Vienna to Magadan - BAM Road and Road of Bones

Absolutely brilliant, you be da man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its getting dark, you still have 100 klm to the next town, nearly drown in a freezing river but still taking photo's :eek1
Well done and very much appreciated.

How many kilometers is that part of the old summer road ?

Your are not the only one. This desease is speading i think. I have such dreams for months.

wow respect!!!

Really,i love that kind of reports. To sad there´s just one more day.

So lets hope for the next one.

And thanks for this one

Great post! River dunk, No headlight, No place to sleep, Finally an old hospital with a dry bed and a hot nurse to XDream about all night.... Puuuurfect!

glad you are okay!

Amazing RR, this ranks up there with Colebatch's and Doug's epic Siberian adventures. There is a lot to be said about tackling this solo, you're now an ADV Legend Hans! Very Cool, thanks again for sharing, I'm eagerly awaiting the last segment.

That's the part that always amazes me about this and pretty much any RR. I'm definitely not a photo guy, but the logistics of just dealing with taking a picture amaze me. I can't be bothered to stop, but am glad others do!

The "old summer road" is about 500 km
Kyubeme to Tomtor is 155 km. Except the Kyubeme River this supposed to be an easy ride.
Then there are 250 km until the Boarder to "Magadan Oblast". There road there also supposed to be good. It´s still travelled by locals, hunters etc.
Then it´s another 80 km to reach the new road again. This is the worst part because it is not used anymore at all, except adventurers by motorcycles and 4x4´s. It´s called "the swamps". In a few years it will not be possible to ride with 4x4s anymore, so motorcycles, bikes or by foot would be the only way to get through.

thanks to all of you again for your comments

at that moment the first thing that came to my mind was: I need a picture for the RR in the ADVrider forum

(not really)

Xdream ,you are cool guy, you have a good sense of humor, I read with interest your story
you can once again come to Russia in the summer, I can show you another edge of Russia, Kola Peninsula

XDream, sensational report! You have redefined Adventure! Love your humor and the photos! Thanks for doing this RR

I learned English while reading your stories

Amazing, amazing and one more time amazing ! Alone and nowhere ! Thanks for interesting RR. Nothing changed after WW2 in Russia, I think. It was the adventure to the past. Well done.

What an odyssey!

How was Magadan?
Please, please!
Did you survived?

Thanks so much for all your time and work to bring this report to us. Just love that country.

Wow, this is the final day of my adventure trip. Its less than 400 km to go to the final destination - the town of Magadan.

The excitement is a bit compressed by the weather. The rain did not stop from yesterday. I said goodbye to my last nights luxury lodging.



Last fuel stop of the trip at another gas station that you have to look twice if it is actually working or not.



I calculated with riding all the way to Magadan in rainy and cold weather.



Every time I met a truck on the road I got the full load of wet sand and mud allover me. *Face shots* haha - I prefer those with powder snow instead of magadan-mud. I honestly had better riding days in my life.



But hey, after about 100km the rain stopped and the sun came through a bit. Still if you look at the side of the road everything is under water.



And guess what - well it´s my last day and especially for bymbie I will have a twist of the story. I did not really have enough adventure yet. In Colebatchs report of the Road of Bones he mentioned a hidden abondened Gulag Camp about 20km from the road.

I found the track, I had still time and I thought I´m gonna have a look at it and left the good road for some more waterpuddles and rivercrossing.

Just after I left the road there were 4 or 5 unbeliefable deep sections. The water was muddy and scary. Yeah, that was what I was hoping to find on the old summer road. Now I regret not doeing the old summer road. The water sometimes was up to the seat and the pools went on and on for miles. You get an idea of how it was in the video at the end.



So bad I was not able to take a picture of me in those pools, but I did not really want to stop in the deep ones and take my camera out. I am stupid, but not THAT stupid. *haha*.



Ohhh, how much I regret that I did not do the Old Summer Road. I loooooved that kind of "excitement" that you have in front of every of those pools. It´s about 90% excitement and 10% fear. Maybe its 10% excitement and 90% fear. I can´t really tell. But that´s why it is so intense.

The track run through a wonderful valley that had a unbeliefable pieceful impact to me. At the same time I knew that this was the place where prisoners of the WW2 were fighting against death.





I got to another river crossing, which was not to bad at all and I was riding a part of the track along the river. At the second crossing my chain broke. You can actually see it on the video where the bike stopped in the river. Finally I got some body workout. It took a while to get the bike out of the river.



The chain was also stuck in the sprocket. So also a small test to my engeneering skills.





While I was sitting there, working on the chain, I turned around and saw him (or her).



So you are sitting there with a broken chain and a bike that does not moove, in a place where they mined for uranium and you know you should not stay more then 12 hours not to get permanent damage from nuclear radiation. Add a bear to that scenery and you might think the same as me. "Xdream" I said to myselfe "i think in every trip there is a certain point when you should finish and just go home. I guess it´s that time now."

I know, you think I am a tough guy. and you are talking about "balls" and "heroes". Hey, I am member in a Facebook-group called "The Bonesman". But I got to tell you something now. I sat there in front of my bike, the a bear scratching my back, looked into this beautiful valley and mountains. And then I´ve seen the prisoners of the Gulag.
They worked here in Winter at -60 degrees. And they worked here in Summer, at +30 degrees fighting mosquitos that have the size of a tennisball. And all they had was a whollen pullover, pants some mittens and if they were lucky they had boots.

They killed to get a potatoe to eat. Maybe one a week or so. Some died, some survifed. Only few escaped. If they escaped, they walked 3 month in extreme temperatures of -30 to -50 degrees until they reached lake Baikal. Then they followed the lake and crossed the boarder to Mongolia. After 2 more month, survifing the desert they got into the Himalaya and somehow after 2 years of walking got into India. From there they made their way back to Poland, Austria or Germany.

Oh shit. How could I consider myselfe to be tough? Travelling on a fancy (well not that fancy) BMW with a hightech Goretex suit that does a perfect job in cold, warm, wet and dry conditions, calling home on my cellphone if I feel I need some cuddeling. It makes it hard feeling like a "real adventurer".

I sat there and found myselfe wiping tears from my eyes.

Still - YES. I am proud to be a "bonesman". But not because of any skills you might have to ride on that road. No, it´s because that country brought me to a new level of humbleness and mental strenght.

I only had 1 or 2 more kilometers to the old Gulag mine, but I was happy now. I have seen what I wanted to see. I have done what I wanted to do and I have felt more than I ever expected to feel. I fixed the chain and rode back to the road and proceeded on the way to Magadan.



The closer I got to Magadan the harder it was. I counted down every mile and it took forever. 150 km before Magadan the asphalt started again. ohh, it´s so good to have that under your tires.



2 hours later i was at the town sign of Magadan, then at the Mask of Sorrows and finally on the Ocean.







I could not beliefe what I have done in the last 3 weeks. of course I had a plan, but even I did not really beliefe that it would be possible. Now I am here. Wow. Wow, just wow.

And now, another increddible thing happened. I met Luis!



Luis was a friend, of a friend that had a friend in Germany and he had a friend in Portugal that had a motorcycle forum....

well long story short. Luis heared that I ride my bike to Magadan and plan to just leave it there. So he booked a flight to Magadan and he plans to ride my bike back to Vienna. Now how is that?

I met Luis the first time at the Hotel in Magadan. We hugged each other like we were friends forever and we started talking, talking and talking.

I handed him the key of the BMW and as this act ended my adventure ride, it will also end my ride report.

Luis, feel free to tell you´r story of the ride back here or start with a new report. We all want to hear your story of the trip too.

Here is the long video version of the "road of bones" section from Yakutsk to Magadan.
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The music in the second half of the Video is from Radical Face "welcome home son"


If anybody thinks of going to Russia - GO. it´s a wonderful country with wonderful people. About everything negative you heard about it, is not true.


Thanks for following my ride and for all your nice comments. i hope to see some of you on the road or at a bar. And I will of course stay in this forum. You dont get rid of me that easy anymore.