Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[achesley]

The concentration of a racer in the shot of Terri. Never does it get out of your blood once you have been there and done kt.

[2WheelieADV]

Great report Walter, as usual. I love these pirozhki with meat or soar cabbage or potato... A vvell done cheburek is also sooo good...
Question - is there any advantage of having the soft (and deep) side bags over the plastic or metal paniers? Hovv convenient are they and hovv they holding up in a rain or other extreme conditions?

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by 2WheelieADV

Question - is there any advantage of having the soft (and deep) side bags over the plastic or metal paniers? Hovv convenient are they and hovv they holding up in a rain or other extreme conditions?

I could write a thesis on this ... but in summary, metal panniers are suitable for road touring and light gravel road use. As soon as you start riding off road, in sand, over rocks etc, you really need flexible luggage.

If you ride at these speeds with rigid metal boxes, everything in them will be shaken to pieces ... laptops. hard drives etc dont stand a chance.

If you are riding off road, you are expecting to drop the bike. If you drop a bike at any sort of speed with metal boxes, apart from a serious risk of breaking your leg, you box will rip of the bike, potentially damaging your subframe. One you have any sort of serious drop with metal boxes, they will no longer seal. The seals only work when the box is in the same shape it was when it left the factory. Soft luggage absorbs falls, absorbs vibration, and stays waterproof.

There is no experienced adventure motorcyclist that I know who rides largely off road, who uses metal boxes. ALL the guys I ride with ride with soft luggage, every single one. The only exception was Tony P in 2009, who rode with me, but prior to that ride he had almost no off road experience, and turned up with metal boxes. They broke the mounts on his first fall on the first day of off road. The boxes deformed slightly and ended up being rain collectors hat would regularly have to be turned inside out to dry the contents and to empty out 5-10 kgs of water that had gotten in. Long before the end of that trip he swore he would never use metal boxes again. They are a liability off road.

On top of a hundred other disadvantages, a metalbox set up will be 10-15 kgs (22-33 lbs) heavier, before you even put anything in the luggage. And the weight will be too far back ... the extra weight and worse positioning of the weight is a real liability for handling.

If you are on a 1200, and riding 80% on asphalt and 20% on gravel roads at moderate speeds, they are fine. I personally used to still take soft luggage when I rode a 1200 adventure. But on this kind of ride and this kind of trails at this kind of speeds, in my experience and in my opinion its totally unthinkable to use metal boxes.

As for hard plastic panniers, I have ssen them burst open the first serious fall you have (Joon 2009). Again, fine for road touring or a bit of light gravel, but for off road touring, they are not suitable.

[Kinsman]

I've been fascinated with a trip through this area for a long, long time.
What a great look at how it might be done.

Thanks for bringing us along!

[Colebatch]

I had the go pro on for a lot of the afternoon ... so got a truck load of video stills to throw up here ... indicating the type of terrain we were on:

[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.

[Colebatch]

[bigboyxl]

Walter, I see you documented your trip very detailed
I have a question: how many GB's of pictures and videos did you capture?

[Colebatch]

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 .

Not true at all. My riding experience is very narrow. I have been doing adventure riding, and only adventure riding since I got my licence 20 years ago. So I really know nothing about general luggage ... but I do know a lot about adventure luggage, and particularly adventure luggage that is suitable for off road use, and touring.

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by bigboyxl

Walter, I see you documented your trip very detailed
I have a question: how many GB's of pictures and videos did you capture?

Go Pro footage takes up truck loads of space. I took 2 x 1TB hard drives with me, and filled one of them

[Colebatch]

[Colebatch]

A couple of times a day, Terry would miss the turn ... and I would zoom on ahead on the correct track and wait 10 minutes up the track for him to realise his error, and backtrack.



To be fair to Terry, it was harder for him to follow the track as his GPS was mounted on his handlebars, rather than up front like myself ... so he had to slow down and look down to see his GPS. So he tended to check it once a minute or so, while I was able to check the GPS track every 5-10 seconds, because of its position.

We would rotate the lead every hour or so. At this stage of the trip, I was probably in front 60% of the time and Terry 40% roughly

[Colebatch]

We approached a town. It was time for a drink and a snack.





Dudes, wheres the food?



Welcome to Novotulka



Lets grab some fuel:

[Colebatch]

There wasnt a lot going down in Novotulka



Terry had raided the village store for a load of bread, some cheese, ham and tomatoes ... it was rough sandwiches for afternoon tea. Washed down with water and fruit juice.

[Colebatch]

50 km after Novotulka, we pulled over by the side of the track and set up camp for the night.

We had brought some beers along with us from the village and cracked them open as the sun set in the middle of nowhere.