What goes around comes around... Dublin to New york

Day 2, Road of bones....

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This was the day when things really started to go wrong. Firstly the still camera I use for all the riding shots while riding the bike packed in, no big deal I had a spare. But it was smaller than its predecessor and it duly rattled out of the pocket that I keep it in, but not before it had collected 200 or so pictures from the road of bones.

I still had the SLR I told myself, but I was sick I’d lost all those photos.

The road itself was very similar to the day before, conditions roughly the same, all gravel, some streams to cross, hills, trees.

The front tire went into a meltdown with seven different deflations that day. Pumping it up isn’t too much of a problem but the Mosquitoes are so thick in these parts you start to go a bit demented with them trying to find any bit of bare skin.

I set myself the goal of no matter what problems I was having today, I had to half the distance to Magadan so I would get there tomorrow which meant doing ~500km. I’d all day to do it, and any problems I had would just have to be dealt with. Once I’d the 500km done I’d just find a spot to camp and continue on the next day.

The grub in what few roadside café’s there are(maybe 4 locations have Café’s on the road of bones), is poor enough fair. I’d say 85% of the bread that you get doled out is stale. I don’t think it’s meant to be eaten actually, it’s more just to thicken up the soup. Mostly I order borsch, a kind of a stew. I break up the bread, throw it into it and drop it down the hatch with bottled water, TGI Friday’s it ain’t!

I wondered how I hadn’t got a dose from any of the borsch, I got my answer an hour after one stop. It was saving it up for the Godzilla dose which was duly dispatched on the road of bones, I didn’t even have the time to get into the trees. Although there was no need to blush, I had hardly seen any traffic all day.

I made it to the turn off for the old summer road and passed over a gorgeous mountain pass and after about three hours I noticed the front end seemed to be rattling more than normal. I said I’d stop at the next deflation which no doubt would be along any minute, it arrived right on Q and I had a look. Sure enough the front shock had blown. “Oh you bastard!”

Now I’m pretty sure I should have been focused on my beautiful surroundings but the issues with the bike, my stomach (at this stage I was clenching my arse cheeks so hard I was making a button on the bike seat) and the fact that I was so far away from help were just absorbing any of the “Gee it’s a nice view” calories.

I’d a decision to make. In all the distance I rode on the old summer road I hadn’t seen a single car. The bike was giving me signals that it was on its last legs…. If I continue down this road and break down I’ll be stuck, I’ll go back to the federal road where at least there is some traffic. So off I set.

Towards the end of the day thick dark rain clouds were forming in the sky and it was much colder than previously and I’d got a lofty total of 11km between my last two deflations so I decided to call it a day.

I was worried about bears so I pulled off in a area which is flattened out for trucks to pull in to. It was well off the road through a large pool of water and looked like it hadn’t been used in months. It looked dry and well drained; I said ok it’s as good a spot as any.

By the time I stopped that night I was spent big time. I consoled myself with the fact that I could be done tomorrow….

I decided to include the two video monologues just to give folks a feel for what goes through your head when you’re out in the boonies for protracted periods, just in case you thought it was all fun and games!

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Take Care
Oisin
 
Day 3 Road of bones...Magadan

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It was 0deg while I was packing up the camp to leave; I had 525km to go to Magadan. I was pulled a little way off the road and wasn’t looking forward to negotiating the huge pool which I’d come through the night before. My front tire was leaking air from the rim and was on its infinity flat. My front shock absorber had blown the day before and I’d no idea of the road conditions ahead.

On a personal level I was tired right through to my heart. I was coughing like an 80-a-day smoker on account of all the dust on the roads, I’d a serious dose of colon blow and had only eaten two slices of bread and cheese in thirty six hours. I was covered in Mosquito bites and with all the extra punishment my hands were taking with the front shock absorber blown, three calluses had pulled right off, even holding the handle bars felt like I was dipping them in vinegar. No matter how bad I felt I kept thinking of Jengis, the truck driver from Mongolia; the hardest nail I’d ever met, and just said, “dude, Get on with it!”

My thinking at this point was, “Ok, get back onto the road, and go 20km at a time, if you get to a point where you can go no further, just thumb down a truck and see if you can hitch a ride to Magadan”

So off I went and about 20km down the road the tire was flat and I pulled over to pump it up again. I then tried to start the bike to which it just wouldn’t fire. It would make all the right noises but just wouldn’t start. I then realized that I’d pumped up the tire without turning on the engine so maybe I’d drained the battery. I pulled out my voltmeter (first time on the trip it had been used) and checked the voltage, I was getting 12.8V so it should have been ok. I then started thinking can the battery be discharged, still give a 12.8V reading and just not have enough juice to start?

You can’t jump start a bike without some extra kit, if you just use jump leads to a car for instance you’ll end up blowing something, for me previously it was the ABS modulator so I pulled out the battery and said to myself “pull it out, hitch a ride to the next town, use the trickle charger to charge it up and then come back and go again”.

When you’re stopped by the side of the road with a dodgy gut, a dodgy bike and flicking your head regularly over each shoulder to check for bears while swatting a couple of million mosquitoes it easy to start to lose the rag. As usual, just when you’re about to implode, a trucker stopped by who was a great help.

I jacked up the battery to his while pulled out of the bike and he revved the shit out of the truck and we both came to the conclusion that the battery was good. So what the fuck else could it be?

This is where fate stepped in to save me one more time. Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m useless at fixing stuff, really useless, and it’s true. I’m good at other stuff though, some examples will spring to mind eventually.

Really the only way I learn is when something shafts me, so if a part has caused me to break down before I will always know how to fix that. Three days before I left Ireland I was driving down the M7 when fuel started spraying out the fuel injector line of the bike, and doused my legs from knee to boot. What it turned out to be was one of the O-rings had perished and the seal was gone. When I brought the bike up to BMW I had a conversation with one of the mechanics about fuel pump controllers. I already knew they were a common failure item so was getting one as part of my spares kit, but the mechanic showed me how to replace it.

I whipped out the spare part like a lad who just found out his mickey grew by a foot over night, replaced it and the bike fired up. “Oh you fucking beauty!!!!”. Some good comes out of everything, who would have thought that anything positive could ever come from being doused with petrol?

The other good that came out of it is that there is now a Russian truck driver who thinks that I’m the best trouble shooter of engines not firing in the northern hemisphere, he was looking at me like I was Macgyver!, y’know one of those looks that say “How the fuck did you figure that out!, Dude!, you know your stuff!”. Of course I lapped it up joking “anything broke on your truck you’d like me to take a look at while I’m at it?”

From there I nursed the bike onwards and about 100km from Magadan I hit the asphalt. For the last hour as I dodged the potholes I went trough all the towns and places I'd visited to try and ramp up the sense of accomplishment.

I got to the car part for the mask of sorrow, the monument to all the gulag victims but it was full of yobs so I couldn't leave the bike alone so had to settle for some long distance pictures, I'd be here a couple of days and could come back for some.

Looking down on the city I caught my first glimpse of the sea since I left Omaha beach in Normandy.

It was exactly 2 months and 2 days since I left Ireland.

Sincere thanks to all those who helped along the way, couldn't have made it without you


Dathy de Mobile, Bar Dunne,D Byrne,Phil Deville
Simon Race
Walter Colebatch
Bill % Oksana Finn
Max and the lads in Oriel
Viktor in Ulan Ude
Joe Dilworth
Mongolian Joe
Ayuntoya
Axel Bahr
Manuel, Axels mate
Hyperpro shocks in Werkendam
Jengis the truck driver
Starsky and Hutch in Mongolia
The three amigo's who picked me up out of the desert in Mongolia
Naran BMW in Ulannbaatar
Andrew Reese
Kushki Malushki
Bikeland in Barnaul
Irina in Oriel
 
Congratulations on getting to Magadan seems rather a simplistic and insufficient statement to make.

You have huge testicles and a will of iron

I am in awe

:beer::beer::beer:
 
Balls of steel... Congratulations on the epic journey so far.

Impressive and inspiring stuff!

But..., Confess will ya? Where are you hiding the film crew and backup trucks? We know they're there somewhere!!! ;)
 
The plan from here...see you all first week in July (hopefully!)

The plan from here:

Jun 18 - Clear customs for travel from Magadan to Vladivostok
Jun 19 – Scratch arse
Jun 20 – Boat arrives – continue to scratch arse – but with a noted increase in nerves
Jun 21 – Boat departs, hopefully with me and the bike on board
Jun 22 – Sailing and hoping I’m not sea sick and that the crew don’t use the phrase “ya’ll got a real pretty mouth boy”
Jun 23 – Sailing and hoping I’m not sea sick (Scan the horizon with my binoculars for a dinghy full of shipwrecked Hawaiian Tropic girls in need of rescue)
Jun 24 – Sailing and hoping I’m not sea sick
Jun 25 – Sailing and hoping I’m not sea sick
Jun 26 – Sailing and hoping I’m not sea sick
Jun 27 – Boat and me arrive in Vladivostok (if they haven’t thrown me overboard for filling the top deck with arse scratchings {This is a Sunday)
Jun 28 –Try and make the Monday ferry from Zarabino to South Korea (leaves 6pm) long shot
Jun 29 – Maybe make it to South Korea (Long shot but you never know)
Jun 30 – Most likely day I’ll take the ferry to south korea [Ferry is ~20hours long]
July 1 – Definitely make it to south Korea, truck the bike to Seoul, take care of all the paperwork
July 2 – Maybe fly out (depends on flights, customs, bike ship date)
July 3- Maybe fly out – maybe arrive Vancouver Canada
July 4 – Get bike fixed up
July 5 – Back on the road, heading north for Alaska, to do both the Dalton and Dempster highways.

Key points:
The first boat is a Russian cargo ship run out of an office where I saw a couple of rats wiping their feet on the way out; if anyone out there thinks it’ll be a nice cruise…think again! 
Russian customs could get awkward at any point in the chain and torpedo the whole plan and leave me languishing for days, so the above is best case.

As you can see from the above I wont have access to internet for most of this time so sooner than have this patchy as hell, I’ll restart things the first week of July when hopefully I’ll be heading north to Alaska.

See you all then, enjoy the world cup!
Over and out
Oisin.
 
Well done Oisin. Wish I could buy you a beer.:beer:
Thoroughly enjoyed your reports. Better than a book.
Huge respect.
And my arse twitches thinking if I could make a week to Europe?
Can't wait for Alaska.
Enjoy your sail:augie
Remember, if you drop yer last Rolo.............make sure you have your back to the rails before you pick it up!:eek
 
Oisin, congratulations:thumb What an achievement.

Your account has to be one of the best I have ever read. It felt as though I was there with you all the way.

Hope to buy you a beer some day:aidan
 
Road of Bones ...... Check

Officially hardcore ..... Check

Mental ..... Check

Legend .... Check

Keep her lit Oisin :aidan
 
Utterly fantastic, many congratulations.

out of interest, is there a reason for all the shipping and going to vancouver rather than airfreight to anchorage? I'm guessing cost but just wondered.
 
mr_magicfingers said:
Utterly fantastic, many congratulations.

out of interest, is there a reason for all the shipping and going to vancouver rather than airfreight to anchorage? I'm guessing cost but just wondered.
Click to expand...

Justin there is no route out of Magadan to Anchorage by air any more.

Only routes out of Magadan are to ride it out, ship it to Vlad or fly it to Vlad.

Once in Vlad, shipping or flying from there is a nightmare. Easiest and most often used route is Dong Chun ferry to South Korea from Zarubino. Then either flying the bike and self from Seoul or shipping from Busan...
 
while there appear to be no commercial flights, charters still fly in and out on the Magdan to allsorts of places. However hanging around for a plane that nobody knows about and may not turn up and may not want to take you or your bike as cargo is a bad idea.

From Vladivostok it's simple to take the ferry to Nigata in Japan and ship from there, there's a good number of Russian foot passengers that use that route. Also Japanese cars mainly 4x4's are shipped back into russia and flogged off some get driven as far as Moscow, which we saw in '08.

The Russians coming into japan all of whom seemed to be young women and most seem to heading for Tokyo, draw your own conclusions how they'll be earning a fiver my guess the hard way.....:augie

I had a look at it while I was in japan last year.
 
Lo-IQ said:
while there appear to be no commercial flights, charters still fly in and out on the Magdan to allsorts of places. However hanging around for a plane that nobody knows about and may not turn up and may not want to take you or your bike as cargo is a bad idea.

From Vladivostok it's simple to take the ferry to Nigata in Japan and ship from there, there's a good number of Russian foot passengers that use that route. Also Japanese cars mainly 4x4's are shipped back into russia and flogged off some get driven as far as Moscow, which we saw in '08.

The Russians coming into japan all of whom seemed to be young women and most seem to heading for Tokyo, draw your own conclusions how they'll be earning a fiver my guess the hard way.....:augie

I had a look at it while I was in japan last year.
Click to expand...

There's almost zero chance to get on any form of flight out of Magadan these days. If you've got the wedge to organise a charter that is about the only exception.

Re ferries, you are right. Japan is another option. I think he looked into all that, as have i in advance of my trip. Logistics and timewise the general consensus is that the Japan route is as good as Korea. However Korea is quite a bit cheaper to get to and is also cheaper re onward shipping and does not need a Carnet.

Also the Korea based shipper does so many of these she can start the process rolling very easily when one arrives in Vlad and the Zarubino customs gang are used to the processing of tired and weary bikers... Seems to have less delays with customs exiting that way for European / Western bikers.

Either route is possible - just seems 8 out of 10 who get that far find there is less hassle associated with the Korea route. Whether that makes it better - who knows. Those I have spoken to who have used both routes suggest both can be plain sailing one day (excuse the pun) and less so other days...

Guess if you don't mind the Carnet issue it makes no real difference.
 
BBC had flights going in and they had locals who did side deals to hop on and fly out much to the annoyance of the producer. Pilot apparently told him if he didn't zip it he could look to do the same once this plane left.

Japan is easy if you have resident status...but I'll agree it's gonna be more money. Korea I also think could be more flexible in the rules and regs department. Japan is not... they won't ever say no just leave you sitting there till you get so pissed off you get the hint....:augie

magic thread so far can't wait for the rest...:thumb2
 
srace7 said:
Justin there is no route out of Magadan to Anchorage by air any more.

Only routes out of Magadan are to ride it out, ship it to Vlad or fly it to Vlad.

Once in Vlad, shipping or flying from there is a nightmare. Easiest and most often used route is Dong Chun ferry to South Korea from Zarubino. Then either flying the bike and self from Seoul or shipping from Busan...
Click to expand...

Thanks Simon, figured it might be that but this past week I've been rewatching Long Way Round, this time along with my partner who's learning to ride. She's interested in going on adventures together, but not something like the road of bones :augie
 
how you gettin on oisin?your not missing much here,except the weathers been great:D,keep on truckin mate:clap:bow
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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