Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All

[Big Daddy D]

Have been looking forward to a new adventure of yours!

[Ridesolo]

Originally Posted by GB

Please do not hijack Walter's thread with your opinions of guns and people who carry them... Read the posted rules; The OP tells her story as he sees and perceives it.. personal questions are best handled by PM.

Cleaned up again today.

Go on with your great adventure Walter

[Colebatch]

The day began with our morning check outside out hotel.



Terry was missing a bolt from his bike. He replaced it from his stock of spare bolts.



Today seemed to be grain silo / elevator day ... every 20 km along the rail line we saw these enormous soviet built grain silos.



We were often crossing rail lines ... usually on level crossings, but sometimes my planned crossings didnt quite work out and we had to improvise ... but this one didnt work ... but it was close !



Even had the luxury of the odd bridge or causeway or whatever you want to call this thing ...

[Colebatch]

On the flat steppe, these enormous elevators stand out 30 km away ... you can often see a couple lined up in the distance

[trailtosakhalin]

As far I can see Walter used on his Montana mount a specially

made screw to lock the Montana. You can see him in a video unlocking the Montana.
The original is made in USA and you need special very small tool.
Which you can easily can loose .........

[Shaggie]

Originally Posted by Colebatch

On the flat steppe, these enormous elevators stand out 30 km away ... you can often see a couple lined up in the distance

wow!

are they defunct?

loving the RR!!!!!

Shane

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by trailtosakhalin

As far I can see Walter used on his Montana mount a specially

made screw to lock the Montana. You can see him in a video unlocking the Montana.
The original is made in USA and you need special very small tool.
Which you can easily can loose .........

Yes I had the security screw changed in Holland to a finger screw which is quick to do up.

[Colebatch]

Originally Posted by Shaggie

wow!

are they defunct?

Nope ... Kazakhstan is still one of the worlds top 10 wheat exporters.

[Colebatch]

[Colebatch]

We pulled into a small village and asked around if there were any cafes in town ... but no. The only choice was the village store. We decided to head in there and grab a bottle of coke, some fruit juice and a few packets of crisps. Health food today.

As soon as we began munching, the village girls turned up and wanted some pictures on the bikes:

[Colebatch]

After lunch we headed out of town in a cloud of dust:





The track was a bit vague:







But we persevered and eventually reached some lovely smooth double track between ploughed fields where we could open up the throttle for a couple of hours:

[Colebatch]

The track eventually turned out of the boonies and the wheatfields and hit the main road town of Atbasar, where we would refuel and spend the night.



After checking in to our hotel pretty early in the afternoon:



We made our way down to the local watering hole ... and thought about a swim:



We werent the only bikes down on the beach:



So we chatted to some locals and whiled away the afternoon (with another colossal grain silo / elevator towering over the town)



Before heading back into town for a couple of huge plates of shashlik.

[Colebatch]

In the pic below, you can see Terry's number plate has mysteriously morphed from a large yellow standard issue UK numberplate, to a small white one, just like mine.

The same rough Ural trails and rivers that crack my front subframe destroyed Terry's number plate. We pulled up at an intersection of gravel roads not long before Baymak and I noticed his plate had cracked and shattered away. So when we had the four days off the bike in YuzhnoUralsk, our mr fixit man there built Terry a new one, from scratch, using my plate as a model. We needed a number plate on his bike to cross the Kazakh border, and the only model we had was the non-standard one on my bike.

So now he had a plate that looked like mine.

[Jettn Jim]

Hello Walter... been in from the begining.
Very nice ride you've put together mate... Thanx!

Love the plate fix on Terry's bike! Mine has cracked apart as well and the idea of your man making you a new one on the road is awesome. Something my buddy Wayne and I would do.

Will have to call up ADVSPEC and give a set of your soft bags a try... been waiting for the right set to come along. I like to test different gear and it looks like now is the time to do it.
As I'm one of the smaller 1520 Pelican users/lovers, they've been really good to me for 62,000mi now, mounted with keeping my legs as originally made in mind and CG also.

[hardwaregrrl]

As usual Walter, you bring a very far part of the world into my life. Thanks so much for sharing!!!