09-10-2006

Omsk – Abatskoye

It was cold and rainy when I left Omsk. Ruslan escorted me to the city limits on his motorcycle, but after we said goodbye he was going to clean his bike and store it in his garage for the winter. Russian bikers do not ride in the winter. It is understandable when you know what their winters are like.

Anyway, it was the type of rain that could keep up for days on end: not big drops, but no drizzle either. The sky was depressingly grey. Once I left Omsk Mother Nature added a strong side wind to that just to make it a bit colder and harder for me to escape the rain behind my windscreen. After about 200kms my engine started to sputter. Of course the crappy, crappy air filter box was sucking in water like crazy. I stop to drain the carbs and clean the spark plugs at a bus stop where I was sheltered from the rain … but not the cold. The engine sort of works again as it should, so I go on. I just have to make it 600 more kms to Irbit, there they will sort everything out. My gas mileage is about 10 liters per 100 kms. Not really according to specs. 10 kms down the road the engine stalls, I just drain the carbs and manage to get the engine going again. I continue. By now everything is getting wet, even my socks in my waterproof boots and my Rubles in my waterproof pocket. Needless to say, my mood is not good. At km marker 219 the engine stalls again. I am in the middle of nowhere, it is raining and the strong wind is relentless. Before I try to make my machine going again I pray to God to send a bolt of lightning down to the designer of my air filter box. I did not hear anything, so I guess Irbit is still far away.

You have to work with the tools you have, so I try to shield the intake of the air filter from the elements as much as possible with a plastic bag and some snap straps. The inventor of the “snap strap” (colsonbanneke for the Belgians) should get a medal. Naturally, my first attempt blocks the air intake and choked the engine. My second modification is better and looks like it will work … if I can only make the engine going again. It ran for a while, but only on one cylinder. Different spark plugs are no help and I guess changing spark plug in the rain is not a good idea. To make a two hour story short: my Ural would not go. By now I have drained the battery from using the starter and I am sweating from using the kick start. This makes me feel nice and warm only for a while as the cold wind and the fact that I am wet cool me off quickly. For an hour I try to make a car stop to help me out, but this road has more trucks than cars and not everybody wants to stop. It is around seven o’clock when finally a car stops. It stops raining too as the rain has now become snow. The old guy with his Lada Niva is from the Kemerovskaya Oblast and knows about me. He has read an article in the paper. Anyway, he is happy to help me out and I get out my towing rope and hook up our vehicles. He goes slow, about 40 kms/h but at least we are moving. 40 kms down the road, about an hour later we get to Abatskoye. Need I mention that I am soaking wet and shivering from the cold? Anyway, we find a hotel and I check in. The room is warm but extremely moist, my boots and gloves were not dry by the morning. What a day. I feel really down and want to talk to Nadya but I do not have enough credits on my cell phone. There are no stores around the hotel that sell mts or beeline cards. CRAP!! I do have enough credits to send an SMS to Nadya and the poor girl goes out to buy a card for me a couple of blocks from her home in the middle of the night. I receive the code I need, but have meanwhile fallen asleep in front of the TV. When I wake up in the middle of the night I finally recharge my credit and call Nadya. Despite the crazy hour we are both glad to talk to each other. I feel much better. By the way, it is still snowing outside.

I will take my bike to an expert in the morning.