Inagh County Clare Ireland to China, and Back!!!!!

A couple from this parish are off on a trip of a life time
link to posting in Ireland section.
Moderator might move it to this section to give it more exposure.
http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showth...na-quot-Motorcycle-Ride?p=4075719#post4075719

Thanks, de crowe.

I wasn't sure whether it counted as a ride report until we get going ...

If anyone is interested, we have a Facebook page, "Inagh to China Motorcycle Ride" and a blog of our own at www.inaghtochina.com.

We're on the road. Thank f*ck! The last week or so has been manic. The Russians held on to our passports for about 7 weeks, meaning that we didn't get the first of our visas until Friday 17th. Roynie had to go back to Dublin on Monday to apply for a 24-hour express service on our Chinese visas, leaving just the Uzbek ones to get ... in Warsaw.

The bikes are loaded to the gunwales and heavy. So much so, that I did have to remind myself that the problem was all in my head and all bikes are actually really light and manoeuvrable as long as they are a) upright and, b) in motion!

If you are interested, you can keep tabs on our progress via a tracker fitted to R's bike: http://events.biketrac.co.uk/profile/in ... -and-back/. The page is updated each time the ignition is activated, so currently still shows us in Rosslare.

101 uses for a belly pan ...

100km up the road from Cherbourg, I discovered my mobile phone had dropped out of my pocket while loading the bike on the car deck. Before calling Vodafone to cancel the SIM, Roynie rang the phone to see if it had been found. Imagine my surprise when I heard it ringing from somewhere under the bike. You couldn't make it up!

Superb.. Good luck,!

mrsroynie said:

Thanks, de crowe.

I wasn't sure whether it counted as a ride report until we get going ...

If anyone is interested, we have a Facebook page, "Inagh to China Motorcycle Ride" and a blog of our own at www.inaghtochina.com.

Click to expand...

Anyone interested?..........too damn right we are interested Following your trip with ill-concealed jealousy

bike trac

incredible to see the distance they are covering live!
see link below
http://events.biketrac.co.uk/profile/inagh-to-china-and-back/

The last couple of days have been a bit of a marathon. Because there is no Uzbekistan Embassy in Ireland (and we were warned off using the 'inefficient' London Embassy), we opted to collect our Uzbek visas in Warsaw. Our agents assured us that the Embassy in Warsaw would be able to turn our application around within the day. Unfortunately, we realised quite late on in our planning that the day we were scheduled to arrive in Warsaw was 1st May, a huge public holiday all over Europe. That meant we had to compress three days' travel into two and led to us doing two consecutive 750km days in order to collect our visas today.

It was all a rather bizarre experience, as the Embassy isn't open every day and the Consul was out at a meeting when we arrived at 10am and there was apparently no one else at home. Luckily, two bods, who we took to be Consular staff, approached us in the road - to ask us to move our bikes from Embassy parking spaces - and they told us to come back at 4pm. So we did. And the visas were ready, as promised.

We only needed three visas for the entire trip, but the Russians hung onto our passports for nearly 7 weeks, so we had to pay for a 24-hour express service from the Chinese Embassy, who, luckily, are extremely efficient. Now we have the Uzbek visa, we can relax a bit. We're off to Vilnius tomorrow - a mere 450km - and have a day off planned before crossing the Russian border.

The luck of the Irish with the fone lol..........good luck and enjoy.....safe riding..........

Had a good ride from Warsaw to Vilnius yesterday. Terrible traffic out of the city was to have been predicted as everyone was making their getaway for the long weekend, but then we had mostly dual-carriageway as far as Augustow. Things got a bit interesting as we approached the Lithuanian border, as we encountered several sections of roadworks and ended up taking a bizarre detour on sandy forest tracks to avoid a road closure. Pity neither of us were wearing our helmet cams, as it would have made some amusing footage ...

Once we rejoined the main road, it was mostly single-carriageway all the way into Vilnius, but it was a good fast road and no hardship at all, as the countryside is lovely on both sides of the border.

Having planned to spend two nights in Vilnius, we have accidentally stumbled on the most fabulous self-catering apartment right in the heart of the old city, and have decided to stay on an extra night. Honestly, you couldn't ask for better accommodation in a top class hotel. It has everything you could possibly want on a bike tour: secure gated parking (in a sunny courtyard, completely cut off from the street by heavy wooden gates), washing machine, wifi, hairdryer, etc. Although, food-wise, you have to fend for yourselves, there are a dozen lively bars and restaurants in the street, and the low cost of eating out here makes it pretty pointless even to put the kettle on. I'll put the booking.com link up on the 'recommended accommodation' thread.

I'm so sorry to disappoint, but my adventure is at an end.

We crossed the border into Russia yesterday and had a two-hour ride to go to our motel en route to Moscow. Garmin's routing took us via an unsurfaced road (very common here). We were pootling along on hard packed gravel, when we suddenly hit an unexpected sandy patch on a steep bend. Roynie managed to control his bike, but I took an awkward tumble. The bike was undamaged so, once we had stood it upright and dug it out of the sand (thanks to Gwyn and others at the ORS for teaching us how), I got back on and rode the 175km or so to the motel - where I promptly collapsed in shock. It turned out that I had broken my fibula. They motel staff were incredibly kind and we had translation assistance from a lovely lady biker called Nastia, who came with us in the ambulance and waited while they put my leg in plaster.

The difficult thing for us both is what to do now. I am arranging to get home, but this was always going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us, and I made it clear to Roynie that I wouldn't be hurt if he wanted to go on without me. We've shed a lot of tears between us today, but we've agreed that he will fly home from Beijing and ship his bike with the rest of the group, rather than ride back across Mongolia - and he's promised to take a load of photos and keep FB and the blog updated.

Looks innocuous enough, doesn't it?

K'inell, Bad luck!!!!

Gutted for you

Really, really sorry for your injury and for your trip ending, must be a gut wrencher. Glad, at least, that it wasn't worse and that some good samaritans made life easier for you.

What terrible luck for this to happen after all your careful planning.
Surely that is not the main road to Moscow.
Were you going via Latvia or Belarus?
Good luck with your recovery and to Roynie for the rest of his journey

Sheesh .... You must be absolutely gutted. Like you say, a trip of a life time ...

Sorry to hear that ....

EyeCake said:

Surely that is not the main road to Moscow.
Were you going via Latvia or Belarus?

Click to expand...

We opted to cross into Russia from Latvia to avoid adding another visa and border crossing to/from Belarus. It was an interesting day, all round. Roynie had plotted the Latvia/Russia border crossing on Garmin, a tiny border post on the P50 road through Goliseva, reachable from the 'busy' A13 via a 10km ride on a gravel road ... Not quite what one would expect of any sort of border crossing but, hey, this is Eastern Europe! A very smiley Latvian border guard informed us that it had closed five years ago. "Navigation system?", he laughed.

So we crossed the border after Karsava on the A13 but, rather than take the A13 and follow the main road north (the A116 on the Russian side), all the way through to St. Petersburg, we needed to turn right and link up with the M9 to Moscow. It was about 7pm by the time we crossed the border - delays partly due to a mistake on Roynie's visa that identifies him as 'female' - and the currency exchange booths were closed. Despite being on a main road, the Karsava border crossing is a quiet one and only one fuel station was open. There was a woman there selling Green Card insurance, but she would only take Roubles - no USD, no Euros, no cards. The only thing for it was to ride on to our overnight stop at Velikiye Luki and do the currency exchange and Green Card in the morning.

Now, if you're still with me, 10km from the border, there is a main road going south-east that would join the M9 at Pustoshka (85km or so from Velikiye Luki). However, Garmin directed us to turn right almost immediately after the border, and we found ourselves on gravel ...

The fact that it was a gravel road, doesn't necessarily mean that it was a 'minor' road. Only the major arteries are 'surfaced' in this part of the country and, if you are travelling on tarmac, you only have to glance at the junctions you pass to see how quickly the tarmac comes to an end. The majority of country roads are gravel and even the hard shoulders on the main roads are sand and pretty treacherous for a bike.

Anyway, enough of all that. Yesterday, we were driven (with our bikes) by truck to Moscow and are now staying at a friend's 'biker' motel, south of the city. The M9 is not an "M" road in any sense that we would recognise, but it is surfaced and turns into a modern dual-carriageway about 100km south of Moscow. Here's a photo taken from the truck (and, yes, that crack does go all the way across the windscreen).

Really sorry to hear that the adventure is over. Was really enjoying your posts and looking forward to following the trip.

I should give him upstairs a wee lecture on what "the luck of the Irish" is supposed to mean.

not a great week for County Clare Biking

At least you are safe and sound and that really is the main thing. best of luck whatever happens.As to the luck of the Irish, I do recall a John Belushi sketch on Saturday Night live from a few decades back.

Feel for you,I know what it's like for a big trip to end prematurely.

Main thing is you're ok.

Steve

I take it back about Garmin. I've only just looked at our Bike Trac Events Page and we were actually on a main road!