Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[Colebatch]

The morning began by packing up the tents, and with a well balanced breakfast of Snickers bars for Terry and Bounty bars for me.

Before long we were riding through .... weird stuff .....



Kinda looked like snow ... but was some sort of pollen. It was getting in our eyes:

[Colebatch]

We pushed on





After an hour, we arrived at the town of Dergachi, found a cafe and pulled in for proper breakfast - some hot lemon tea and an omelette. Local police decided our bikes were a rather unusual sight and popped in to check our papers were all in order, before concluding we were good guys and giving us the thumbs up :

[Colebatch]

After we left Dergachi, we had some fast n wide sections of the track.



Which enabled us to really have some powersliding fun

[Louisdut]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

Which enabled us to really have some powersliding fun

Great picture

Big thanks for taking the time to do your reports

Cheers

Louis

[BK.RD.RNR]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

Looks like Russian Cops like Donuts too.

[davesupreme]

that's funny....

[Colebatch]

[CrustyD3mon]

Woww...seems that i pick that trip to late...ahah just subscribinmg for follow another report...thanks for sharing your adventures with us...and love your pictures always....

[Colebatch]

Lunch on Day 20 meant we pulled into the town of Perelub.

While having lunch, a local journalist lady told us he wanted a quick interview and photo for the local gazette.



After lunch (and still in Perelub) we bumped into cops again, for the second time today, and only about the third time all trip. They wanted to do a full check on us, so took our passports back to the station so more comprehensive checks could be done on us. Took about 10 minutes while our details were run through the computer before passports were returned with a smile.

While the passports were being checked out, one of the cops who was checking out our bikes was telling me they were on the lookout for terrorists coming from central asia. Maybe they had a tip off. We were only about 30 km (20 miles) from the Kazakh border here ... and I guess it was the same story that morning in Dergachi.

But they were friendly. Its always a hassle to hand your passports over to the cops for 10 minutes or so, but I guess they are only trying to do their job.

[Tracks1]

My your up late.

[wdeTA]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

...

While the passports were being checked out, one of the cops who was checking out our bikes was telling me they were on the lookout for terrorists coming from central asia. Maybe they had a tip off. We were only about 30 km (20 miles) from the Kazakh border here ... and I guess it was the same story that morning in Dergachi.

Yep, those bikes have TERRORIST written all over them with all that high tech bling

On a trip years ago through the southeast of the US on my Transalp I stopped to take a picture of the coat of arms hanging on the side of the High School in the extremely small town of EvaDale Texas (my name is Dale Eva hence the reason for the stop). Some guy came racing up to me on a golf cart and started giving me the third degree. Finally he decided I was OK and informed me that you couldn't be too careful about possible terrorists these days. REALLY, are terrorists interested in a town of <1500 in bumf*!k nowhere Texas

Thanks for taking us along on your trips. The pics and writing are the next best thing to actually being there and the closest most of us will get.

[Aces 6]

Originally Posted by mrbreeze

Walter,

I am sure you know far better than I do what type of luggage is best, probably for any type of riding - but just for the record, when I totaled my ST1300, the plastic boxes both stayed on the bike and likely prevented it from landing on my leg. The bike and I both flipped numerous times. The bags were beat all to hell and back, but they did not come off, they did not open, and they did not deform.

I wish I still had that bike....

PS - but I should probably add - when I dropped my 1999 Concours at low speed on a gravel road, the left bag came off the bike and if memory serves me correctly, it also had a hole in it about the size of my fist.

As I am not one for absolutes.....my Pelican 1550 survived a 40mph highside on a gravel/fireroad. Ground up the cases on both sides but the frame and bags were G2G. Still in use two years later. I won't argue about the weight though-easy extra 35 lbs empty and they do clip the hell out of ankles offroad, so yes, softbags better offroad but right type of hardbags can work with certain limitations.

[UpST8]

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by Aces 6

As I am not one for absolutes.....my Pelican 1550 survived a 40mph highside on a gravel/fireroad. Ground up the cases on both sides but the frame and bags were G2G. Still in use two years later. I won't argue about the weight though-easy extra 35 lbs empty and they do clip the hell out of ankles offroad, so yes, softbags better offroad but right type of hardbags can work with certain limitations.

Certainly the strength of Pelicans is a total exception when it comes to plastic luggage ... super tough. No question.

But ... they have the weight and rigidity of metal boxes.

[Colebatch]

Here it starts to deteriorate:



And gets worse ...



Till we could barely see it:



Just had to keep following the track I had drawn ... cause sooner or later it would take us to something resembling a track



At least someone had beenhere in the last week or two:



Or had they??



OK this was getting ridiculous - the grass was up to out handlebars !



Finally getting better now:



Starting to look like a track again ... kinda



And that definitely looks like a track - were saved





Back to business as usual: