Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[ROD CURRIE]

Here's Terry wearing his "Piece of shit KTM face". I can hardly blame him.The guy was a prince and never complained once. At least not to me. Not sure I'd've been so tolerant.





The country was taking on a Scottish look.... but without the midges and bad beer.

[ROD CURRIE]

We got to a little holiday type town later in the day. It was still VERY hot and we were pretty beat so we elected to stay there.
The hotel we found was a crumbling post Soviet anachronism that still seemed to be run in The Good Old Way. i.e everthing was falling apart, and in a country where every shop, cafe, restaurant sells excellent beer, theirs was in a locked cupboard and the holder of the key wouldn't be back for 2 hours. We all dumped our gear and grabbed a shower.
Our boots all smelled appalling from the stinky soakings across the last day so the room as well as crumbling, now smelled like a giant tom cat had pissed in it. Lovely.
By the time we came out The Master of The Beer had come back with the key and The Lord was good to us.
The town/resort was on a beautiful lake, so grasping our liquid delight we all wandered off to the lakeside for a swim and to do the Lord's work and despite the bike problems the World was a good place. I've no pics of the hotel or the beach, maybe Prutster or W has?


There were some pretty Gucci hotels too..it was I think just ours that was very tatty.

We'd all had a lot of sun that day, and Beemster was now pretty off colour with nausea, shivering and headache. She'd taken a nasty dose of sunstroke, which whilst it passed overnight was a concern for everyone.

[Colebatch]

Yep as strange as it may seem, Rod's tale is true. In the middle of the baking hot flat Kazakh steppe, there is a small patch of mountains, covered in pine trees, and dotted with beautiful alpine lakes. And the Sibirsky Extreme Trail took us right there.



There was one or two very nice looking beachfront hotels by our lake, but we took this one (indeed I have pics Rod! - not my pics but I have some )


We all went for a drink (mostly beer) by the lake, and watched Terry and Rod's heads slowly moving very far out into the lake. It was the kind of beautiful spot in the middle of nowhere that Kazakh tourists get bussed into on coaches

[Colebatch]

It was not too crowded when we were there, but apparently it does get like this at times ... (pic from internet)

Pretty amazing when you see how remote the place is.

[Colebatch]

The particular lake we were staying on seems to be transliterated as Lake Dzhasibay ... we didnt get all that many pics ... so again, here are a couple I tracked down on the internet.

[Colebatch]

This represents our track across Kazakhstan so far:

[Stashek]

Originally Posted by Prutser

I did not fix it yet.Although it was better after I squeezed the brass vent tubes that are in the float bowls.
Would love to have a chat about this problem. But it might be better to do so in the http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=375091 thread.

Hi Prutser and the gang.

Loving the RR and especially seeing the airhead in the action. She looks made for the trip and I suppose that is my question. Is there anywhere that you have documented the changes?

Keep the mighty airhead rolling and keep the tow rope for the rest.

Respect to you all, Stashek

[Prutser]

Originally Posted by Stashek

Hi Prutser and the gang.

Loving the RR and especially seeing the airhead in the action. She looks made for the trip and I suppose that is my question. Is there anywhere that you have documented the changes?

Keep the mighty airhead rolling and keep the tow rope for the rest.

Respect to you all, Stashek

Hi Stashek,

There is no build thread about the airhead. But some changes are mentioned on page 51/53.

That tow rope..............................it was mine but i "hardly" used it myself

[MrPulldown]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

Surfing porn? Nice

[ROD CURRIE]

Originally Posted by Prutser

Hi Stashek,


That tow rope..............................it was mine but i "hardly" used it myself

True. But the snorkel was worn out

[lukeman]

Great ride report. Curious to see if the bike problems get straightened out going forward. Having an unreliable bike in a remote region blows.

[Prutser]

This was the road we took going to the hotel near the lake.
(although this picture was taken when we left the next day)
Really beautiful scenery.....

[sion]

Originally Posted by lukeman

Having an unreliable bike in a remote region blows.

Having an unreliable bike anywhere blows...it just blows more in a remote region.

[EtronX]

Originally Posted by ROD CURRIE

Here's Terry wearing his "Piece of shit KTM face". I can hardly blame him.The guy was a prince and never complained once. At least not to me. Not sure I'd've been so tolerant.

That is because old Terry is a star, Rod.

Nice meeting you outside Altsamay for dinner :-)

[ROD CURRIE]

I'd pulled the bike to bits the night before and was starting to develop a theory around keeping it cool and moving. I knew it would start-just not how long it would run. I got up before the other guys and went down to the car park. It was a beautiful, warm, still morning and no one was up yet. I fired up the bike and rode off towards the lakeside road, and spent the next half hour just grooving along a beautiful lakeside on my own. No fireworks, no gear (I'm usually ATGATT) and never over 45. The bike ran well and I felt I was starting to get a grip on it. Was I? We'll see but I was happy enough to go back to the guys and tell them I was OK to get moving.
We all saddled up and went to the next little town to get some breakfast and gas up.
Gas/Petrol stations are a little different in the East..that's what they sell. Fuel. 80 Octane everywhere, mostly 92 octane, and diesel. VERY occasionally 95 Octane but no candy bars, no groceries, not even oil sometimes. And you pay up front. The good thing is it's dirt cheap. Forget credit cards. Cash or no fuel.
One of the guys wanted some oil and I wanted to try mixing a little in the fuel to lube the pump as an experiment. The attendant let us rake around in the "store" -just a jumble of boxes where everything was thrown, and whilst we didn't get exactly what we wanted, we got something near enough.









We then went in to the "town" proper for some breakfast and found a little cafe right in the centre of the main street. As ever the local treated us like martians initially-I suppose they don't get many foreign bike groups through, and most of the bikes there are the 150XCC Planet 2-strokes .Luckily my bike was running well at the time or they'd have pissed themselves laughing at my State of the Art moto getting dragged around...even their heaps of shit will start and run reliably.
Everything settled down after a minute or two and we all trooped in to the cafe.
As so often the choice was extremely limited-Denny's it ain't and I'm so glad- so we just ordered some of everything they had -it was feckin' brilliant.
I'll step back now-some of the other guys will want to post before we get back to the Steppe for one of the best experiences of my life.

OK....Just one pic then





The enormity is nothing less than staggering