21.06.09

Up bright and early at 6:30 am. The 1200GSs and Africa Twin had already gone. One of them mentioned something about leaving at 6am last night, but didnt think they were serious!

Tony and I had breakfast and were on the road by 8:20. The road south was pretty muddy with many dirt sections of up to 10km. I figured we would be catching the bigger bikes with all this dirt, and sure enough at 10am we passed them as they pulled over into a cafeteria for a break.

After Nizhneudinsk the road became pretty much sealed, and my thoughts turned to the village of Sheragul. The stretch from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk was almost the only part of the route thru Siberia that I had done before, and the reason for that was trying to look at new and interesting road possibilities.  But the 1100 km from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk was still interesting to me none-the-less, as there were a lot of memories associated with this stretch from the Tokyo to London Project 15 years ago. We had passed the Kansk army base, but because I assumed there would not be the same army personnel there now than then, I had not sought to enter the base to search for old contacts.

But there were a couple of other points of interest for me on this stretch of highway. James had broken down here and we were helped out by a policeman called Zhenya, in a village called Sheragul. He had taken care of us and our bikes, while we returned to Irkutsk to await spare parts. The other point of interest was the spot were were stuck camping by the highway for 3 days, wet and cold, waiting for the end of the rain.

.We approached the village of Sheragul and I wondered what were the odds of tracking down Zhenya. Tony seemed almost as excited about the prospect of a 15 year re-union as I was. Once in the main street of town, much looked familiar, and yet, much had changed from my memory. It had changed enough that I was no longer sure which house was the one in which Zhenya had lived with his mother. I stopped to ask a woman in the street. All I had was his first name and that he had been a policeman. ‘Zhenya Ivanov?’ she asked. Wow, that triggered a memory, yes Ivanov was his last name. ‘Da, da’ I replied. And she gave me directions to a new house off the main road.

We rode up to the new house, complete with big gate, and I stuck my head inside. A woman was sorting out some clothes. I asked her if Zhenya was around. She said he was out. I told her I was an Australian motorcyclist, and she seemed to know exactly who I was – her face brimming. She was on the phone straight away and said Zhenya is immediately coming home.

10 minutes later, Zhenya burst in the door, with a grin from ear to ear. I had known I might meet up again today, but with no means to contact him, he had no clue. It was a complete surprise to him – out of the blue.

Zhenya is no longer a policeman but now seems to be one of the village’s more successful businessmen, at least if his big new house is anything to go by. The woman I saw earlier was Sveta, his wife, and he had 2 new kids – Nastya and Polina. He asked where is James … he remembered our names after 15 years. Apparently he even tried to look us up when he first got internet 2 years ago, without success.

Sveta his wife had known immediately who I was too, from the stories Zhenya had told her. James and I had really made an impression 15 years ago it seems. I asked why … and was told that as the only policeman in town for a few years after we passed thru he had seen a few other motorcyclists the following year 1995 (maybe including Mondo Enduro) and increasing numbers since, but that James and I had been the first he had seen. He had really been struck by the audacity of these first two guys he had met riding motorcycles across Siberia.

We spent a couple of hours re-living old memories and exploring his big new house before I asked to visit his parents place on the main road thru town, where Zhenya had lived back in 1994. Sadly his father had passed away just 3 weeks ago, but his mother was alive and kicking.

I rode the bike thru her gate and onto the wooden driveway where James had repaired his bike in the freezing cold, and she too immediately knew who I was. I was touched that their memories were so strong and vivid. After so much time under the bridge and with no time to prepare the memories, they were still instantly there. Zhenya’s mother scolded me straight up for taking so long to return and asked where James was. She too remembered our names. I re-created some old fotos and we went inside for tea.

Ever since my first visit to Siberia, I have drank my tea black, preferably with jam. Prior to that it was always standard issue milk and sugar. I got into black tea with jam in siberia, and in particular at Zhenya’s mothers place. She used fill James and I up with a warm cup of tea almost continously. In the cold of the time we definately needed it. I saw the old kitchen where we used to eat, the sofa that was my siberian bed (I didnt remember but they remembered that I slept on the sofa while James slept on the floor).

By mid-afternoon I apologised but had to move on. Tony and I wanted to get too Irkutsk tonight. I told Zhenya I will be back after 2 months, after I have tackled the BAM road.

It was 3pm and Irkutsk was still 370 km away. Its a measure of how the roads have changed, that by the time we reach Irkutsk, we will have covered the same distance today as 3 tough days of riding back in 1994. The 50-100 km south-east of Sheragul had been all mud then, now it was all asphalt. In fact it was alphalt from here all the way to Irkutsk. Our 360km would only take 3.5 hrs of riding plus one hour of breaks.

Half an hour of those breaks came when we passed a cyclist on the road with 200km to go. It was the same British cyclist that Tony had met and chatted to 2 weeks earlier between Omsk and Novosibirsk – a guy called Sam (Tony calls him as ‘Tom’). It was a day of reunions all round. I will let Tony elaborate more about that reunion. We also stopped for half an hour to have a shoarma at an Azerbaijani snack bar by the side of the road, and to refuel.

I searched for the camping location where James and I had been shacked up in the rain for 3 days, but couldn’t find it. Its likely the road has moved. Much of the road had been reconstructed or a new road built 100 yards away from the old. I will have another chance to find it when I pass thru again in September.

We had been told to call Stas, the head of a big bike club in Irkutsk, when I reached the edge of the city. I had texted when we were about 2 hours away. As we rode into town a guy rode the other way on a big Golddwing and waved furiously at us. We pulled over while he turned around and he introduced himself as Pyotr, a friend of Stas and would lead us to the club. I remembered a rumour that the Irkutsk guys have a club house with bar and accomodation.

And sure enough we pulled up at the “Bike-konur” club guesthouse. Gates were opened and we were invited to park. There were two German bikes in there as well, an F800GS and single cylinder F650GS. We were led into the bar, upstairs was the living quarters and snooker table. A couple of dorm rooms were there, and the German couple were in one, and Tony and I moved our gear in with a Finnish guy in the other room.

We changed and immediately went to the bar, as you do. The bar was staffed with mini-skirted Irkutsk biker girls, and I even spotted a pole dancing pole. Not sure when that gets a workout. There was food and a selection of beers on tap. There was a modern warm shower and washing machine upstairs. This place was an adventure bikers wet dream.

The Finnish guy’s bike (an Africa Twin) had broken down 400 km down the road, somewhere near Tulun – due to a complete shock absorber failure and he was trying to work out how to get a whole new shock sent out from Finland.

After a few beers I was singled out by Artyom, a local biker – well not really local, he lives near the remote village of Bodaibo, 200 km north off the BAM road. We spoke about the BAM road and the track to the BAM from Zhigalovo, north of Irkutsk. In all, I got invaluable information from Artyom, a guy who rides the remote roads of this region on his Africa Twin. So add useful sources of information to the many reasons this club house was a bikers heaven!

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22.06.09

I collected my new dirt tyres and had them fitted my a member of the bike club who runs a tyre business. Then I left Tony in Irkutsk for a day and half while I trotted off to Moscow. The main project for Irkutsk was to the one thing I forgot to get Zhenya in Krasnoyarsk to do … make 3 new wheel spacers out of steel or stainless steel for the XC. The originals are soft aluminium alloy and are now pretty badly scored by the dirt and grit so far on the trip. The spacers are what the bearing seals seal against, so the condition of the surface of the spacers is pretty important – and mine were in poor shape. Fortunately they are simple round bits and would not take long to get spun up on a lathe. Siberia has no shortage of metalworkers. Steel would be infinately more durable than aluminium for the purposes of effecting the seal without deteriorating rapidly.

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25.06.09

My return to Irkutsk on the overnight flight from Moscow was the start of a productive day. After lunch I got stuck into the motorcycle, beginning with a walk with Tony and Hannes (The Finnish Africa Twin guy) down to a huge automotive bazaar to pick up some bits n pieces for our assorted bikes. Tony and I picked up a cheap thermometer each, I grabbed a small tube of axle grease and a 26mm socket (dont see them too often, but they do both the front and rear wheel nuts). Andreas and Claudia, the German couple, had just returned from several days out at Lake Baikal, and we all beered it up till late at night in the club bar.

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26.06.09

Hannes needed to extend his Russian customs form and wanted some help with the russian language. I was planning to extend my customs form in Magadan, but if I went with Hannes then I could get it out of the way here in Irkutsk. We woke up at 8:30am and taxied it out to the customs office, 20 km out from the centre of town. It took us a while but by 11:30 we had our customs extensios approved, at no cost, and were asked to return after lunch, at 2pm. There was nothing to do out there in the burbs, so we headed back into town.

By 2pm we were back out at the customs office and by 3pm we were back at the bike cluehouse, with our docs. By now it was looking too late to leave, and when Tony returned from his shopping excursion we made an executive decision to leave tomorrow instead.

Later in town, at the internet cafe, a guy walked in, brandishing a northern UK accent, carrying a motorcycle helmet, and announced “so there are two more british bikers here” to the internet cafe … as Tony and I were the only people in the room, I guess he figured the bikes outside belonged to us. This was Leon from Manchester, on his way to Mongolia on a Yamaha 600.

We chatted a bit before realising he was holed up in a lonely planet hostel. We told him about the bike club and he was keen for a look. 15 mins later and he had decided to stay for a few days at the Bike Club, starting tomorrow. He was keen to change to a spare tyre he was carrying, and Tony had been looking for a spare back in 17 inch. The two met halfway, and Tony agreed to take responsibility for the tyre change, in return for Leon’s tyre.

As I started to pack up all my gear, I noticed the two new tyre changing levers Adventure-Spec had sent out from the UK with my new tyres were missing. I had left them out in the yard of the bike club, and someone must have picked them mup thinking they were surplus. Bummer … they were a nice length.

Tony still has a couple of shorter ones.

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