, great respect for your friend Tony, a ride in the Asia and Siberia!