Category Archives: Sibirsky Extreme

Preparation, Sibirsky Extreme

The last leg for Jonathan

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I arrived in Linz a day after my girlfriends birthday. It was my intention to be there on her birthday but after 22 hours and 1000+ km’s of riding it was just not possible. Nevertheless she was pleased to see me. I wrongly assumed that now that I was roughly in the centre of the universe as far BMW Motorrad is concerned all would be well and I’d have an easy journey home. Ironically this is when my problems started. The first problem was the chain. It was “slapping” and jumping about a little more than I felt comfortable with. It’s done 16000 miles now but I still expected it to be doing fine especially considering I have a Scottoiler and cleaned it daily.

The chain had loosened quite considerably and it was then I realised that I had lost some tools when my tent went overboard in Wales 3 weeks before. Not a problem I thought. I’m in a big city and know my way around. I visited Hein Gericke the next day for some supplies and as I was leaving I noticed the rear tyre was going flat. Great! My plans of an early departure were dashed. It turns out BMW Motorrad Linz is about 100m up the road from Hein Gericke and the tyre was completely flat by the time I was parallel with the showroom. My dirty battle scarred F800 GS mirrored the shiny new one on the other side of the showroom glass.

If someone had told me of this I would not have believed them. You could not have staged it for a bike to get a puncture outside a BMW dealership. As it turned out the valve had separated from the inner tube. A casualty of some of our dirt track riding I suspect. It would appear that without the necessary clamps the inner tube was slipping within the tyre. BMW also offered to sort out some warranty work and do some software updates so I was resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t be departing on this day.

During my few days in Linz I made a point of visiting Thomas Wonderka. He is a Flickr contact and also interested in Bikes. We met for a coffee and when we left the F800 Celebrity effect was in full swing. A bus load of Thai Tourists had disembarked from a nearby bus and loved it so much they each wanted a photo in turn with the bike. I had to send my girlfriend off at the airport so I had to speed events up a little by suggesting a group photo.

The following day was sunny and I was packed and ready to make my way to Bochum in Northern Germany. I thanked the Elischak family for their generosity and hospitality and after a slight delay from the temporary loss of my mobile phone I was once again eating up the kilometres. Bavaria is a truly beautiful and varied part of Germany. I could have stopped a 100 times to explore and take photos but I really had to make the time up. By early

evening I was in the forested hills of the Rhineland and with the sun setting in the west the land took on a mystical appearance. By 9pm I arrived in Bochum and was greeted by Stephanie Kotalla. She was a neighbour of mine who used to live at my apartment complex in England and only last year moved back to Germany. Once again the hospitality was exemplary. The BBQ was already running and fine Turkish bread and Campari with orange was waiting for me. We have a lot to learn in England. On this whole trip a recurring theme has been the warm welcomes and great food we have received along the way. I was initially concerned about the security of the bike as it was going to be on the street of a Northern European city. In my view a lot riskier than parking it up in the Balkans.

Once again my concerns were allayed because a Turkish Gentleman was guarding the parking area and was very interested in where I had come from and where I was going to. I gave him a Sibirsky sticker and some Euros for his time and he was happy to pose for a photo.

The next morning I had a bit more time to play with and stopped to take some photos of the area. By lunchtime I had reached Ostende in Belgium and took a short detour to sample some traditional Belgian food. Moules-Frites :). On exiting Ostende I spotted another BMW dealership and they had the new F800 R but I had no time now and had to press on to Calais. I made good time and breezed through customs and the channel tunnel, Even managing to do some filming which was of a better standard than my first attempt when leaving the UK.

I had two appointments. The first was with Walter’s girlfriend… (now, now. Nothing like that!) I had to drop off some of Walter’s excess baggage and let her know all was well. The second meeting was with Tony Pettie and his partner Marina. At very short notice (of which I am deeply apologetic) they provided a wonderful dinner, drinks down the local pub and a very comfortable bed for the night. They offered me breakfast too but I struggle with the concept of breakfast so settled for a very nice coffee instead. Tony is integral to the Sibirsky Extreme Project as he is the next rider to join Walter after he emerges from Kazakhstan and into Russia for the push North East towards Lake Baikal and Siberia.

After a few photos I was once again on my way but instead of zipping up the motorway I deliberately continued the Sibirsky ethos of staying off the beaten track and was rewarded for doing so. Quite by chance I happened upon the oldest windmill in the British Isles and later on in the day while riding up the old Roman Road of Watling Street came upon 100’s of Harley bikers. They were attending the funeral of a close friend and fellow rider and were sending her off with an escort. It was quite a sight and a fitting tribute. 2 hours later I was home and felt a changed person. Positive, enlightened, eager to explore some more and of course sad that I could not continue East. Still. better to be left wanting more.

It was a privilege and a pleasure to ride with Walter Colebatch and Marcin Safranow and to have met all the well wishers and supporters both here and along the route.

Preparation, Siberia, Sibirsky Extreme

Meanwhile in the West…

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Saying Goodbye from Jonathan Fox on Vimeo.

After I left Walter and Marcin it initially felt very strange being alone. In contrast to their ascent into the mountains and subsequent fall in temperature my day became ever hotter as I took an unmarked road west across Southern Romania from Calafat to Turnu-Severin. I was surprised by the interesting architecture of the houses and found this area of the country to be a delight. The Danube was never out of site as I made my way onwards to Timisoara. Progress was slower than I had anticipated because Romania is currently undergoing a large road building program. Some of it is finished but there are long sections of gravel and potholes. You can be cruising along at 50 or 60mph and without warning the good road runs out and you find yourself on a dirt track. Approaching surprise off road sections above 100kmh is a new experience for me 🙂

I reached Timişoara in the early evening and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. Wikipedia describes the city as “Little Vienna”, because it belonged for a very long time to the Habsburg Empire and the entire city center consists of buildings built in the Kaiser era, which is reminiscent of the old Vienna. Timişoara is an important university center with the emphasis on subjects like medicine, mechanics and electro-technology. An industrial city with extensive services, it was the first mainland European city to be lit by electric street lamps in 1884. It was also the second European and the first city in what is now Romania with horse drawn trams in 1867. There are numerous claims that Gustave Eiffel, the creator of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, built one of Timişoara’s footbridges over the Bega.

As dusk began to take hold I found myself in the open country again. I toyed with camping but was mindful of the fact that every time I stopped I was always seem to attract stray dogs who were often hostile to my presence. I must have stopped 3 times to take a photo and each time a snarling dog or 5 would appear from a rubbish heap at the side of the road or from an alley in a village.

I looked at my map and felt I could easily get to Hungary and press on to either Budapest or Bratislava. With a firm resolve and a can of red bull I fired up the F800 beast and got going towards the Hungarian border. I also had the small issue of only possessing Euro’s. I had a finite amount of funds left and so I thought it best to take all the cash from my accounts instead of having a situation where a card was rejected. That way I knew the score. Ideally I needed to get to the Eurozone but I knew I didnt have enough fuel to get me to Slovakia. I managed to negotiate with a kind lady at the Shell petrol station to give me fuel for Euros. It was a win win deal 🙂

By midnight I was rolling into Budapest. I felt I was not doing the city justice by riding through it so late but figured I would be back in a touristic capacity as It is very close to Austria. By now I was totally in the red bull zone and eyed Slovakia and Austria with renewed vigour. I had been riding since 10am and it was now well into the small hours. I decided that although boring the Autobahn was the safest place to be and as I entered Austria picked up a vignette for the bike. They only had a 10 day option but considering some of the fees I’ve had to pay at borders recently I reckoned €4.50 was a steal.

I lost a few hours to delirium and can’t remember the journey from Vienna to Amstetten (recently made infamous for all the wrong reasons by Josef Fritzl) A flickr contact in the area told me that section of Autobahn is infamous for people falling asleep and crashing due to either its design, the distance between rest stops or perhaps strange energies.

To cut a long story short I arrived in Linz at 7am and was warmly welcomed by my girlfriend and her family. I was offered a warm shower and a warm bed and for me Sibirsky Extreme Europe was almost at an end.

Sibirsky Extreme, Ukraine

Those damn thieves

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Well just as I wrote and posted that long series of updates, it seems I have been deprived of both my wallets, and all my credit and debit cards by some light fingered son of a gun.  I did at one point leave my table and go to the toilet and left my wallets in the jacket pocket on the chair.  I had both on me as I was in the process of switching between currencies and cards to ones that worked better in the former soviet union.  So here I am now with no cash and no cards.

By chance while riding around wondering what to do next (I just had enough change in my pocket to pay the cafe bill) I stumbled across a bunch of bikers – The Moto-Life Club of Odessa – having a few drinks in the centre of town.  These guys took me in, passed the hat around and got me a bunch of cash to get me through till Western Union branches open again on Monday, and one of the guys has kindly offered me a place to stay for a night or two and a garage for the bike.

All my cards are cancelled, and the only document in there was the driving licence.  But I have the paper copy and an international driving permit so that should be fine.  But I did lose a decent amount of EUR and USD … and it will take at least 2 weeks to get new cards to access my accounts.

So its been a worrysome first 24 hours in the Ukraine, salvaged by typically outstanding hospitality from local bikers in this part of the world.

I will need to be more security conscious in future.

Moldova, Romania, Sibirsky Extreme, Ukraine

Alone: to MD and UA

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Apologies.  I havent had internet for 5 days.  We havent looked for it specifically and ended up staying in very out of the way places.  But I am now here in a cafe in Odessa (Ukraine) eating pizza with wi-fi access so here goes 5 days updates.

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Day 12: Good Friday

A look out of our window early in the morning said the weather would be good, so Marcin and I rose early to tackle the Transfagarasan.  This road had been built as an escape route across the carpathian mountains to provide and escape route for communist dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu, in case the Soviets invaded as per Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.  Romania is split in two by the curved Carpathian range.   The plains along the Danube to the east and south of the country, including Bucharest, could be easily invaded by the soviets.  But the land within the curve of the Carpathians would involve crossing the Carpathians somehow.  The road is said to be a feat of road engineering up there with the best of them , and very scenic to boot.

The Transfagarasan road is supposedly only opened in mid May each year as the high pass is around 2030 metres up.  I had just ridden the Arlberg pass in Austria last week and was feeling up for it.  As we climbed up from the base of the mountains at about 500 metres to the level of the first lake at about 850, the temperature dropped dramatically.  In theory, temperature should drop about 1 degree C every 150 metres in altitude, subject to a couple of variables, but in this case, it must have dropped 7-8 degrees in just 350 metres.  By the time we would our way around the lake and climbed up through 1000 metres, the snow was becoming more and more abundant.  By 1300 metres there were avalanches across the road, with narrow paths just wide enough to fit a car cut through them. and by 1580 metres, the road became impassable.  Snow covered the whole road, to a depth of several feet.  we were defeated.  We turned back dejected for the one and a half hour ride back to the bottom of the mountains.

At Curtea de Arges, Marcin and I parted ways.  He had to head North West to get back to Poland, and I had to head East and get to the Ukraine.  24 hours earlier, we had been 3.  Now it was just me – “And then there was one”.  The first half an hour was strange.  For the first time in the trip I had no-one in my rear view mirrors; No-one in front of me; No-one to bounce ideas off; No-one to tell me my ideas are stupid.  As much as I love the freedom of riding alone, I will surely miss the company of Jonathan and Marcin.

I decided to head to a bizarre double border crossing at the southern tip of Moldova.  Due to the Danube estuary and delta, there is no border crossing between Romania and Ukraine, to the south of Moldova.  I had to go through Moldova… but recent Romanian news reports were of revolution and demonstrations in Moldova.  One voice even said the borders were closed.  I took a chance and headed for the Romanian city of Galati, near the crossings I wanted to try – from Romania into Moldova, then about 1.5 km later, the Ukranian border.  I wanted to be in Ukraine for the night so it was head down 120km riding all the way to Bucharest.  Then I hit the ring road.  If there is a worse capital city ring road anywhere in the wolrd, I have yet to see it.  It took me 30 km of reckless gung-ho riding through the worst traffic and most  rutted bitumen roads I have ever seen to get to the other side of the city.  What should have taken 20 minutes according to Garmin, took over an hour.  If I had ridden responsibly, I may still be there.

When I finally exited the ring road from hell, it was straight back to 120 km/h head down riding, with the little X-Challenge screaming away beneath me.  I had been scanning the trucks I passed and those which came the other way for Ukranian number plates to confirm the border was open, despite the on-going revolution, but I had seen nothing in the hundreds of kilometres I had been on the lookout.  Then, 70km from the border, a stroke of luck.  I saw two Ukranian trucks parked by the side of the road pointing in the direction of Ukraine, drivers engaged in social chat.  I slammed on the brakes, did a u-turn and chatted to the drivers in Russian.  The border was indeed open.  They assured me that all this revolution business is only in Kishinev, the capital city, and way down on the southernmost border there would be no problems.

By 7pm I made it to the Romanian border.  The 10 km from Galati to the border was deserted and felt like a no-mans land.  By 7:45 I was into Moldova, having been made to buy a 20 EUR insurance policy (from 4 lovely women who I photographed below) for the 1.2 km ride to the Ukraine border and then the Ukranians held me  up for over an hour while they went through bizarre paperwork rituals.  My passport was checked half a dozen times under ultraviolet light.  So too were my registration papers. By the time I was set free into Ukraine it was around 9:30 and well and truly dark.  The border guys recommended a cheap hotel in the town 6km down the road.  After a quick search I found it.  It was extremely soviet,  Very bare. But at this hour I didnt have a lot of choice.  And at 100 UAH for a room for the night (about 10 EUR) I didnt complain.  They even had secure parking for the bike and opened up the kitchen for me.

Texts came in from Jon and Marcin.  Marcin had made it to Hungary, and Jon who we had left just after midday yesterday (Thursday), had ridden non-stop though the night and made it to his girlfriends parents in Linz (Austria) at 7am this morning while Marcin and I were still thinking about waking up.  A remarkable piece of iron-man riding.

A couple of minor milestones came up today, day number 12.  Kilometre number 5000 of the trip came and went, as did the 200th litre of fuel, as well as the 22nd country and the 30th degree of longitude from the start of the trip in Wales (3 degrees 46 mins west to over 28 degrees east.)   This is where the rate of border crossings slows dramatically.  In the next 5 weeks there will only be 5 more countries to add to the list: Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.  After that, no new countries for about 3 months.

Bulgaria, Romania, Sibirsky Extreme

Bulgaria and Romania

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Another fine day dawned as the 3 of us awoke in Kosovo – Jon and Marcin in one room, and me in another.  We had worked out a deal where we got 2 rooms for 40 EUR. As breakfast hadn’t been included in the price and we had a hell of a lot of miles to try and do due to the Serbian intransigence, we packed up the bikes and prepared to head south again to Skopje, the Macedonian capital, from where we could head west into Bulgaria, and then north again to Romania.  The detour would add at least 250 km to the route and delay progress by 2/3 of a day or more.

As we were about to leave, the staff of the Hotel, disappointed that they would not get a chance to say goodbye over breakfast, insisted we come in or a coffee, on the house.  We accepted and rewarded them with a sticker 🙂

And so back south we went – past the Swedish and Italian forces clogging  up Kosovo’s roads.  I had entered a electronic black hole.  My compact camera and small video camera were both not working.  Frustratingly I missed a great conversation between Marcin and some Polish troops just before the Macedonian border.  On the positive side, the weather was fantastic.  It had been pretty much perfect since that first morning in Croatia, many days ago.

An hour or so later, just before crossing the Montenegro – Bulgaria border and re-entering the EU, Marcin had to stop for a 45 minute business conference call.  By co-incidence, I blew two fuses, continuing my electrical black hole of a day, and stopped to sort that out.  With Marcin on the phone for a while, i took the chance to superficially strip the bike down to try and find why I was blowing so many fuses.  I still don’t know  the answer, but I did find some original wiring under the seat that had been rubbed bare.  I taped them up as best I could and kept my fingers crossed that I had solved the problem.

Bulgaria was a blessing and a shock.  As a new EU member, the border crossing would be easy (as we all had EU passports) and things like petrol stations would be more likely to have machines that accepted credit / debit cards.  To our surprise, while the roads were still very “Balkan” – lots of up passes and down valleys, twists and turns, the surfacing of the roads was the worst we had experience on the trip so far.  By sundown we had reached the Bulgarian border town of Vidin, on the banks of the Danube river, just across from Romania.  The last hours ride, from a town called Montana, was really impressive.  The road was in top condition and the scenery as the sun set was like riding through somewhere in the US midwest or outback Australia.  It didnt seem like we were in Eastern Europe at all.  We pulled into a truckers motel, 500 yards from the ferry boat across the Danube to Romania.  A 3 person room was just under 10 EUR a night and we wondered if there would be any knocks on the door during the evening.  Being a border town in Eastern Europe where truckers pass through it wouldnt have surprised me.  We had seen a number of girls by the highway soon after entering Bulgaria from Macedonia.

Thursday we woke after an uneventful, undisturbed evening and did a little bike maintenance.  I had stayed up past 2 am while the otheers slept to cull my baggage.  I had known a few days into the trip that my fears re taking too much baggage were indeed true.  Jon was going to be heading back to visit his girlfriend in Austria today and in needed to give him whatever I no longer wanted to take, so that I could lighten my load.

We packed up after breakfast and minor bike maintenance to headed to the ferry.   We waited, and waited and waited.  Over and hour we waited for the ferry.  It only runs when its full and the roads were eerily quiet. At midday a ferry finally pulled in and we paid out 6 EUR each crossing fees.  The crossing itself was over half and hour and I took the opportunity to cut thee wires to my side stannd.  I had been told the best bet is to short them so the occasionally troublesome switch is bypassed.  I did that on my back on the ferry across the Danube only to reach the other side, start the engine and have it cut on me when I put it in gear.  I had shorted the wrong wires (there were 3 wires, and two of them had to be shorted.)  So after pushing the bike uphill to the customs shed, I shorted a different two wires and this time it seemed to work.  We powered on into Romania, our 20th country of the trip so far and headed for a petrol station to fill up.

So far on the trip, I had been getting about 25 km / litre which translates to 70mpg UK language, or 60mpg in US gallons, or 4 l / 100km for those who use that system.  Jon was typically filling up with 7-8 % more fuel than me at each stop and Marcin 15% -20% more on his carburettored KTM.  Jon carried a 5 litre tank with him strapped to the back of his bike and so had a total capacity of 21 litres and a range of about 430 km (270 miles). That was the smallest range of the 3 of us, and we based our fuel stops around that.  We had done pretty much that range when we had pulled into Vidin the previous night so we knew we had to top up with fuel on entereing Romania.  Jon topped up with 20.65 litres … he had at best 0.35 litres (about 6 km) left in his tank.  Throughout Eastern Europe fuel was universally just under 1 EUR a litre.

15 km into Romania and we had to say farewell to Jon.  He had to get back to Austria for easter evening tomorrow night, and there was a quick road back from this point.  Jon christened his own experiences in Eastern Europe as “Balkan Extreme” and certainly after surviving the likes of Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, I hope he sticks with that title.  There is a lot more to see and write about this part of the world re motorcycling than I have time for right now and I am sure Jon, who took a lot of pics, will document this all over the next few week once he has returned to sunny England.

With Jon heading off North West, Marcin and I headed North East.  We had almost 300 km to cover to get to the start of the amazing Trans-Fagarasan highway through the Carpathian mountains.  We took some interesting dirt back roads through hills and villages before being halted for an hour by rain.  Fortunately, just as rain fell, we came across a series of covered roadside bar-b-q stalls as we crossed a highway.  We paused and ate for an hour before resuming our journey.  We reached the Trans-Fagarasan just as darkness was falling and decided to overnight before the highway, saving the highways glory for tomorrows sunlight.