What we don’t like are the cops. We’ve been nicked twice now both times for crossing the solid white line while overtaking hmmm I know BAD PANDA. However when sitting behind huge trucks for ages at 50km/h and seeing a space one needs to take it or our journeys would be twice as long. We are also convinced that the lines are red herring painted there by the cops just to catch people because the ones I mention were not on blind rises or corners (clearly those are there for  a reason) well the Russian cops are as bent as a paperclip, and it’s all about negotiating the right bribe. Simply a pain in the ar.. and a waste of time. They should just pull you over and say 1000 roubles you hand it over and ride on. Quick 5 min, but no one must spend ages trying to negotiate with them in Russian, yup none of them speak English so this is quite time consuming. The funny thing is once the bribe is paid they get quite friendly and shake your hand like they’ve just done a good deal… deal my a…

My confidence riding in crazy traffic and playing chicken with big trucks has grown exponentially. This is a do or die kind of situation and I’m loving the time in the saddle. The funnies things is that I told the guys that I am really slow and on a 400cc (they are all on 650s) so they need to be patient with me. I had the job of being on point (each day one of us takes point, leads the route) out of Moscow EEEKKKKK and over the longest day I’ll ride on the trip 650km. So off I go having told the guys that my comfy speed is 100 or the bike vibrates like nuts and I get decidedly nervous. So Ceasar told me the day before that I was not slow as he was behind me and hit 140. I said impossible my bike has hit 126 MAX going down a very steep hill. This bike is slow (I joked when I got it about how quick it was as its much faster than my KLR) but in Russia a 126 is the max and I thought it would blow up it was shaking so badly so quickly slowed down.

To prove his point Ceasar took 2 pictures of me in front of him with his speedo in the frame …erm 153 ouch no wonder the little dear was not happy. So there I was trying to push ever k out of the dizzy devil as I felt guilty that the guys had to ride slow just for me. It seems my speedometer is on the fritz oh dear 🙂