Russian Off-Road Challenge 2010

[Colebatch]

Grom and I forged ahead, crossing river after river after river:

[Pate]

Originally Posted by motoreiter

I am looking at getting a DRZ400; how do you think it would have handled this trip? Why is everyone on such big bikes, it looks like some smaller lighter bikes might have been handy in some of these stretches?

I think that most approach мото 650сс.
Probably and drz400.

Why all?
At us was eight 650cc moto
and only two 800 and one 950сс.
Only because 3 guys had no during that moment in the garage 650cc мото

[Colebatch]

The main group was now hitting the water crossing zone - and finding the day-old tyre tracks of myself and Grom on the banks of all the rivers.









The main group and Big Andrei / Moto-Lana all met up in the town of Zilair. They were now halfway up the Ural route, from the southern tip to the Bashkir capital city, Ufa.

[Pate]

Che was ill two days, He badly felt

[Pate]

We crossed many rivers, some had a strong current

[Colebatch]

By now, Grom and I realised we were on our final day. The end of the off-road riding was only 200 km away. We made good time on the grassy hills, and dirt roads:

[Colebatch]

Behind us, the main group was still in amongst all the rivers. Here is Big Andrei crossing the same river as the first 2 fotos in post # 318 above.

[Colebatch]

[Colebatch]

The main group now approaching the series of villages 100 - 150 km north of Zilair:

[Colebatch]

Bashkir colours are green and blue, and the villages are all painted up in the national colours.

Here the main group stops for a break in a village on the route.





Che studying the map:



Pate stydying his Zumo:

[Colebatch]

Moto-Lana takes a silhouette self portrait:



Bashkir traffic jam



Kids:



A small taste of asphalt at the edge of the village:

[Colebatch]

Grom and I were now almost in the main populated part of Bashkortostan, and were finding where there were once river crossings, we now had bridges:

[Mileater]

Originally Posted by Pate

Che was ill two days, He badly felt

Brilliant report guys Thanks for taking the time to keep us really well entertained and informed.

Cheers
Allan

[GiorgioXT]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

DRZ at 133 kg would be a good bike for this stuff.

There were only about 3 notably bigger bikes out of the 10 ...
- Grom on his 950 ... because he can
- Pate on his F800 ... because his X-Challenge was out of action temporarily
- Nachalnik on his F800 ... not sure why.

The rest of the bikes were single cylinder bikes in the 135 - 160 kg range - all in the 600 - 650 cc size. I dont think a DRZ would be out of place, but would have struggled to keep up on the asphalt sections to and from the start / end of the ride, where the 600 - 650 bikes were sitting on 120 km/h all day.

I got a DRZ/S and also an DRZ/E ... good bikes, that really have the handling (and confort) of a racing enduro, but with some serious flaws :
- Fuel economy , better on more powerful E version, but anyway hard to do more than 17/kms with one liter riding carefully ... offroad down to 13-14 km/Liter
- Load , the "E" have a really light and weak rear subframe, but also the "S" thats more robust need a serious work on for offroad riding loaded.
- Build quality , bad . its unconceivable to have after a winter in partially outside storage most bolts seized and rust showing ... particularly if the XT stored at side from many years show nothing ... bolts seems particularly of bad quality
- Reliability , mine got no problem - but its still at low mileage, 2 friends both had camshaft wear problems around 25.000 kms .

If I got the money, will change it for a Yamaha wr450 or an Aprilia RXV 550 , also the new Husky TE610 seems to be very good (and fuel injected)
if not, will fetch another old Tènèrè and fit with better suspensions.
Old , but at 140 kilos dry (real) and 43 hp for 20-22 km/liter its still one of the best overlander...

Sorry ofr the Hijack, pleas continue with report, is going better and better!

[KDouble]

Amazing thank you for taking the time to share it with all of us