Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by Mugwest

Walter: did you spring for the for-pay Google Earth Pro features? I'm specifically curious if the Pro upgrade gives one higher resolution imagery than the free version

Nope

The areas where google earth doesnt have top resolution are still many in the former soviet union ... thats where the program I mentioned earlier (SASplanet) is superior ... it allows you to switch between image provider. You can use the Google images, or switch to Bing, or Yahoo, or a couple of Russian ones like RosKosmos or Kosmosnimki.

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by Durden

I'm actually impressed you haven't hit any dead ends yet, I traced some GPS tracks through Northern Alberta a few years back and ended up spending a few days dragging my little 250 through swamps. What looked like trails on the GPS images had turned into bogs after a wet period. Nice work route planning.!

Keep at it ... there is no substitute for experience when it comes to translating sat images into real world tracks. The fact you have done trips like that and made mistakes at it means you are well on the way. This trip wasnt totally without sat image translation errors, but there were none major.

[Motorfiets]

this thread is the new team F5!!!

looking good walter!!

[froden]

Amazing report! Picked up the Sibisrky Extreme 2009 book at the post office a week ago - xmas present for the old man

[Blackbert]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

I wanted to check my bike over very thoroughly before heading into Mongolia. The last couple of days was quite tough on the bikes. The Chulyshman tracks were quite rocky ... not like the smooth steppe trails. The shakier head cam video demonstrates how much more the helmet was shaking about.

No doubt you found out your custom made license plate had separated from your bike ...

Altai Mountains. Beats anything in Western Europe.

[Hootowl]

Originally Posted by Canuman

Trying to develop a resistance to giardia is a little like trying to develop a resistance to .44 mag. It's a particularly nasty bacteria, and the antibiotic treatment (usually metronidazole) is no bundle of laughs either.

Fantastic report once again, Walter!

Giardia is not a bacteria. It is a parasite and is resistant to chlorine due to its hard outer shell.
The primary defense against water borne or food borne bacteria or parasites is a stomach with optimal amounts of stomach acid. The immune system is secondary.
If you drink untreated water from a river or stream do so from quiet water. Giardia will tend to sink whereas in moving water it will tend to be tossed around near the surface.
Richard

[ROD CURRIE]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

Direct from the US of A

And I wasnt using any rim locks ... I think some of the others were ?? Prutser?

I wasn't this time.
In deep/heavy sand where you're running super low pressures down to 10 psi I'd use (and have used) them, but here we were mostly on good trails and repairing punctures is much more fiddly with rimlocks in, so as all these things it's a balance and I left them out.

[TheLorax]

I actually stress out each day scrolling through this thread. I worry that I will run out of posts and be forced to actually do my job. I guess it's a "good" stress.

[Prutser]

After Walter left us heading back to Aktash, we took it easy.
The tracks were very rocky and all the potholes were still filled with water from the previous day.
We could see there was a lot more rain in the direction we were heading.



After a short shower we stopped for a lunch brake.



On some places there was still snow next to the road when we went over some pretty high passes.

[Clay Spinner]

Originally Posted by PaintLake

Sorry Deadly99, beaver fever isn't from dead animals. Beaver fever is also knowns as giardia, see this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giardia

Best RR ever!

Cheers

As am avid WW kayaker, I drank from rivers for years with nothing but Tang mixed in it.... then about three years ago I got the dreaded beaver fever... never again! It wasn't pleasant... nothing more to say. I bought one of these and all balance to the world, and myself, had been restored.

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by Blackbert

No doubt you found out your custom made license plate had separated from your bike ...

Actually it was cracked again ... I was getting it repaired by the mechanic I knew in Aktash

[Beam(st)er]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

It was a lovely spot and we shot some video and fixed Beamsters flat tyre

Originally Posted by bigboyxl

can't seem to find information if you are using rim locks on your tubes?
any advice?

Originally Posted by Colebatch

And I wasnt using any rim locks ... I think some of the others were ?? Prutser?

Prutser and me were using rim locks.
On the picture above I didn't have a flat tyre.
We were trying to move the tyre back into place because my rim lock wasn't tight enough.
We are both using Motion Pro Liteloc.
Prutser's bike could use a stronger one for the rear, he's thinking about trying one from Talon.
I believe teebee was using a rim lock on the front as well.

[Treadless]

Originally Posted by Hootowl

Giardia is not a bacteria. It is a parasite and is resistant to chlorine due to its hard outer shell.
The primary defense against water borne or food borne bacteria or parasites is a stomach with optimal amounts of stomach acid. The immune system is secondary.
If you drink untreated water from a river or stream do so from quiet water. Giardia will tend to sink whereas in moving water it will tend to be tossed around near the surface.
Richard

Thank you, the misinformation on subject was getting a bit annoying.
There are many parasites that you would not want to have take up residence in your body and the calm water if you are not filtering it can help your odds.


Back to the irregularly scheduled moto pr0n.

[Rango]

Originally Posted by ciedema

Just boil it - actually you don't even need to do that 76.5ºC will do the trick. In some parts of the world no matter the water source this should be done. For example some mountain streams in Canada have "Beaver Fever" which can make you quite sick.

Oh please, they're in Russia
water in Russia is wodka
wodka kills germs
anyone knows that.

[One Less Harley]

concerning rim locks- I've been off and on the fence on this, if running low PSI, I understand why, plus the safety factor running on road with tube tires and having a flat and the tire coming off the rim, very hard to save under that condition.

Disadvantage to rim locks are tire changes and balancing.

Would it be a major sin not to run rim locks on a large tube tired bike??? I welcome any thoughts on it.

Loving the report, and side bars....