Butterflies and Flat Tyres

There are a few things that kept me interested and wake on the M59 besides truck drivers, the scenery and bumping into the reindeer herders, the chipmunks. These little guys run across the road often stopping half way, turn around and run back. I love seeing them as they are…

As I sit here (on my bed bug infested bed in a dive of a guesthouse) writing this post the stench from my bike boots is almost unbearable (you’d think I’d be used to it by now) I’ve put them in the window but it’s not helping. I’ve also noted…

Since I had gotten so confused about my days it seems like my planned day to get things for the bike and go to the post office was a Sunday. This meant I had to do these things on Monday before I left. So quickly after the post office I…

Zurich to Yakutsk 17000kms in 64 days One of the problems with being on the road is you totally lose track of time and days. So besides waking my friend Paul up at 4am when calling him because I lost track of the time zones. I have now had a…

The Boss “do you know you’re off track” – Jeff The owner of KUDU and expedition mechanic Ginger Hunk “I hope no one gets BAMaged’- Gareth Gareth coined the term BAMtastic as well as many others 🙂 What can I say about Gareth, he is all kinds of awesome in every…

  So finally the rail bridges are behind us and we ride the last bit of the BAM top Tynda. We did it WOW what a challenge and an amazing and difficult experience. Without this particular group I think the whole trip would have been very different. We relay stuck…

After riding some great tracks on the BAM we arrive at bridge number 3 and it’s huge. I just cannot imagine trying to get the 4×4 over the monster. However this one is different as there is a security guard posted on the bridge to stop stupid people trying to…

So after spending a day in Kunda and getting the bikes and 4×4 off the train at Chara at midnight we head off to find a quick campsite but decided to stay in a trucker stop, were totally taken advantage of with the price but were desperately to just get…

I have to admit that my first few encounters with Russian people on the west side of Russia (ESPECIALLY the border customs officers and police) did not give me a good opinion of Russians at all. I found most of them to be quite unfriendly (I must say not all…

The most challenging things on the BAM road are river crossings, Bridge crossing and railway bridge crossing. Since this is one of the rainiest summers for years the rivers are really swollen making the river crossings very challenging sometimes impossible. Many of the bridges over rivers are either nonexistent or…