04.08.09

Vanino is a compact town, built next to a natural deep water harbour. Last night we had found a decent restaurant next to the hotel and had a surprisingly good meal too.

Two tasks this morning: First to find out why Tony’s right trouser leg was covered in oil and second to get my trousers sewn up, finally.  The first was quick and easy … Tony had a leaky fork seal on the RHS and was losing fork oil.  As for my trousers, I went for a wander around town and found a general shoe / leather fix-it man and got my trousers restiched together for 60 rubles.

After our lazy morning and team consultation re Tony’s leaky fork, we decided to continue, and  address his fork in Komsomolsk.

Tecnically the BAM road from Komsomolsk to Vanino includes the stretch we did from Lidoga to Vanino, in reverse, but with the impressive speed of roadbuilding in Russia, we needed to check out if there was any way through following the BAM more closely between Vanino and Komsomolsk.  Road atlases were out of date quickly here.  Most maps still dont have the road from Lidoga to Vanino in there.  The fact that I had no map indicating a road along the BAM certainly didnt mean there was not one.

I asked about the existance of a road in Vanino.  No-one knew.  The advice I had was to get closer, probably to Orochi, and see what the locals there had to say.

We went up the coast, towards Datta and turned inland a bit to Mongokhto.  That was a dead end.  Mongokhto was a closed military town.  I did however, find out that the road to Orochi was back towards Vanino, and was a turnoff inland.  We found the turnoff and headed on down a very dusty track, that for the first mile or two led to a quarry and all the heavy traffic that entailed. The track continued round the edge of the quarry and down a hill, so we followed it.  It was a very rough track indeed and the bikes were feeling it.  We got to Orochi after an hour on the dirt track and stopped at a shop to refresh ourselves.  I asked around about a road forward and was told no.  There was an even rougher track to the next town, and then nothing.

Reluctantly, at about 4pm, we decided to head back towards Vanino. As usual, I led the way.  But halfway back down the road I noticed I was alone.  I found some shade and waited for 10 minutes before I realised I was waiting on a stretch of track that was duplicated. There were countless splits in the road, some times for a few hundred yards, and sometimes for a few kilometres.  I was waiting on one track of a split section.  The guys had probably gone a different track.  I jumped back on the bike and sped ahead, trying to catch them up, while looking for any possible clues to confirm they had been this way in the track.

35km down the track and I saw a 4WD coming the opposite way. I stopped him to ask if he had seen my 2 colleagues ahead, but he hadnt.  I was wrong.  They must be behind me.  I pulled over at a bridge and waited by a river.  For 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, 3/4 of an hour … when I reached the hour mark, I decided to turn around and find out whats going on back there.  Naturally enough. within 500 metres of turning around I saw Terry … he had had a flat tyre and was now charging back towards Vanino.  I turned to follow him and we made it back to the asphalt about 6pm. Only there was no Tony.

‘Terry, when was the last time you saw Tony?’

‘Just before I met you’ he replied.

Bugger … that was 15 km back, maybe more. Neither of us wanted to go back, having made it back to asphalt.  We decided to give him 15 minutes.  That too came and went.  We turned the bikes around and headed back into the dustbowl. Only a mile down the road Tony was marooned on the side of the road, with quarry trucks buzzing past regularly.  He had hit a big bump and the bike had died.  Ignition cut out.  Electrics still worked but ignition wasnt firing.

This had to be the side stand switch.

Manufacturers are obliged to sell motorcycle with a cut out so that the engine cant run when the side stand is down, unless the bike is in neutral.  Thats all good and well for road bikes, but if you do a bit of dirt roads or off road, then you really have to short the switch.  I had mentioned this to Tony but he hadnt gotten around to it yet.  Tony got down in the dust and traced the switch wire.  It had been severed by an impact where it was attached to the frame.  The ends were trimmed back and we began the trial and error process of identifying which 2 of the 3 wires needed to be shorted.

I spoke to the guys, and amended the plan.   When we turned around at Orochi, we had planned to make the cafe and hotel at the halfway mark of the Vanino Road.  Now, with Terry’s flat and Tony’s side stand switch, we would be better off just going back to Vanino.

And so we returned to the Hotel, checked in for another night and while we still had some daylight, Terry, who had had a look at Tony’s F650 manual and  decided we/he could have a go at changing Tony’s leaking fork seal, started stripping Tony’s front end.  While the lads did the fork seak change, I went out and got the team some beers, to work with.

A middle aged woman speaking very bad english tried to talk to us from a window in the hotel, while we worked in the yard.  Eventually I worked out she was Flemish and spoke to her in Dutch.  She had just taken the BAM train to Vanino and was about to take the Trans-Siberian back from Vladivostok.

I took a run around town in search of hydraulic oil that we could use in the forks.  I didnt find any but I did find a local biker.  He then turned up at the hotel with a couple of biker colleagues.  We had 3 of the 5 bikers in Vanino visiting us now.  One of the bikers quizzed us about what we needed and then made some calls to contacts, in search of 10W or 15w hydraulic fluid.

He promised to return in the morning with the stuff.

After the boys had fitted the seal and refitted the fork we showered and went out for a late night pizza and beer session.  All we had to do in the morning was top up the fork with fluid and go.  The pizza, I should add, was surprisingly good!

– – –

05.08.09

Tony awoke us at 9am.  The local bikers had returned as promised with 1.5 litres of hydraulic fluid … and a cameraman from the local paper.  With so much fluid Tony decided to drain the other fork and replace both sets of oil.  Terry and I went out and bought some fruit from the market.  We probably havent eaten enough fruit and veg on the Sibirsky Extreme Project to date.

By 11:30 all was packed and we hit the road back towards Lidoga and then Komsomolsk.  We knew the road conditions well – the first 80km from Vanino was asphalt, and had a petrol station at the end of that 80 km stretch.  Then the dirt started.  Down into big valleys and up the other side.  It was very easy on the eyes and the only drag was getting the dust from behind trucks.

Every 20 km or so I would slow down and make sure everyone was still with us.  20 km before the half way cafe, and the boys were no behind me.  I retraced 15 km where I found Terry with his second flat front tyre in 2 days.

After that hour delay I was keen to push on and get a drink at the half way cafe.  I was attempting to catapult myself past a slowish car while on a wooden bridge and things went horribly wrong.

Traction on the wooden bridge was very different to the gravel.  It was much slipperier.  The back wheel lost traction on the wood while I was accellerating hard in 3rd gear and flicking the bike to one side to overtake the car as the bridge was ending.  The bike fishtailed wildly from one side to another as I hit the gravel and it felt like I was riding a bucking bronco.  After the first kick or two I realised I was going to lose it, and it was going to be a bad fall.

I went down on rough gravel at about 60-70 km/h. To my own surprise, I was able to pick myself up straight away and signal to Terry that I was down.  The bike was facing backwards, and had a small oil leak from the generator cover.  Sliding on the gravel had punctured the engine housing slightly. I looked myself over.  My right arm ached around the elbow.  The cordura outer of my jacket had been worn through, but the inner protection layer had done its job. Similarly the motocross gloves I was wearing had worn thru but only just.  I had nothing to show for it but an aching arm and some very light scratching on my right wrist and elbow.

Terry took out some epoxy metal putty and cleaned up my engine housing while I went back to the bridge and cleaned myself up in the cold stream.  20 minutes after the fall and we were all back on the way to the cafe.

After lunch, the throbbing arm was throbbing more.  The elbow had swollen up like a balloon and it was hard gettng it inside the jacket.  I told the guys I wont be taking the jacket off again today!.  We continued on towards Lidoga as a lesser pace, more like a sedate 80 km/h rather than the 100 – 110 we had been doing.  The bikes, and now we ourselves, we taking a pounding on the road.  But the Vanino road had not finished with us yet !

As we approached the 60km asphalt section at the Lidoga end of the road, the last 20 km of dirt was the roughest of the road.  We slowed right down to take this rugged potholed stretch.  Terry had been concerned he needs to make his bike last all the way back to england so I let him set the pace.  Every bump was now felt as pain in my arm as the inflamed flesh was jerked about.  We made the end of the dirt and waited for Tony.

We waited … and waited … and waited.  After 20 minutes, and with neither of us wanting to go back onto that rough stretch, Tony appeared, riding what appeared to be a BMW Dakar chopper.  His back suspension had broken off 7-8 km back.  The bike was sitting very low, but the spring was resting roughly on a bit of suspension linkage.  The bike was rideable.  It was almost 5pm and we still had 250 km to go to Komsomolsk.

All three of us had been in the wars today.  It was a straight forward road but the bikes had taken a hammering.  As for my fall, I can only assume that there was a bit of overconfidence there.  It had been several months since I dropped the bike.  None of them at any sort of speed more than 5-10 km/hr.  I had ridden about 10,000 km on the dirt roads of Siberia, aggressively, without a fall and I suspect that played a big part in the overconfidence.  Now my arm was smarting.  A little more measured riding was in order.

We hit the main road from Khabarovsk to Komsomolsk and I had a chat with Tony while we refuelled.  We could turn back to Khabarovsk where we knew bikers and mechanics, but Tony refused to be beaten.  He insisted we push on to Komsomolsk.  He would lead the way and set the pace, on his Dakar ‘chopper’.

As we continued north on the asphalt road, we crossed the 50th parallel.  The weather in Vladivostok – Khabarovsk region had been very eastern … hot and muggy, but the further north we went, the dryer the air became. Tony was powering on at 100km/h, slowing only when he saw bumps that his badly wounded suspension might not handle.

Around 8:30pm we reached the Amur bridge, just south of Komsomolsk.  The river narrowed between some headlands here and was only about 2km wide.  it wad been up to 10km wide for much of the time we were tracking it.  I stopped to take a picture while Tony and Terry continued on.  As I started to take off again, a local biker rode up beside me and flagged me down.  This was perfect.  We knew no-one in Komsomolsk, and no idea where to get Tony’s shock lugs repaired.

Vadim was the biker and I very quickly ascertained there were bikers and a good mechanic or two in Komsomolsk.  We continued across the bridge and met up with Tony and Terry on the other side.  Vadim took a look at Tony’s rearr end and got straight on the phone.  Then it was a ‘follow me – 10 kilometres to bikers’ instruction and we readily complied.

Fifteen minutes later we were in a garage in downtown Komsomolsk, and Tony’s bike was being stripped down by Kostya, a young mechanic.  The guys insisted on getting his suspension out tonight!

By 11pm Tony’s bike had the suspension out, Terry’s and my biikes were also safely parked in Yegor’s garage (Yegor and his wife Oksana were the senior motorcycle folk in Komsomolsk) and we were all back at Yegor and Oksana’s flat with a bunch of other bikers being feed dinner!

What a remarkably hospitable end to a very tough  day for the three of us.

– – –

06.08.09

Komsomolsk was pretty much a closed town in the good old days.  There was and still is a lot of military and hi-tech manufacturing here.  Most of the guys we were meeting either worked for Sukhoi aircraft factory, building jet fighters or the submarine factory.

Despite being 500km upstream from the mouth of the Amur, the river is more than big enough to handle ocean going submarines!  The new great white hope for Russian civil aviation, the Sukhoi Superjet, is also being built here in Komsomolsk.With all that hi-tech manufacturing, its not surprising that no-one we were meeting was born here.  They all moved here because they had specialised skills.  So most guys here were skilled metal workers one way or another.  And good quality alloy and steel would also not be hard to find, should it be needed to repair Tony’s ill machine.

Spring compressors arrived at the garage and the spring was removed.  The broken end piece of the shock was removed and Kostya felt the best solution would be to remake the same part, in steel, for strength.  We agreed, if indeed it was possible.  And they assured us it was.

While Tony looked after his bike and supervised progress, Terry and I took a ride down to the river, a popular sunning spot in town, and did a little sunbathing of our own.

When we returned to the garage, there was more bad news re Tony’s bike.  While the shock piece was off getting repaired, the local lads had taken a look at Tony’s front rim.  It was all over the place.  The local view was it was unfixable.  If the locals think its unfixable, and they can fix almost anything, then its unfixable.

A steel 21 inch rim (quite a bit heavier than Tony’s) was produced.  It wasnt new, but was still in good shape.  Tony’s wheel was stripped and the local motorcycle wheel builder went about rebuilding the wheel in Yegor’s garage.  A couple of hours later and it was basically finished.

We took the gang (Yegor, Oksana, Kostya, the wheel builder and 3 other local bikers) out for shashlik.  They were housing us and looking after our bikes (including doing extensive repair work to Tony’s) before heading back to Yegor’s for evening beers.

It was hard to work out how to thank these guys enough.