Leaving Mogocha following morning was a slow start but was back on the road, tagging along with Alexei and Ulya for a bit whilst the 2 Ukranian bikers took off towards Vladivostok.



From the left; me, Sasha from Iron Angels Mogocha, Alexei, his girlfriend Ulya, the 2 Ukranian riders





Another fairly uneventful ride to the small town of Chernyshevsk which was my halfway stop before Chita the next day. I did meet another Russian biker, Denis, on the way who was also headed to Chita















I had been working towards Chita for 2 reasons. Firstly, since Vladivostok, the road signs had the furthest distance listed as Chita so I had been seeing the numbers slowly tick downwards from over 2000km. Secondly, the NZ biker I had met on the ferry, had a tailshaft failure 3 days into his ride and was now waiting out the parts arrival at a bike post in Chita.



So when I finally arrived at the bike post I was very happy to find not only Mehmet there but also Alexei from the Mogocha bike post and Denis who I had met on the road!





Getting to the bike post was an absolute headache though! It was good in a way that I didn’t hve to cut through the traffic of Chita city in order to get to the bike post as it was on the outskirts of town. However, it was 2km down a dirt road.

As my luck would have it, Chita had gotten some extremely heavy rain the day before so that dirt track now had some huge puddles.

I did try to go around some but at one point nearly dropped the bike as the sides were still muddy and slippery but also on an angle.

And for the biggest one that couldn’t be avoided, I just went for it. Although I did realise later that I made the mistake of putting my foot down right into the puddle when I lost some balance. That foot could’ve gone straight down into the mud and things could have ended very poorly.

A photo of the trail the following morning, the puddles were much worse but you get the idea





The bike had been in past the swingarm into the mud now and was a mess I’d try to clean up in Ulan Bator where; simply couldn’t be bothered now.



The bike post was a lot bigger than the last one but also in a much worse state. But again, if you needed a place to rest or work on your bike; this was it.

Denis’ regulator had burnt out so they rigged up a new one in a location with more airflow…under the footpeg!



The other point worth mentioning about Chita is that since Vladivostok everyone (mainly Russians) had been saying to be careful in this area because of ‘bandits’. This included a local female biker I met in a café while having a meal. The only response I had was that I have to believe people are good
I suspect a lot of weight is given to this point due to the death of the Japanese motorcyclist who was murdered in this region in recent years; an occurrence pretty much everyone seems to know about

The girl in this pic rode a 300 Ninja and told me to watch out for bandits...



Thinking that this would be a quiet night, I turned into bed at 1030pm. How wrong I was
At around 11pm, I heard my name being yelled out from behind singing and music. I chose to ignore it…at first. Figuring I could always sleep once I’m back home, I ventured out to find 2 new additions to the bike post; A Russian girl and Argentinian guy couple whose van had its frame snap 200km out of Chita. So now, here they were.

Again, out came the vodka and before I knew it, it was 3am!









Biker generosity



Unsurprisingly, I didn’t leave till 1pm the following day. Whilst most people did the 600km to Ulan Ude, I again did a 300km stretch to a halfway town of Khilok



As I rode in, yet again, a biker flagged me down and helped guide me to my gastinitsa simply because he felt it was his duty to help out another biker





This is in addition to the numerous times I’ve been stopped or approached by people in cars who come to tell me that they are bikers too and show me photos of their sportbikes….maybe it’s a sportbike thing and the Gixxer gets their attention?

During dinner in Khilok, 2 guys staying in the same gastinitsa started up a conversation with me (one an engineer and the other a soldier both travelling for work) and it turns out it was in Khilok that the Japanese biker was murdered!



Onwards to Ulan Ude! The last city before the border crossing into Mongolia. The original plan was to visit Lake Baikal from here but to be very honest, I’m just too tired to be bothered. Plus, I’m also about 3 days behind on my rough schedule although that’s not such a big deal

I even thought about staying along the highway instead of coming into Ulan Ude so I could just carry onto the border the next day.

However, after battling traffic and crazy roads to get in, I was very happy with the room and a chance to get clean and rest. Plus I wanted to see the big Lenin head!

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Exploring the world by GSXR; www.7days1shower.com