Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[Big Daddy D]

It's night already, somewhere

Loving the report!

[ROD CURRIE]

Originally Posted by nachtflug

any idea why? industry? I can't get over the expanse when you look at a global map China and the US are about the same size.

When you look at Russia it's just a tad bigger.

Like huge. Talk about undeveloped land. How much grain can they grow/sell from out of there it must make the US grain fields of Kansas look like a back yard garden.

fascinating glimpse thanks so much for taking the time to post all of this I for one find "boring" places usually somewhat interesting.

Hey Nachtflug.
I think this is something that strikes you very hard in the PNW USA and far more in Russia and Asia .
We look at the world through the prism of our western eyes, and we're constantly told the world is small and overcrowded. Sure, it is in our tiny corner of Europe and the east coast of the USA, but generally? It isn't: It's feckin' enormous and as you'll see in this thread there are absolutely COLOSSAL empty spaces, for thousands of miles where you can ride and ride for days, and see just a handful of people.
I'm not suggesting we shouldn't try to be good citizens or that we shouldn't look after the Earth, but that we maybe shouldn't believe all the hype from pressure groups with vested interests and axes to grind.

[ROD CURRIE]

Originally Posted by Big Daddy D

It's night already, somewhere

Loving the report!

You got me...I'll pop 'em up in afew hours .

[_cy_]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

As mentioned ... he had a custom 4.5 litre tank under his seat ... along with his stock 19.5 litre G/S tank gave him 24 litres. Bearing in mind Terry had a total of 17 litres, the range was similar for those two bikes. There is no point carrying more fuel than the shortest range bike in the group, since we have to fuel up for that bike anyway.

No one ran out of fuel anywhere, so carrying more fuel would have just hampered the big G/S with even more weight, since it was the already the heaviest bike in the group by probably about 25 - 30 kgs - even though it was already stripped down a lot to save weight. As a safety measure, Prutser carried a 6-7 litre fuel bladder ... which is great since it weighs pretty much nothing when you dont use it, takes up pretty much no bulk. But we hardly used it.

Worth noting ... both Prutser and Beemsters bikes had 18 inch rear rims and 21 inch front rims (Excel) fitted.

ok.. that makes sense, not carrying more fuel than small tank on trip ... G/S gives up about 50lb to modern bikes. doing a long term test on Shorai LFX 36 on my R80G/S. which save 10lb over lead. despite what mfg recommends my take is actual lead/acid amp hour less 25%. which translates into largest battery offered by Shorai.

are you still using a LiFePO4 battery on this trip or have you gone back to an AGM?

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by _cy_

ok.. that makes sense, not carrying more fuel than small tank on trip ... G/S gives up about 50lb to modern bikes. doing a long term test on Shorai LFX 36 on my R80G/S. which save 10lb over lead. despite what mfg recommends my take is actual lead/acid amp hour less 25%. which translates into largest battery offered by Shorai.

are you still using a LiFePO4 battery on this trip or have you gone back to an AGM?

I had what turned out to be a decent setup - I used a "14" ah shorai - at about 700 grams, plus the shorai charger at about 500 grams. Still net a third of the weight of a lead acid battery. But I did have the bulk of the charger in my luggage

I was happy with doing that. I did have to charge and balance my battery a few times on the trip due to killing the battery totally first day out of Astana - stand by for story in next few days.

Overall, my experience is that its fine to take a LiFePO4 battery on a 3 month trip out in the boonies ... on the condition that you MUST take the special charger / cell balancer along with you. That decreases the advantages by increasing bulk (and cost), but its still net, a lot lighter than a lead acid battery. Note, if travelling in a group, the addition bulk and cost need only to occur once ... in a group of 5 people all with the same brand LiFePO4 batteries, only one person would need to be carrying a charger. That increases the attractiveness of the proposition.

[Pickup man]

Originally Posted by nachtflug

I kind of figured that but just had to ask. Really make's riding in the US seem like a joke for the most part you're never too far from gas, hotels, tow trucks, etc etc etc compared to where this is and if I'm looking at the global maps right he's still in the "populated" area's.

awesome trip and report as are all of his.

I agree with this, makes adventure type riding here almost uneventful. More importantly, when
we ride into a new town or village, hot chicks dont come running out to flog themselves on us.

[Colebatch]

2 nights after Terry and I pulled into The 3 Fishes hotel, we were rudely awoken at 5am by assorted crashing and banging of luggage and helmets in the hallway. I stuck my head out of my room door and saw that our 3 new riding buddies had just arrived. Rod, Prutser and Beemster.

Now we were 5.

[ROD CURRIE]

Heyyyy! That's a good lookin' team. The desirability quotient just shot up

[levain]

Originally Posted by ROD CURRIE

I have some pics I'll post tonight but honestly guys, don't expect much.

Bizarrely, although the river through the city had open frontage for much of its length, the fact that our hotel had a bar where they played bad Euro-pop VERY loud all day and much of the night seemed to make the place...THE PLACE and carloads of would-be revellers would pitch up to get stoated ( drunk) and dance in their underwear. If this sounds appealing its because you weren't there and your imagination has taken over-written the reality. Very often these were decidedly unattractive middle-aged porkers of both genders and any watching was usually of the "appalled fascination" type and featured low on the letch-ometer.
Additionally the river was pretty grubby -the Hotel was called Tri Peskara-The Three Fishes, because I think that's all there are left in it...and we all swam in it, but only once and Terry had a tummy bug after his dip.
This didn't put off the locals who would try to sneak in (it was a gated /fenced resort type thing) up the river and would then fall foul of the seriously ripped special forces type bouncer who'd get these guys in a headlock and literally throw them out into the dust...in their underpants. One guy then sneaked back in and got the same again. Unbelievable.
When the sun went down they would crank up the music to ear-busting level and then the famous sabre toothed Kazakh mosquito would come out. He'd usually bring his pals and the kids (so he could show them the grips)..deep joy. These guys meant business. It was baking hot during our stay and the hotel had no aircon, so the building would be roasting when you went to bed and thus you couldn't sleep 'til about 4 in the morning.
We were all pretty exhausted after a few days of this but the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away and to counter the disadvantages he blessed us with ...beer- . HURRAH!
If I'm making it sound miserable it wasn't, it was fun for the first couple of days and it gave the Walter and T some time to work on the bikes and recharge their own batteries.
I'll pop some pics up tonight .

You seem like a fun guy to travel with. Love the wit

[wimj]

Originally Posted by Prutser

That's why this trip was so great, to be free to go where ever you like without someone bothering you

Following this RR as the only one at the moment I'm excited to see some dutchies joined the gang. Your remark is so unfortunately true that I completely understand your enthusiasm. Hoping for some input of yours truly in this RR, cheers, Wim

[Evilstare]

My GF and I did a ride through the north of Vietnam a few years ago. I'll never forget the funny faces the locals made, when they realized that we had a woman amongst ourselves who rode her own bike. The guys were impressed and the girls treated her like a heroine.

I'm curious to learn if Beemster has had similar reactions from the locals on your ride.

[nachtflug]

Originally Posted by ROD CURRIE

Hey Nachtflug.
I think this is something that strikes you very hard in the PNW USA and far more in Russia and Asia .
We look at the world through the prism of our western eyes, and we're constantly told the world is small and overcrowded.

I guess weather dictates where population concentrates. 2 things come to mind.

When the next ice age hits the eskimo's will do just fine, and Mexico will get just a tad overcrowded...But I always get a kick out of people living where sleeping outside of a Wal Mart for 5 nights for a good buy on a TV they don't need isn't real high on the priority list. Colebatchs last ride report had a picture of the most gorgeous woman from somewhere north of Mongolia and this country has non stop media coverage of some pretty lame people. These ride reports in Russia rock.

[Colebatch]

The first thing I did when we all finally woke up after the arrival of the new trio, was to start beating on their door and wanting to raid Prutser's luggage. He had a few things for us.

He had back brake pads for Terry (since he used up his first set in the first 2 days in the Ukraine) and he had some goodies for me too.

Firstly ... a new back brake caliper ....



And secondly, an OSCO. Whats an OSCO you ask? A One Second Chain Oiler .... Its a dutch chain oiling system that operates by hand, and lubes the chain for about 10 seconds. This was great for the type of riding we were doing, cause we would ride all day in the dust, then just before evening, as we are pulling into town, we could ride for a few hundred yards on asphalt and operate the Osco ... which would lube the chain, and most of the excess would drop off harmlessly overnight ... leaving just the joints nicely lubed.

[rgiroux]

Originally Posted by levain

You seem like a fun guy to travel with. Love the wit

for sure!

[Motor 1]

Originally Posted by levain

You seem like a fun guy to travel with. Love the wit

On several trips with the scotsman he has put coffee through my nose! He indeed has a humors wit!