Trans Sibir eXpedition 2012

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So no problem carrying a laptop on this trip. Using a flash drive? Disk drives do not handle vibration very well.

This report is an education. Love it!

I brought with me a new 13" Macbook Pro with a standard 1 TB HD. I kept it in a dry bag behind me. No problems. I downloaded pictures, videos and Garmin tracks onto it every night. Then I backed everything up on two different external hard drives, of which I carried one and Erik carried one. Every time we slept over in a hotel, or the likes, I charged the MacBook. Between us we had taken a total of 2.300 video clips and over 6.000 pictures

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Today should be relatively straightforward I told the guys. About 400 km ... the first 100 km on rough asphalt.

We packed up at the hotel:



Rode into the centre of town to refuel the bikes and get some breakfast:



The weather didnt look great, but at least it wasnt bucketing down like it did 24 hours earlier.

We had not got far off the asphalt when what would normally be a fairly innocuous river crossing beside a decaying bridge had been transformed from a harmless stream into a raging torrent by all of yesterdays rain.



This was going to mean the BAM proper starts now.!

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We gathered together and I thought we give it a try. This is where 4-5 guys in the group becomes handy. Terry's bike volunteered itself to go across, and 4 of us piled around the bike to try and get it over ... 3 on the downstream side to stop it drifting away.

We barely got a third of the way across before it was clear that this strategy wouldnt work. Even with three guys downstream of the bike, it was not possible to hold it against the current. I was out the front trying the manage the front wheel, and it got the point that I could even stand up and began getting my footing washed downstream. Reverse orders were yelled out in semi panic and Terry's bike was hauled backwards to the safety of dry land.

A new plan was needed.



While Steve and Terry checked his bike over, Geir and I went to explore the rail bridge...

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Geir and I found that the rail bridge looked OK. It was time to introduce the guys to rail bridge crossings.





It of course is useful experience, because by the time we get to Tynda at the end of the first half of the BAM Road and where we break off it to head north, we will need to cross a dozen or so more.

After the bridge, we were making good pace along the road to Novy Uoyan when Terry suffered a scary mechanical failure at high speed. One of the bolts holding his bar riser to the top triple clamp snapped, allowing his bars to rotate separately from the front wheel. No steering !!

He managed to get the bike to slow down safely. And we began strapping his bars to his forks. We would have to address this properly in Uoyan.

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With Terry's bars all strapped on, we continued to Novy Uoyan



I wanted to ask locals to recommend us a mechanic. We stumbled across these guys celebrating what turned out to be paratroopers day in Russia:



Judging by the state of the guys beer belly I figured he wasnt a paratrooper. or at least not an active one. They offered to take us to the mechanic, so long as we posed for a pic or two first.



Then Terry could extract out the snapped bolt.

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While Terry was doing that, Steve and Erik were eating melon with the revellers, and Geir and I were cutting up an old plastic oil container to extend our mudguards for the roads ahead.

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With Terry's bike back on the road, we continued on our ride to Taksimo ...

With only one road to follow, and the road reasonably simple, the group often spread out, with Terry, Geir and myself racing each other at the front of the pack. Sometimes there was an alternative track in the rail ballast beside the track ... and often some riders would stick on the main road while someone seeking to sneak ahead would shoot up to the rail track to try and scoot ahead unseen.

I spent more time up on the rail embankment than anyone else so missed a few of the funky bridges like this one:



But Geir, Terry and I pulled over to wait for the other guys at the foot of the Severomuisk range. A 16 km rail tunnel goes thru the mountain but we were going over it.



Terry grabbed another chicken samsa, a snack we had stocked up with that morning in Severobaikalsk

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By the time we reached the other side, I noticed the time was getting on. While the sun was still up, it wouldnt be for long - the shadows were getting pretty long. I looked at my watch. It was 9pm. The late start, over an hour spent at the river crossing, Terry's broken bolts ... We still had 100 km to Taksimo and had to get a move on.

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It was dark by the time we arrived in Taksimo.



I called upon a few hotels, but nothing. The place we stayed in a few years aback was no longer a hotel. A couple of other hotels were full. But the receptionist in the last hotel we went to, said she had a friend who would let us stay at her house, have a banya and feed us, for 500 rubles (12 EUR) each. We accepted ... but had to wait an hour for the woman to finish work and come and meet us in the centre of town.

It was well after midnight when we finally got to sleep!

Tomorrow we had a big day ahead ... the Vitim River.

From Taksimo onwards, the BAM Road gets more serious

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We crossed a few bridges while on the BAM and one thing stuck out. Since it is a single track the trains come from one direction for a while. Then it is quiet for some minutes and then they come from the other direction. About every 50 - 60 km there is a small unmanned rail road station with a sidetrack where they pass each other.

If we didn't see a train for a while we waited a bit. When one came we crossed the bridge right after. This sort of worked most of the time. Two times though the second train came within a minute. That called for some excitement amongst the crew

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Erik ... taking the rocky roads in stride:



And splashing thru the streamlets:



My helmet cam, going over a nice smooth part of the Severomuisk Range:



And a not so smooth part:

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We had two rivers to cross today ... one was the legendary Vitim River ... and the other the much smaller but still inconvenient Kuanda River.

Having got to bed late, we woke late ... and it was after midday when we all left Taksimo, via the local convenience store.

Terry and Geir stormed ahead, aiming for the Vitim Bridge. After 30 km there is a fork in the road, a turnoff. The road straight ahead to a village on the banks of the Vitim about 30 km downstream form the bridge.

I got to the turnoff, and checked tracks in the dirt to make sure Terry and Geir had taken the turnoff ... tracks indicated they had. I thought I better wait there to make sure Steve and Erik make the turnoff. So I parked my bike poining in the direction of the turnoff and waited. Erik arrived, saw my bike pointed in the direction of the turnoff, and took it. Then I waited for Steve. A few minutes later Steve cam flying down the main road at high speed. Too fast to slow down abd take the corner it seemed, so I waved at him, and pointed in the direction of the turnoff. I saddled up and while I assumed Steve was slowing down and turning around to return to the turnoff, I set out to catch up with Erik.

I caught up with Erik and we rode slowly together for a while which would allow Steve to catch us up. By the time we got to a first tricky bridge, Steve still hadnt caught us up. We decided to go across the little bridge and wait for Steve on the other side.

Geir and Terry should be up ahead at the Vitim River bridge by now.

Even though this was just a short little bridge, just 20 yards across, it was really the first bridge we had come to on the BAM where you could not afford to make a mistake. A mistake here and the trip quite possibly ends.



I rode across ...



But perhaps conscious of the costs of a mistake, Erik decided to play it safe:

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We waited half an hour for Steve ... but still no sign of him.

In the end, Erik said he would wait 15 minutes more before going back for him. I would ride up to the Vitim, 10-15 km ahead and tell the guys we lost Steve.

It occurred to me that Steve must have kept going straight at that turn off where he blew past me at high speed.

There were a few more funky bridges between here and the Vitim (this one shot on Steves camera)



Geir's crossing of the Vitim River

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Zil2LChcTc[/video]

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I thought I would put a small tribute up here to those who have crossed the bridge.

But first, for those who have only seen what the bridge looks like in the videos, I will again highlight the challenge of the bridge. The biggest fear factor in the bridge is its height above the water. Pretty widely estimated at 50 feet / 15 metres. This is not visibile at all on the videos, which show no depth perception. But I can tell you it is totally perceptible to the rider when he is on the bike! You are on a narrow platform of greasy old railway sleepers, 2.5 metres (7.5 feet) wide, with no edge or railing, 15 metres (50 feet) above the water.

So for the sake of clarity, and to offer some perspective of the height of the bridge, here is a pic of the bridge that shows the distance to the water:

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Due to the fact that three very experienced guys walked the Vitim in 2009 I had a pretty open mind about what to do when I came to the bridge. I had a low threshold for walking the bridge. I have a wife and a few kids back home. No stupid heroics here

I had been riding shotgun with Terry the whole day. We had crossed some bridges and it all felt good. When we came to the start of the bridge I took a quick look at it and felt this was doable. I asked Terry to double check that my GoPro was on and saddled up. I started easy. Got the bike into second gear and stood up. It felt good. I was very focused. My eyes were locked about 20 - 30 meters ahead. I listened to my breathing. It was very calm and very deep. I actually heard it.

When I came to the bump in the middle I just had to stop in order to shoot some pictures




Things got a bit more interesting towards the end. I now had to drive between parallel planks that were about 4 cm high :huh I felt relaxed though. I am not a very seasoned off road driver, but this felt completely normal that day




We all had a good start in Taksimo. That helps :clap For the record, I only bought motor oil from that girl