Ural mountains

08/07/2006

The landscape is indeed very beautiful. Vast fields and forests. Now and again a small town adjacent to the road. Log houses are all over the place in Russia. The majority of them are old. Some standing crooked, some abandoned, some burned out. They just stay there until somebody wants to use them for firewood or something I guess. Cosy picturesque towns. Old people sitting on a bench in front of their home. People working in the field.

It is haying time, that’s for sure. I haven’t really seen enough livestock to eat all that hay though. Maybe they export it. Small time farmers use a scythe and wheelbarrow to gather hay. Every available spot is cut. It is a busy time. Motorcycle and sidecar is still a very common sight here. Around Izhevsk it was mostly Izh. After that mostly Urals. They are a utility object: for carrying 3 people to town or to the field, for moving items to the roadside to sell. Since entering Russia this has been a very common sight. People sell their extra food, but you also have bigger roadside markets where you can probably find everything from stuffed animals to chandeliers. Usually you can buy potatoes, other vegetables, fruit, berries and honey. People of all ages sell along the road and my guess is they sit there all day or until everything is sold. Sometimes they have stalls, shelves and a shelter for the rain, some sell in front of their home and sometimes the boot of a Lada will do for displaying the goods.

I spent the night in a field. More flies than mosquitoes and I prefer this. The flies just tickle you. It was a beautiful spot. Very quiet. Nice view. I played some Dutch music and I got a bit emotional. It was a combination of missing home, my friends and family, but at the same time the beauty of the countryside, nature and the evening. Don’t worry, this happens to me from time to time.

By the way, I am getting smarter. Instead of facing an army of insects that are out for my blood I now pack my sleeping bag and self-inflatable matras while still in the tent. Smart, hey! That just leaves me to pack my bags in the sidecar, pack up the tent and get the hell out of there. Most travellers will already know this I guess … it’s not rocket science. I’m new to this.

09/07/2006

The roads were OK I guess. A lot of bad spots, but really bad spots. Mostly the ‘reasonable’ type of road though. But I am seriously considering to classify this as ‘bad’ again. I’m sick of it. A couple of very long stretches of brand new highway. Perfect for riding. Then you can at least relax and see more of the countryside. Otherwise you need to watch the road constantly to avoid potholes or whatever the road has in store for you. How do you actually make a road this bad? Is it poor workmanship, poor quality of material, wear and tear of summer and winter or a combination of all of this? I have no clue how you do this. It’s really starting to get to me. There was this really really moonsurface-like piece of road. 5 to 10 km of something they call road, but what I call off-road. Traffic crawled over the road as any speed was too fast. Trucks swayed all over the road as they tried to miss the deepest craters, but they still bucked as they sank in the less deep holes. They are constructing a new highway to bypass this part, but it was not yet finished. As I said before, Russia is working hard to get rid of these bad roads. I reached the Ural mountains after Perm. They aren’t really high mountains like the Rockies. It’s more of a plateau with a hilly terrain on top. I was looking forward to taking some nice pictures of me crossing the European-Asian border, but no such luck. Either the spot is not really advertised or it was some silly Russian road sign that I couldn’t read. So hopefully more luck on my way back. The route I am following now is not the main road from west to east. Maybe they have a huge monument on that road which I will take coming back. The Ural mountains are nice. I am even getting used to Russian traffic. Overtaking vehicles in curves and on hills, crossing the full white line. It’s fun. Just keep your turn signal on while overtaking and everybody will make way if oncoming traffic pops up. I finally understand why the Russians do what they do in traffic: it is freedom. In Belgium we are super conditioned and kept in check by manned or unmanned cameras. No cameras in Russia and everybody goes full throttle until they see cops. I do stick to the maximum speed though. Militsiya and DPS are all over the place and usually in spots where you least expect it. Armed with speed guns and their ‘magic wand’. They always carry this ‘magic wand’ and just point it at the one that should stop. Funny guys. I got stopped at two checkpoints today. No problems though. I suddenly nor speak nor understand any Russian and the officer has to resort to sign language. They let me go quickly. They are all interested in the bike, but I still do not feel at ease around them to be friendly and tell them all about the motorcycle and the trip. Their loss.

About the bike

I almost forget the star here. If it weren’t for my sore back and shoulders, I would say the Ural is the ultimate touring bike. :-))))) No seriously. It just keeps going. And even on these roads. It squeaks now and again when you make it jolt a bit too hard, but he just loves this trip.

Mind you … I did have a problem in Moscow that I have neglected to mention. While being stuck in Moscow traffic the engine seemed to die when accelerating. The engine temperature was reaching 120 Celsius and I didn’t really worry too much about it. I thought maybe some dirt clogging the filters or fuel petcock. I checked these out after leaving Moscow, but found nothing and started thinking about dirty carbs. I didn’t really feel like dismantling and cleaning them and I had used a carburetor cleaner additive a couple of times since I was in Russia, just to prevent this problem.

Then the bizarre electrical problem popped up. For those that missed that: contact on; starter gets the engine going and after that all power disappears, all circuits dead. This was a faulty contact somewhere since it would go away if I fiddled around with the cables under the seat. All fuses were OK.

The electrical problem started to happen more often, sometimes when coming to a stop. I heard a clicking sound when messing around with the cables and thought maybe a bad relay. There is still one Russian relays in there, the other one has already been replaced with a Bosch. We are talking starter relays here. I quickly learned that this was not the problem since the relays just control the starter and the problem remained after disconnecting both relays.

At the same time I had the Moscow problem again. When accelerating the motorcycle from a complete stop the engine would sputter vigorously. This happened only when the engine was hot (normal operating temp) and the motorcycle had stood still for a while. It would go away after moving for a while. It finally hit me. Hot expands, cold contracts. A loose contact somewhere was the cause for all of this. I found the problem later that evening: a loose wire on the alternator. The wire had gotten loose from its clamp. I work some magic, with the help of a Russian truck driver that was interested, and the problem was solved. Well … I will see tomorrow.