Blog 5.
Sat July 19th.

Happy Birthday, Kev.

We headed off on what was a lovely day, dry, warm but not too warm.
These were again the type of trails we enjoy, rocky, mostly dry, challenging but doable.

At one point, however, Gary twisted his knee and feared for his cruciate ligament, a part of him surgeons are well familiar with already, unfortunately.

With dogged determination, however, he carried on. Well, there was no real option, anyway.

We made our way to Visikogorni, a town of over 80,000 people, where, in spite of it’s size, the only proper road surface we came across was that outside the hospital.
After getting another healthy (whatever’s available) late lunch, we were directed to the hospital to see what could be done with Gary’s knee.
He was instructed to drop his trousers in the front lobby, presumably because of the filth of them. When three nurses came out and started giggling, he wasn’t impressed and insisted on them getting a doctor.
You’d think he’d be used to such a response at this stage of his life. J

He emerged to advise us that we were all staying there tonight. We started to wonder, at this stage, if this was a psychiatric hospital and if he’d been regaling the nurses with our tales.

No, when he asked how much he owed for the bag of syringes and vials of pain-killers he’d been handed, they responded that they were free, all medical facilities in Russia are free to everyone.
However, given that he’d asked where we might find a Gastonista (hotel), he was told that the 4th floor was empty and, if we wanted, we could have a ward for the equivalent of 9 euro per night each.
What a way to finance running a hospital. As it turned out, the beds were like boards, except Ned’s where he had to lie where the springs didn’t protrude. The bedding was a random collection of blankets but it was cheap, there was a shower and a dining room for Kev’s birthday party.

Gary and I went to the nearest shop to get bread, meat (of sorts), cheese and beers for the lavish celebrations ahead.
The shop was the size of an average corner shop at home. We chose our items, and went to pay. However, we had to pay three times. This was three shops in one room. The meat was from one shop, the cheese and butter from another and the same for the beers.

Kev and Ned, meanwhile switched fuel injector to sort Kev's power issue. The bike was only running at low power and wouldn’t climb hills. That sorted it. Out of curiosity, before putting everything back again, they switched the injectors back. Still perfect. They investigated Kev’s noisy rear. Nothing to do with flatulence, it turned out to be a worn wheel bearing. Luckily, I had the right size bearing as a spare. There was, however, still a strange noise, when the knackered bearing had been replaced. Kev reckoned it to be a cush bearing and we didn’t have one of those, so nothing could be done but it wasn’t a show-stopper.

We had our sumptuous meal in the empty dining room looking out over what Ballymun would have looked like in it’s worst day, realising how lucky we are at home, despite any problems we face.

Sunday July 20th. And then there were three!

We left the next morning and headed along wide, uninteresting, pot-holed roads towards Komsomolsk.
Along the way, we stopped for petrol. Petrol stations, all of them, are desolate places. If you entered one of these at home, you’d immediately assume it hadn’t traded in 10 years.
You overpay through a hatch in advance and collect your change afterwards. We’re working from a kitty aka the whip for everything, so we fill all the bikes as one transaction.

This petrol station had a limited offering in terms of a shop. We asked for coffees and teas. No! We asked if they sold bars of chocolate. No! So we settled for crisps and an orange, peach, grape drink and paid. As bad as these petrol stations were, at least they exist. Later, finding petrol at all became a challenge.

As we indulged, Ned wondering how it was that as we travel 5 kms closer to our destination, it gets 20 kms further away. As he suggested we should move, in order not to lose another 20 kms while sitting there, two ladies emerged from the back of the shop with 4 mugs of tea and some chocolates for the weary travelers.

We entered Komsomolsk and Gary asked for directions to an hotel. Unknown to the rest of us, he asked for the best hotel in town and we were sent to the Vostok.
Shortly after settling into our rooms, Ned broke the news that he was leaving us. He wasn’t enjoying it and he was missing his family too much. Despite intense attempts to convince him to continue, his mind was made up. In fairness, it didn’t come as a major surprise to anyone. He’ll be a loss to the team, though.

The Vostok was a lovely hotel, with fantastically friendly, and not entirely unattractive, reception staff. 

The rooms were surprisingly small with single beds but had all we needed and were comfortable.
We availed of the laundry service, which must have been a pleasure for the staff, and we went to the hotel restaurant.

We were served by a fantastically efficient and friendly red-head. Were there Irish visitors here two decades ago?
The meal was lovely but, by Russian standards, expensive.

As we were now living the high life and there were birthday celebrations to be had, we asked for directions to the Opera.
Ok, we asked for directions to where there would be some life and the only place tonight was next door, a karaoke bar called Opera.

Thinking that directions to next door might be a little self-serving, we asked a taxi driver for an alternative and after having one drink where he brought us with nobody but ourselves and the staff, we went back to the Opera.

We indulged in the local beverage, possibly overindulged and Gary and Kev treated us to a hearty rendition of Robbie William’s “Angels” and Tom Jones “Delilah”.

Somewhere along the line, I misplaced my phone with the Russian SIM.

Monday July 21st.

As we’d already agreed to stay an extra day here, we were in no hurry and arose too late for breakfast.

As we were sitting in the lobby, cloudily contemplating our options, a receptionist walked up to us and asked “who is Kelsey James”

Shit, what did I do last night, this can’t be good. I uttered a trepidatious “I am”

“Happy Birthday” and she handed me a little bag of hotel goodies. Phew and a nice practice on the part of the hotel. They’d gotten my date of birth from my passport.

As Ned’s bike is leaving, it was decided to take the sidestand from his to replace Gary’s broken one. Gary’s broken one fitted my bike perfectly but was too short and the lug to hold the spring on was broken.

Some of the information Kev is using for this trip comes from the report of Walter Colbach, who attempted the Eastern Bam with two others, five years ago.
In it was the waypoint for a garage he used in Komsomolsk. We headed there by taxi and bike to see if we could get the sidestand altered to fit.

The taxi driver waited to see that we were ok. He rang a shipping company while we were there and arranged for Ned’s bike to be taken in a little later.

The garage we were looking for was closed but Andre, in the next unit, let Ned use his grinder, welder and a piece of heavy duty pipe. I how have the ugliest, strongest sidestand in all of Russia.

Andre didn’t have a welding mask but another guy who was in Andre’s garage disappeared for a few minutes and returned with one from another guy, a little distance away.

Gary spoke to Andre as Ned worked and it turned out that he’d spent some years in Israel and used to frequent a bar that Gary did likewise.

In spite of our halting work and using his tools and materials, he refused to take a rouble.

I returned to the hotel and Gary and Ned went to make the shipping arrangements.

Tired from last night and planning an early start tomorrow, we reverted to the hotel restaurant, determined to have max two pints and get to bed early.

Unfortunately, the red-head wasn’t working, service was terrible, it took over an hour for the salad starters to arrive and four pints were, as a result, reluctantly consumed.
They need more Irish in them over here.

Tue July 22^nd.

Got up, had breakfast, said our goodbyes to Ned who had to head for a train to start his journey home and loaded up, ready for the off.

Gary’s bike wouldn’t go. The sidestand switch that worked yesterday and earlier with Ned’s sidestand wouldn’t now work.
A quick dash to the shipping company to take a bypass kit off Ned’s bike ensued. Kev went to switch the cush bearing but it turned out his was ok after all.

We headed out of town but before we even left town, my extremely expensive, super-duper, fuel bladder slipped down and mangled itself in my rear sprocket. Feck.

We rode along a reasonably good paved road. I wondered if we were cheating initially, until I realized we were riding alongside the railway. After about 40 kms, this turned into seriously pot-holed dirt road for about 350 kms, punctuated with spells of roadworks. Gary cross-rutted in front of me on one of these sections. I resisted the temptation to ride over him on this occasion.

Later, we covered about 40 kms of trails, crossing 3 significant ,but rideable with caution, rivers.

We crossed the Amgun Bridge over the huge Amur river, which was only being built 5 years ago.

Around 9.30 we arrived at a river we couldn’t cross. Gary donned his wetsuit and waded in and verified that it was too deep.

Next to it was a railway bridge with a bit of a climb up to it and a railway hut at the other side.

Though nervous of bridges at this stage, we decided we had no option and it would be better to do it in the dry tonight, rather than in the morning, when it could be wet.

We were tired at this stage and it got dark as we were doing it so the whole operation was a little fraught but we got it done.

The mosquitoes were treating us as Christmas dinner as well which didn’t help.
We stayed in the hut that night, another new experience, that saved setting up and taking down tents.

Wednesday July 23^rd.

We left the hut and headed on a mix of nice trails and some hard-packed tracks with pothole after pothole. These are unavoidable. You can only ride over them as fast as possible, choosing the least aggressive ones.

The ones with twigs, not branches or bushes, but twigs sticking three or four feet out of them are to be avoided as these ones will swallow the front wheel. They’re not all, however, marked so you’ve got to keep your eyes open. We came across one twig with a red flag that marked a section of track missing completely on the right hand side.

We moved on from these to trails with puddles instead of potholes.

Gary’s bike’s continued to stall after every few puddles and took a few minutes of waiting before restarting.

When I say puddles, some are the width of the track by 15 metres long, some longer and knee deep in the centre.

At one point, Kev took the side covers and tank off Gary’s bike and sprayed WD40 anywhere appropriate.
He shouldn’t have bothered because, very shortly afterwards, with his weak knee handicapping him, Gary dumped the bike into the water while crossing a stream.

It was another “stand on end, drain exhaust, panels and tank off, spark plug out, turn over to clear water from cylinder” exercise.

At this point, Gary, conscious of his knee and his bike holding us back, suggested that maybe he should leave up at the next village and meet us at the next major town.

Kev: “How?”
Gary; “By the main road!”
Kev; “This is the main road around here”

Decision made. And as Ned said…”He’s a fair man for the lingo” Gary’s excellent Russian has been a huge asset on the trip, even if his bike and knee haven’t. J

It was a tough, demoralizing, hot, wet boot day and around mid afternoon, we arrived at a village called Gerbi.
All we knew about this place was that Walter Colbach had it marked as “Igor, the biker” on his tracklog.

We asked if there was a motorcyclist called Igor in the village and were brought to a house on the edge of the village. Igor wasn’t there but his parents were. We were told he’d be home from work on the railway in an hour or so. We said we’d carry on as we didn’t know him and were only stopping because of Walter’s mention.

They remembered Walter clearly and warmly, though it was 5 years ago.

We weren’t going to be allowed to leave. Within minutes, our boots, socks and wet trousers were hanging on the garden fence in glorious sunshine. Igor’s mother was in the extensive vegetable garden, harvesting food to cook for us. Igor’s father Ivan has asked us if we wanted something to eat once he’d convinced us to wait for Igor. Gary replied; “Can we?” Ivan; “You must!”

Igor’s Thai wife, Noi emerged from their house at the end of the garden and again insisted that Igor would be very disappointed if he missed us.

We went into the house, realising by now that it was assumed we were staying the night and food from the garden was cooked and put in front of us, followed by food Noi brought from her house. We were told it was a Russian tradition to be welcomed with shots of vodka. By 6 p.m., a bottle was empty, by 6.20 another had met it’s fate. In between, Noi had arrived with even more food. They’d killed a pig 15 days previously and we were being lavished from that.

Igor’s parents regaled us with singing traditional Russian folk songs.

By the time Igor arrived home from work he found 3 mad, slightly inebriated Irishmen in his parents kitchen.

Igor, it transpired, met Noi in Thailand over 7 years ago. He had no Thai, she had no Russian and they’d both experienced English in Thailand, so they communicated through English from the start.

Later, we went to the local shop and replenished the vodka with a little on top and some other bits.

Afterwards, we were invited to use their Bania, a sauna in the middle of the garden. This was not what we expected when we stopped for a few minutes, earlier in the afternoon.

We chatted, discussed and debated until late evening and retired. When asked what time we wanted to get up the next morning, I said that if we were up at 8 and on the road for 9, that’d be good. They genuinely asked; “Why so early”

This is one tough, rugged part of the world but the people are the warmest, most welcoming and helpful I've ever met.