MOVED FROM ANOTHER THREAD TO BE HERE AS IT'S OWN TOPIC -

Not mechanic, workshop - to apply a better tool than rocks, several weeks later!

Clearly what we did worked as it survived the rest of the BAM - something never ridden by motorbike, before or since!

To us, space/weight/expediancy seemed a better priority than bogging ourselves with everything possible for every possible eventuality.
I recall Ewan and Thingy had a full Snap-on-Tools kit given to them along with everything else they wanted - including a retenue of support vehicles to carry everything plus a team of expert fixers. Remember the full set of saucepans they eventually abandoned?
Despite all their 'top of the range' sponsors and freebies, they failed one of the simpler sections of SibirskyExtreme and got into one of the pre-arranged team of 6WD trucks that were carefully kept out of picture. Shhh...
Our motives were personal satisfaction. Exactly as Mondo Eunduro years earlier who, despite far more humble but better equipped and prepared bikes, was the original inspiration of the duo (who regularly telephoned them for advice while en-route - Shhh..) whose aim seemed more for TV fame and commercial success.

Give them their due - they increased awareness of what we all do, or want to give the appearance of doing.

I digress.


My view too!
Cheers

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Several people did this in the 90s and maybe earlier.
Why do you think you are "the first"? How is that possible to know?

The western half as far as Tynda, yes - but no further.

No one has attempted the entire road from the Pacific to Taishet by moto, as far as can be ascertained from extensive research.

From Colebatch's initial post on his ADV thread:-
"There are only a few people who had ridden the western half, between Bratsk and Tynda. Only one pair of guys (Poles of course) had ridden the eastern part (from Vanino to Fevralsk).
Never before our journey, had someone seriously attempted to ride the whole road."

Any information on any other attempt would be helpful.
Either here, PM or the ADV thread.

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Can you please explain this research. After Glasnost Russia opened up and quite a few riders went to Russia early in the 90s and tourists have traveled with motorbikes in Russia for more then 20 years. As far as I know there is no written records of where people traveled so I can't understand how you can claim to be "the first" based on "extensive research".

On the other hand I wish you had a nice trip and this discussion has come to an end from my side.

From Vanino to Bratsk? Ok, who? Name them. If you claim to know "several people" who have done it, I would like to meet them. Or at least one of them.

We strongly suspected we were the first to attempt the whole road. It was confirmed when we started to reach the remote villages on the eastern half of the road. Villages where people have grown up and lived their entire lives. Villages several days ride from the next village. Places where any traveller through the region would need to stop, and need to replenish fuel and supplies. Talking to people in those villages all gave us consistent answers when we asked about foreigners who had been in those towns. 2 polish motorbikers in 2008 and an australian on a bicycle a few years before that. We knew about the Poles. And we knew they got as far as Isa from Vanino, about a quarter of the full BAM road. After Etyrken, the reports of the Australian on the bicycle died out - assume he jumped on a train.

Every village we passed thru we stopped and asked about foreign travellers and received consistent information each time. Prior to Etyrken, the only foreigners anyone had seen on the road were the Australian and the two Poles.

Since the Poles (Movistar and Izi) were guys I had contact with, and I knew they had only attempted the eastern part of the BAM road, and successfully completed about half of that, and since no-one, in any shop, or any fuelling station or anywhere that foreigners would have to visit, had any recollection of any other foreign motorcyclists on that road ....

Any serious attempt on the BAM road would be able to do what the Poles and we did ... get as far as Etyrken and Isa ... Yet in these towns everyone was singing from the same book. They all said the only foreign motorcycles they had ever seen passing thru were the poles and ours.

I spoke to a lot of people about it in every town. I always took the chance to ask anyone in a shop or petrol station , or a police officer or local business owner, ... because I too wanted to know. Has anyone been here before. Has anyone done this before. If yes, I am dying to know what it was like for them. Because it was damn tough for us.

So unless you think all the people I asked en-route had selective memory loss (mysteriously co-ordinated selective memory loss at that), and in the absence of you or anyone else coming up with more than hollow disparaging words (they seem to be the only words you know) and introducing me to someone I can share a with and discuss what it was like motorcycling the western half and the eastern half of the BAM road while sharing fotos of it, then I think I will stick with my wording thanks.

Seriously ... if you KNOW someone who has attempted the whole road before, then let me know. I want to have a with them (and I will change my wording to "No-one has seriously attempted to ride the full BAM road in the last 15 years, since it deteriorated")

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I have gotten answer on my question.

A few years after two Norwegian guys tried to ride along the world following the polar-circle (1991/2?) there was an article about BAM in an English or German magazine. This must have been around the same time when Helge P and some other Norwegians planned an extensive trip to Russia - maybe he read the article. As I mentioned earlier a lot of people went to Russia after it opened up.
It looks like "something never ridden by motorbike" is reduced to " had any recollection of any other foreign motorcyclists on that road ...."

When I drove lake Chad-route I was told by numerous locals, including the people at border and villages, that I was the first biker that drove the entire route. Off course this was bullshit.

Anyway, hopefully it was a nice trip and personally I don't care who was the first (or fastest or whatever).

I think that if someone says they are the first to do anything they should be able to prove it, that's all. If that's "hollow disparaging words" I'm sorry to have bothered you.

Hi Alibaba

IMHO when somebody (you) claims that somebody else (Walter and Tony) wasn't the first to do something they (you) should be able to give the names of at least one person who went before them. In your reply you mention some random Norwegians who might have written something in a magazine somewhere and Helge Pedersen who was planning a trip to that area. Did Helge ride the full BAM?

If I were travelling down a road and had spoken (I know that Walter and Tony have a very good grasp of the Russian language) to people who hadn't seen a western bike before and had lived there all their lives, then without evidence to the contrary, I would be able to make the claim to be the first.

cheers
Chris

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I dragged out my copy of 10 on 2, and his 1996 trip covered in the book did not cover the full BAM. Looks like just Tynda to Ust-Kut.

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From Colebatch's BAM thread on ADV a year ago -
"The only other foreigners that I KNOW have ridden the western part of the BAM Road (Bratsk - Tynda) are Helge Pedersen back in about 1995 and Eric & Gail Haws back in 1991 when it was still the Soviet Union (I have invited those guys to join the facebook group). Certainly the road then would have had 15-20 years less deterioration than it has now."

The western part!

What about the eastern part? Only the 2 Poles, Robert.
But I want to hear of others and meet them to share experiences and recollections.

I suppose anyone riding the M56 north/south through Tynda to Yakuysk can claim to have ridden the BAM road - simply because they went across it at right angles!
But can they claim that to be a serious attempt to ride the entire 4,300km from end to end?
Alibaba seems to think so.

Colebatch will no doubt respond to him.

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Well, I don't agree. I mean that if someone claims to be the first (or fastest or whatever) they have to prove it. I think Guinness book of records share my view.


The two other Norwegians wrote some articles and published a video but I don't think anyone of them rode the full BAM, and I never said they did.
I mentioned Helge and the two other guys to show that quite a few people went to Russia when it opened up.
This is 20 years ago, before Internet. The only reference I can find right now is that the two Norwegian guys crossed west Siberia in 1992 and east in 1995. Helges trip was about a year later.

The article about BAM was not written by Norwegians but I think it must have been between 1992-1995.

I believe you would do so and the same obviously goes for Colebatch and Tony P (and maybe most people). Now I know what they mean with "first" and I don't have any problems with that.

I commented this:

Not this:

Huh? How can you prove that something has not happened?

I mean, I guess it is possible that someone at some point rode the BAM, swore everyone he met en route to eternal secrecy, and then never told anyone that he did it, but I'm not sure how you could prove it!

And who knows, maybe some crazy Russian biker/engineer rode the BAM back when it was first built, but I doubt we'll ever know at this point.

THE BAM.
All of it.
4,300 Kilometres from Vanino, on the Pacifc Ocean to Bratsk & Taishet.
Not parts of it.
Not very short sections of it.
Not even just the 5 metres crossing it in Tynda, which probably hundreds of bikes have crossed!
All of it.

But I thought you were commenting on us not being the first doing what we did.

No-one has ridden all of what we did.

We warmly welcome hearing otherwise so we can share experiences, recollections and photos with them. And some s!

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That was exactly my point, so how can you tell if you are the first? You simply don't know.

Edit: I completely agreed with the quote from Colebatch ("The only other foreigners that I KNOW...."

So NASA can't say Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon - they "simply don't know" if someone did it earlier!

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