Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[tee bee]

Luckily enough, we had Bas with us, as stunt rider.....

[ciedema]

Originally Posted by Phrog

Population density of Australia is 7 per square mile.
Come on down, plenty of places to ride & camp. (plus no wolves, just dingos..... snakes, spiders, sharks, jellyfish & dropbears )

And with 90% urbanisation everywhere outside of the cities is pretty empty.

[Tirpse]

Originally Posted by ROD CURRIE

Walter's obvious delight that they had a Banya on the premises was a great encouragement to us all...except as a Banya-virgin I had no idea what to expect -so I'll explain.

It's a Russian variant of and shares the sadistic elements of the Sauna. There's an outside room where you get your kit off and leave it to dry...HURRAH!, then you go into an ante room that is F*CKING ROASTING and has a bench, some plastic basins, a blazing water heater, and a large barrel with cold water. You strip off and open the tap to fill one of the basins with BOILING water...then walk very gingerly across the slippery floor( you're walking past butt naked guys and I can't imagine the consequences of a slip) and pop the basin on the bench.... ladle cold water in to desired temperature and wash off. Lovely.

Sorry for reading this report so late and commenting but coming from Finland and having been few times in sauna. Probably first thing what finns build no matter where they go is sauna one imporant thing for everyone to know for safety sake.

If you ever get into sauna/Banya or Banja and you have to mix hot&cold water. Please make sure you fill your washing bucket first with cold water and then add hot water into it. Reason being that if you walk around with a bucket of hot, steam water and slip it can have very bad result. I saw such accident once in a age of 15 in confirmation camp sauna. One young guy, participant of camp filled first boiling hot water into bucket and was holding it when someone entered sauna. He was scared by opening sound of door and dropped this bucket of boiling, hot water to his waste and parts below. Result was that he was having 2nd and 3rd degree burn wounds in very sensitive areas below his waist areas all the way down to toes. As you can imagine pain was considerable and he was screaming as he was taken to hospital where he spend next week.

So first cold water and then add amounf of hot water you need. Thank you and keep up good riding report. I

[Beam(st)er]

After the bridge we had to take a steep climb which led us to a t-junction. From this point on our GPS's weren't of much help, they didn't show any tracks anymore.
Something told us we had to go to the right...
After a a few hundred meters we went through a small gate and the track got really narrow, at that point we started to realize this track was not meant for vehicles.



But we were still thinking that we were heading in the right direction...



While Prutser drove up first, Tee Bee and I had to run for cover because rocks were flying all over the place.





A little bit further it was confirmed that it was a hiking trail, when a group of hikers with backpacks came round the corner.
They looked really surprised to see us up there with our bikes and they were even more surprised when they noticed that we weren't locals.



We hoped this trail would led us to the suspension bridge.





Finally we found a flat spot where we could take a well deserved brake.



We made it to the bridge and it turned out to be the only option to get across but first we had to pay someone to open the gate and let us through.
This amazing valley led us to Chibit where we took the M52 back to Aktash.



Back at the hotel it turned out that there were no more rooms available so Prutser and I pitched our tent behind the hotel.
Just like Ciedema, who arrived later that day.

[dashmoto]

Is the hiker with the blue rucksack naked?

[6USMC6]

Not in that picture.

[achesley]

Hard core , absolutely beautiful country. Thanks for the post to feed us, the hungry onlookers.

[Deseret Rider]

Originally Posted by Phrog

Population density of Australia is 7 per square mile.
Come on down, plenty of places to ride & camp. (plus no wolves, just dingos..... snakes, spiders, sharks, jellyfish & dropbears )

P.S. love this RR.

Phrog, At one time---seems a hundred years ago but was really in the late '60's or early 70's a couple of 'Yanks" went to Australia determined to set the new record for riding the circumference of the your country. At that time there was a long stretch along the northern or north western section which was unpaved and one of our guys hit a kangaroo, crashed and was injured (broken leg or something as I now recall). But they were within sight of the record so the injured man ordered the other to ride on and send back help only after breaking the record. This inspired the remaining rider to ride like hell into the night (sounds like he may have actually had some Aussie in him) to complete the run. All ended well----the record was reported to have been now established at 10 days, 10 hours and 10 minutes. The injured man was rescued and this story was reported in one of our cycle magazines----might have been Cycle World but I don't remember for sure.

I imagine that since that time the road in that section has been paved and the new bikes are better and faster than those rode by our 'hero's". And we know that no self respecting Aussie would allow the record to be held by an outsider----so I'm wondering now if you happen to know what the new record is and who set it?

[ciedema]

Originally Posted by Deseret Rider

I imagine that since that time the road in that section has been paved and the new bikes are better and faster than those rode by our 'hero's". And we know that no self respecting Aussie would allow the record to be held by an outsider----so I'm wondering now if you happen to know what the new record is and who set it?

Still a lot of unpaved road out there, if you intend to ride circumference,or as much as possible.

And still a lot of Kangaroo's to hit, ask me how.

[Nortonbrian]

The person that held the record was Rich Willey, a tough guy of German descent and a Kawasaki dealer in St. Louis Missouri. He would tell me how he did it, fighting the bull dust and only stopping for 15 minute breaks at a time. I think he rode a KZ650, not exactly an adventure bike. Rich passed away recently but the last time I saw him he had ridden down to the museum on a Burgman scooter 500 miles, with his oxygen bottle between his knees! A remarkable man and a true hero in my eyes.

[Creeker747]

Way to find some single track to add spice to the adventure..................great entry Beamster!!!

What do you prefer, single track or river crossings?

[LeGitan]

Not sure how I missed this RR when it started, but I just lost 2 days catching up...(taking short breaks to work on my bike). AMAZING!

Whenever the route becomes available (for sale with the dvd or...) I will definitely buy it and there's a good chance my Australia to Belgium trip in a year or two will be following as much of this track as possible!

Back to prepping the bike now and planning my 'round 'straya 'exercise' for next year :)

[mariomcarvalho]

Originally Posted by Beam(st)er

woooow...amazing picture this one....

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by Tirpse

Hi Walther

Is that place Borovoe/ Burabai (in kazak language?) Looks much like same place where i was last summer on the way to Pamir. I also enjoyed famous hospitalty as local biker&AT rider Jevgeni invited me to his house for some eating, drinking and sleep and then joined them on ride to Lake Balkash bike festifal.



Nice report and southern Russia steppe area is interesting as i have some plans i might revisit next summer that area.

No its not ... Burabai is north of Astana and the home of the annual Kazakh bikers festival. We were east of Astana at a place near Bayanaul

[Colebatch]

While the other guys were on their way back to the hotel in Aktash, I had some soldering done by the mechanic I know there.





CIedema stopped in at the hotel on his way to Mongolia with his wife, and set up tent at the back of the hotel along with Prutser and Beamster.

The news was now that Rod would be with us tomorrow morning.

So we were all set to continue the journey. Our amazing, beautiful time in the Altai was up .... tomorrow we hit Mongolia.