Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[mrbreeze]

Hey Walter and Terry,

I want to thank you for sharing this excellent adventure, and I have a queston. I know you guys have balls of steel and all, but have you ever thought about what you would do if you had a serious medical emergency way out in the boonies somewhere? Do you carry anything for first aid? Did you need to get vaccinations, etc.?

thanks

[XC Rider]

You sir are the man!

Can't wait for the next installment! Major props to Rick for bowing out gracefully; pulling out of a trip part way is not an easy decision to make, but a good rider knows his limits and must listen to what his body and his bike are telling him.

[_cy_]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

Cant post a pic of all in the kit. Its all unpacked now.

I dont know how much lighter we could have gone, but the reality is not much.

This is Terrys full kit. - Two saddle bags and a tank bag.

On my bike I had the same two saddlebags a small tank bag and added a roll bag on the back.

On my bike one saddlebag was all camping gear ... tent, mattress, sleeping bag, cutlery, cup, plate etc. The other saddlebag had spare parts for a 3.5 month trip, full large semi-pro video camera kit bag, including several microphones, batteries etc) cold weather clothing, some emergency food supplies, small medical kit. My rear bag had my clothes (3 x t-shirts, 1 x chinos, 1 pr shoes, 5 x boxer shorts, 5 x socks), laptop, electronics.

Terry basically had a similar load to me, but I was carrying the following gear he wasnt ... thus the roll bag extra. I had 3 video cameras, ( 1 - Go Pro plus spares, fittings, chargers etc, 2)a regular consumer size video camera, and 3) a large semi pro video camera with kit), I carried several still cameras including a DSLR, I carried a laptop.

If you strip away the stuff I was carrying to document and record the trip (laptop, 3 video cameras, 2 still cameras, all the chargers and accessories that go with that), I also would have just had the two saddlebags. One full of camping gear, the other with spares and a couple changes of clothes and cold weather gear.

now that's butt load of electronics!! on top of normal gear needed.

[Motor 1]

Just found this thread! Hey Terry & Walter. For what it's worth, I hung out in LIVI for a couple of days and really enjoyed it. I limped back to England by way of Poland & Germany. Put the DR in a friends garage and bought a very low mileage, 2000 BMW R1100s and rode around Europe, until the end of July! Had a blast and stepping in briefly with the DR, made the trip all that more interesting!
Rick

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by EtronX

Hoy mate :-)

Thanks for helping a two year dream come through :-)

Hey Geir ... great to hear from you mate ... was great riding with you guys ... I am expecting you to write the Road of Bones segment, when we get to it!

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by wiggins

Walter, are you always able to get premium fuel while on these trips ???? if not what do you do to keep the engine from detonating ( knocking), my 650 X BMW really sounds bad when it doesn't get good high octane fuel.

Also, I noticed you have raised the handle bars up quite a bit, did you have extra length throttle and clutch cables made???

Thanks

Second hand western european BMWs and Mercs are everywhere in Ukraine and new ones are everywhere in Russia and Kazakhstan - meaning the fuel demand is for fuel that runs well in European cars - therefore everywhere across Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine we could get 92 octane and in most places 95-96 and even 98 RON. Only a few places in Mongolia I had to put in 80 octane and be careful with the throttle.

Standard clutch and throttle cables were used, but they were comprehensively re-routed to maintain a bit of slack at all steering angles. They were not long enough without re-routing.

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by Motor 1

Just found this thread! Hey Terry & Walter. For what it's worth, I hung out in LIVI for a couple of days and really enjoyed it. I limped back to England by way of Poland & Germany. Put the DR in a friends garage and bought a very low mileage, 2000 BMW R1100s and rode around Europe, until the end of July! Had a blast and stepping in briefly with the DR, made the trip all that more interesting!
Rick

Hey Rick, good to hear from you mate and glad the summer worked out well!

Now you get to see what you missed

[Colebatch]

We work up in our quaint hotel in Brody and went to check on the bikes. Good news was they were still there, locked up behind the hotel, bad news was there was a small amount of oil under Terry's left fork leg.

Terry's bike was notorious for going thru fork seals quickly, but this was ridiculous. The trip was so far just one day off road, and the fork seals were brand new ones, fitted in Holland just a few days earlier ... the best seals out there, the SKF seals. It was strange that they were leaking already.

We went to breakfast and sent messages to our suspension guru.

After breakfast, on advice from our suspension guru, we looked more closely. The seals were dry. The fork socks were dry ... the oil was not coming from leaky seals. That was a relief. The only place they could have been leaking is from the bit where the fork leg is threaded into the axle clamp. It was either leaking through the thread or by the tiny locking screw. Terry decided to ride the day out, and put some sealant on both in the evening to cure overnight.

The day began overcast, but the forecast had it improving throughout the day. We set off through village farmland:





Which gradually became more open:





Some stretches of the trail were not easy to interpret, and we had to stay quite focussed both on the maps and on the ground to make sure we ended up where we wanted to go:

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by mrbreeze

Hey Walter and Terry,

I want to thank you for sharing this excellent adventure, and I have a queston. I know you guys have balls of steel and all, but have you ever thought about what you would do if you had a serious medical emergency way out in the boonies somewhere? Do you carry anything for first aid? Did you need to get vaccinations, etc.?

thanks

We didnt have any vaccinations. I think there are a few basic ones like rabies and tetanus shots that you are supposed to get topped up every half dozen years or so. As far as I can recall, mine were done before the 2009 ride so thats good enough for me.

We carried very basic first aid kits.

As for serious emergencies, yes we thought about it ... thats why no-one rode alone. Whoever was in front had to check on the person behind every 10 mins or so at least. If there is a serious emergency, then is not much you can do apart from going to get help at the nearest town. Obviously it affects your riding. You cant ride as if you are in an enduro or motocross race cause there are no ambulances standing by the track / circuit, and you cant ride at rallye speeds (150 km/h - 95 mph) , cause there arent any helicopters hovering overhead waiting to pick up on any GPS distress signals. So its a balance ... you do want to ride fast and aggressive ... cause thats where the fun is, but you cant be pushing the edge of your capabilities too regularly. On faster stretches we would typically get up to 130 km/h (80 mph) but never more than for a few minutes - just long enough to really feel alive and get the adrenaline pumping. It was much more common to cruise at 100 - 110 km/h (60-70mph) even on the faster stretches, just to be more relaxed about the riding, since we had to do it all day, every day for 100 days on end - There is still enough concentration happening at 70 mph on the dirt to stop you dozing off.

Also the track was put together with that in mind. Faster more open terrain was far more common than the difficult technical terrain that is much more likely to result in falls and injuries. Over the course of the trip, pretty much all the falls took place in slower more technical areas, like river crossings and deep sand. You just dont really fall on the high speed stuff, as long as you concentrate hard and ride well within your capabilities. If you did fall at high speed, then of course you have a big problem, but it doesnt really seem to happen.

[kuhjunge]

another great adventure

subscribed

[Bronco638]

Originally Posted by Motor 1

Just found this thread! Hey Terry & Walter. For what it's worth, I hung out in LIVI for a couple of days and really enjoyed it. I limped back to England by way of Poland & Germany. Put the DR in a friends garage and bought a very low mileage, 2000 BMW R1100s and rode around Europe, until the end of July! Had a blast and stepping in briefly with the DR, made the trip all that more interesting!
Rick

+1 on hearing you're OK and had a fun trip to Europe none-the-less. As an owner of a DR650, I was really hoping to see what kind of punishment the DR could take and how it would hold up compared to the customized BMWs. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

[dmaxmike]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

If you strip away the stuff I was carrying to document and record the trip (laptop, 3 video cameras, 2 still cameras, all the chargers and accessories that go with that), I also would have just had the two saddlebags. One full of camping gear, the other with spares and a couple changes of clothes and cold weather gear.

i never even thought about the gear to document the trip. i will STFU now and just enjoy the ride.

[Colebatch]

The sun came out in the afternoon, and really put a smile on our faces:



We had a pleasant ride to our fuel stop and destination for the day, the town of Berezne.

As soon as we stopped, Terry noticed his back brakes had been worn away by the two days of riding in wet sand. That meant he would have to put in the only spare set he brought along. Messages were sent back to Prutser and Beemster to bring a few more sets to Astana.



Having changed pads, we went out for the evening to a local restaurant ... for a fine supper of Ukrainian grated potato patties ... kind of a bunch of Ukrainian Rösti - with sour cream. Naturally enough, in the finest Sibirsky Extreme tradition, we washed it down with a few local beers - this one a tasty wheat beer from Lviv.

[Putts]

Cholesterol level rising...but yum!

[Colebatch]

And if you want to know what Saturday nights are like in the local restaurant in the town of Berezne in the Ukrainian provinces ... they are something like this :