Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[achesley]

[QUOTE=nachtflug;20097787 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.[/QUOTE]

I've learned so much about the world in reality though ride reports such as these. Never do I believe the new media.
The only other person I've know to put so many fine ladies in their report is the Striking Viking. But, you had to catch it before he had to delete so much due to the book. ;-(.

Anixious to hear the reports on the FIVE now.

[ROD CURRIE]

Originally Posted by Motor 1

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

That's because if brains were dynamite, we couldn't accumulate enough between us to assassinate an ant. Only one thing to do....:

[ROD CURRIE]

I warned you not to expect much.

Here's Terry wearing his " The lights are on but no-one's home" look. Behind him you can see the strip of sand leading down to the crystal stream. ...ish. Walter is showing his normal fascination with his groin. ... Glad we can't see what he's looking at.



The hotel affected a nautical motif and all the staff (boys and girls )wore yachting caps and seemed impossibly young-but maybe I'm impossibly old. They also seemed to work dawn 'til dusk and were very friendly. This waiter was Sacha, and Walter looking on like he's never seen food before and is about to gnaw the kid's arm off.



This was at the end of the compound and the bouncer would take himself over here every wee while and do "chins" for fun. He did 16 .That was too much for we oafs who tried to emulate him...but only when he couldn't see and mock us. Here's a fat bald bloke having a go. I managed 3 or 4-I think Terry did more despite me hitting his tadger with a bottle, but Bas as I remember was the champ, shame forbids me to tell you the number. It was well more than my attempt but he's only a whippersnapper and I......am not.

[ROD CURRIE]

Sorry guys...should have rotated it but you'll just need to rotate your heads.

[ROD CURRIE]

Here's T looking at a bike that doesn't look as if it's been covered in glue, ridden through a bike shop then set off on a 13000 mile trip with the bits that stuck to it.



Only joking T....

[ROD CURRIE]

Originally Posted by ROD CURRIE

Here's T looking at a bike that doesn't look as if it's been covered in glue, ridden through a bike shop then set off on a 13000 mile trip with the bits that stuck to it.


Only joking T....

Terry's revenge to come. And soon.

[Prutser]

This is how the old caliper looked.


And a pic of the Osco hose that we ran through the swingarm into the chain guide.


This was our personal workshop for the days we waited for the other bikes to arrive in Astana.

[Beam(st)er]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

I will leave it to Prutser and Beemster to fill you in on what was done to prep their bikes for the ride.

For those who are interested in the preps of my bike...
http://advrider.com/forums/showthrea...7#post18379877

[Prutser]

Originally Posted by Phreaky Phil

Hi Prutser, I would be very interested to learn more about you Beemer. I have an R80 GS myself that I have done a lot of miles on here in NZ but we have taken 650s on our last 2 overseas expeditions. I have been thinking lately about doing something similar to yours.
Would you consider doing a build report linked to this thread so we can learn some more about you bike ?
Cheers Phil

Hi Phil,

I was not planning to do a build tread about my bike. But this will be a really short one.I have done a few things that helped me getting the Airhead to follow the G650's.
Most people asked me "WHY such a heavy old bike " Than they said it must weigh 250KG....!!!

But its 188 Kg including 19,5 liters of fuel. Although that's a lot more than the G650X I still choose for the ST.
After working on, and riding airheads for most of my life I just love them.

Most of the modifications you could do without. Depending on the speed you are traveling with and what route or tracks you would like to take.

As an example : We met lots of people traveling thru Russia and Mongolia.
They were using big 1200gsa's, super teneré's, afrika twin's, dr650's or the biggest 950/990 KTM's.

We had a chat with two Germans we met that started there trip from UB Mongolia riding back to Germany.
They asked us how the tracks were in the direction we came from and they had to go..........!!!!
Our answer was : Nothing special.. 4 or 5 river crossings a swamp to cross and a few hundred km's of soft sand and mud.
(which was nothing special compared to what we had done all the days before)
Than there eyes almost dropped out of there heads..... looking at each other probably thinking LETS GO BACK !!
When I asked them how fast they were riding they said : 30 to 40 km/h MAX !!!

As Walter told before our speed's on the steppe's were between 70 and 110 km/h.(or even higher)
And that makes all the difference when hitting rocks or jumping in big potholes the whole day long !!!

To make my bike able to handle this kind of riding I mounted stronger rims with tough tires,
a WP48mm fork for more wheel travel (300mm),
extended swing arm for more wheel travel (250mm),
custom bashplate.
Made some racks for soft luggage that could handle the massive impact of these tracks.

And modified my air intake to deal with all the deep river crossings.And that would be the only thing that still wasn't good enough !!! Compared to the Xc's and Rod's 690 mine was still WAAAAAAAAAAY to low for some crossings!!!
Which will be obvious on some of the pictures

[Beam(st)er]

Originally Posted by 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.

Hi Evilstare,
I think the reactions were kind a similar. It was really wonderful to see how enthusiastic and impressed people were when they saw I'm a girl and that I was riding on my own bike on a trip like this. The locals were very interested and really curious why I wanted to visit their country. That's what made this trip even more special to me, you don't get this kind of reactions anymore traveling in Europe.

[VFR]

Originally Posted by Prutser

And modified my air intake to deal with all the deep river crossings.And that would be the only thing that still wasn't good enough !!! Compared to the Xc's and Rod's 690 mine was still WAAAAAAAAAAY to low for some crossings!!!
Which will be obvious on some of the pictures

That was the first thing I thought when I saw the picture of the bike. Earlier Walter & Terry went through some what they called mild river crossings & their bikes were far enough under water that you would need a snorkel for the motor to breathe. I'm thinking the ignition might suffer a bit as well..

Waiting to see how it fared.....

[Colebatch]

He also put a lot of x-challenge parts on the bike in lieu of G/S parts to lighten it .... And yet retain the bmw flavor.

Everything from the front hub, front brake disc and caliper, front fender, headlight assembly, alloy side stand and more ... Loads of weight saving parts.

Just need to find an xchallenge at a dismantlers yard and grab loads of bits

Originally Posted by Prutser

Hi Phil,

I was not planning to do a build tread about my bike. But this will be a really short one.I have done a few things that helped me getting the Airhead to follow the G650's.
Most people asked me "WHY such a heavy old bike " Than they said it must weigh 250KG....!!!

But its 188 Kg including 19,5 liters of fuel. Although that's a lot more than the G650X I still choose for the ST.
After working on, and riding airheads for most of my life I just love them.

Most of the modifications you could do without. Depending on the speed you are traveling with and what route or tracks you would like to take.

As an example : We met lots of people traveling thru Russia and Mongolia.
They were using big 1200gsa's, super teneré's, afrika twin's, dr650's or the biggest 950/990 KTM's.

We had a chat with two Germans we met that started there trip from UB Mongolia riding back to Germany.
They asked us how the tracks were in the direction we came from and they had to go..........!!!!
Our answer was : Nothing special.. 4 or 5 river crossings a swamp to cross and a few hundred km's of soft sand and mud.
(which was nothing special compared to what we had done all the days before)
Than there eyes almost dropped out of there heads..... looking at each other probably thinking LETS GO BACK !!
When I asked them how fast they were riding they said : 30 to 40 km/h MAX !!!

As Walter told before our speed's on the steppe's were between 70 and 110 km/h.(or even higher)
And that makes all the difference when hitting rocks or jumping in big potholes the whole day long !!!

To make my bike able to handle this kind of riding I mounted stronger rims with tough tires,
a WP48mm fork for more wheel travel (300mm),
extended swing arm for more wheel travel (250mm),
custom bashplate.
Made some racks for soft luggage that could handle the massive impact of these tracks.

And modified my air intake to deal with all the deep river crossings.And that would be the only thing that still wasn't good enough !!! Compared to the Xc's and Rod's 690 mine was still WAAAAAAAAAAY to low for some crossings!!!
Which will be obvious on some of the pictures

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by ROD CURRIE

I've ruined a couple of keyboards myself

I do hope youre talking about coffee now Rod!

[MuddySump]

oh man....didnt realise it was a NEW sibersky extreme thread. Got a lot of reading to catch up on

[Colebatch]

We got some bad news from Sambors guys ... the transporter carrying the three bikes was delayed a couple of days at the Belarus border. They ended up skipping Belarus and heading up to Latvia and crossing directly into Russia. So we had 2 more days to chill, drink beer and eat shashlik.

While we waited for the other 3 bikes to arrive (Rod's pic of his bike is a little premature) ...Terry and I did what we could with our own bikes ... and Rod, Prutser and Beemster practised their Russian language skills ... While the young staff look on, vaguely amused by it all.