Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[gpthis]

Originally Posted by ROD CURRIE

This ugly duck.

This bike would be joining with its hapless and hopeless pilot at Astana

Any more pics of the UGLY duck?? "They" say beauty is in the eye of the beholder ~ ~
Always an entertaining RR.

[ROD CURRIE]

The bits required to change what's allegedly a off-the-shelf-ready-to-go enduro (yeah really..with a plastic bashplate?) bike into an overlander were thus:

Safari fuel tank. The original under-the-seat job holds about 12 litres, so with the Safari you end up with about 26 litres-just less than 6 Imperial gallons and maybe 7 U.S Gallons. Someone will correct me I'm sure.
Adventure fairing from RallyRaid Products -this is seriously good kit. Everything bolts on just as the instructions say they will-who'dathunkit? I already had a KTM Adventure headlight from a bike I took in from the US.
GI-T Bashplate from Dave and Chris at Adventure Spec
The rad is terribly vulnerable as standard; so radguard frame from RallyRaid.
Bar risers as the standard bar height makes you crouch when standing on the pegs. RallyRaid again.
The KTM 690 standard seat is as usual on a KTM, a shocker so I had Tony Archer in Huddersfield build me one.
I swapped the TKC 80 rear for a Dunlop D908 RR. A very stiff tyre with a long( not tall) centre knob so its very aggressive in mud and dirt but still wears well. Turned out to be a great choice
I left the TKC 80 on the front as they had served me well in the desert and Morocco. Big mistake as we'll see.
Other stuff I can't remember but that was the essence of it

GPS was a Garmin Montana. I can't praise it highly enough. As one who's done everything so far, TAT, CD, Salt & Gold, Pyrenees etc etc on rollchart, map and compass I'm now a convert.

[ROD CURRIE]

Luggage racks were from Rally Raid, and were again excellent. They're formed with lots of slots and square holes in the steel plates so you can pop straps through to secure your soft luggage where's its best for that make of gear. I've seen them with Wolfman luggage, Walters Magadan bags and the Dirtbags and they seem to accomodate any gear equally well.
For luggage I used Dirtbagz as I've had them for years on DRZ400 and the old 625 and they hold enough for everything if you pack well, but haven't got enough space that you pack a load of extra crap. If you have extra space you'll find something to put in there as sure as there's shite in a donkey.

[ROD CURRIE]

Originally Posted by gpthis

Any more pics of the UGLY duck?? "They" say beauty is in the eye of the beholder ~ ~
Always an entertaining RR.

Trust me, you'll be sick of the sight of it in a few weeks.

At the point in the trip Walter and Terry have just reached the bike was on its way by van from Amsterdam (I hopped over with the bike on the ferry from the UK the week before) to Poland, where it would be picked up and trucked to Astana in time to meet us when we flew in. Allegedly.

[CordR]

As a fellow 690 owner, I'm really interested to see how this plays out.


(or should I say I'm really hoping it doesn't become the weak link in a great ride)......

[Colebatch]

Meanwhile .... while 3 other bikes (including Rod Currie's KTM mentioned above) were winging their way to Astana, Kazakhstan with Sambor's bike transporter ....

Terry and I were due a rest break ... and I needed to fix my cracked front subframe. The ride to YuzhnoUralsk had opened up the crack a bit and we stripped back the front of the bike (big job since I had run all my electrics and instrument wires up through the centre of the subframe. Headlights, ballasts everything was in the front subframe. All the wires had to be labelled.

I took a bunch of pics and got on the chat to Erik at Hot Rod, The fairing subframe was a prototype by Erik .... subject to final testing on this years ride. The conditions recently especially thru the Urals, were really rough. We decided I should patch this one up and he will redesign with more strength. I asked Erik if there were any other prototypes out there. He mentioned a couple of Norwegians had some too. I guessed they should be OK unless they do stuff this stressful with them.



Terry used the days off to look at ways to improve his bike. One problem that had been dogging him was the fan being on much more than might be ideal. Closer inspection revealed the radiator grille on the X-Country covered up half the radiator. Terry took to it with a drill:



I liked his work ... gave him mine to do ...

[tee bee]

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OOH, whats that curly thing under the ktm.?

[Prutser]

Originally Posted by tee bee

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OOH, whats that curly thing under the ktm.?[/QUOTE]

Its the tail of your bike ;-)

[jovan]

Subscribe!

[ROD CURRIE]

Originally Posted by Prutser

OOH, whats that curly thing under the ktm.?

Its the tail of your bike ;-)[/QUOTE]

All will be revealed ..........

[hardwaregrrl]

Originally Posted by ROD CURRIE

Its the tail of your bike ;-)

Are we guessing here?? I'm gonna go with tow rope, bummer.

[Colebatch]

Last day in Russia for a while. We were heading across the border into Kazakhstan - It was a short day ... about 200 km. As was typical of border crossing days, it was a predominantly asphalt day. This was one limitation of Russian border crossings. As far as I was aware, all of the "international" border crossings had asphalted roads leading to them. And if it was an international crossing, it meant the read leading to it was a Federal Road. The entire Russian border is surrounded by an internal buffer zone, called a border zone, into which you can only go with special permits. For foreigners like us, those permits must be applied for 2 months in advance, and had to be picked up in person from the relevant regional office. It made travelling off road close to the border pretty much impossible, unless you wanted to risk appearing to contravene Russian national security ... which is a risk beyond that we were prepared to take. So when crossing a Russian border, we had to approach it on a Federal asphalt road.

I had been annoyed by my brake pedal ... it wasnt adjusted right for the standing position. I adjusted it as part of our morning checks and we headed off towards the border. After a mere 15 km (9 miles), Terry rode up beside me flapping his arms about and directing me to the side of the road while yelling FIRE FIRE.

I pulled over and as I began dismounting Terry was already throwing sand over my flaming back brake caliper. We grabbed a water bottle and extinguished the flames ... The alloy back caliper was half melted. It was deformed. It was absolutely not repairable. Something must have gone terribly wrong with my back brake adjustment. I now had no back brake. A close inspection of the rear steel brake disc showed that while it was totally heat discoloured (and still is to this day), it was neither badly scored nor warped at all.

Thinking quickly, I sent a message to Prutser, one of the 3 riders who would join us in Astana in less than a week. I asked him to get me a back caliper and bring it in his luggage. Within hours I had a message back that he had found one at a Dutch bike dismantlers for 70 EUR ... bargain price. Awesome, it could be fixed in Astana if it could get to him in time. The dismantlers didnt want to send it until they received payment, and Prutser was flying out in just a couple of days. It would be touch and go.

Terry and I were still 3 and a half days ride from Astana ... it would be a learning experience to try to ride off road without touching my back pedal.

The Russian - Kazakh border came and went in a one hour visit, and we were back on the steppe ... this time, the Kazakh steppe.

We finished up in the first town we came to in Kazakhstan, Karabulak. We tried to get some Kazakh sim cards for the phones, and a late lunch. But we found a decent cheap hotel and decided to call it a day.

We struck out when it came to the SIM cards. Kazakhs dont sell micro ones ... which Terry and I both needed for our phones. But we had a nice dinner. Our hotel had a cafe attached to it but across there road was the towns main restaurant. A bit over the top it was for a rural Kazakh town. The beer was cold. We needed a lot of it as the Restaurants in house DJ / self Karaoke man was truly appalling.

[squawk77]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

I had been annoyed by my brake pedal ... it wasnt adjusted right for the standing position. I adjusted it as part of our morning checks and we headed off towards the border.

So did that somehow cause the fire?

Originally Posted by Colebatch

We struck out when it came to the SIM cards. Kazakhs dont sell micro ones ... which Terry and I both needed for our phones.

I think you can cut your own micro sim card with a knife. In some countries they've done this quickly for me with a hole-punch-style tool

How to make your own MicroSIM in 3 Minutes

[MeinMotorrad]

Originally Posted by hardwaregrrl

Are we guessing here?? I'm gonna go with tow rope, bummer.

That's what I was thinking but I don't want to diss the 690 if it hasn't done anything wrong (yet) I ride one too, so I'm willing it on. Maybe the 690 pulled the beemers

[dashmoto]

Originally Posted by MeinMotorrad

Maybe the 690 pulled the beemers

Backwards?