The big end is neigh

Was that just a dream? It looked like a dream this morning when I left the Russian border town and looked over my shoulder for one last glance at Mongolia. There was a layer of misty cloud between the hill tops and the land below. Out the corner of my wind glazed eyes I have one last fleeting glimpse to say goodbye. I really can’t tell if that image behind me is real or not. It’s in my camera, in my memory, deeply imbedded in my mine but when I turn to look its gone, like a memory jog of last night’s dream, when today’s busy schedule won’t give you the time and peace to recall those soft focus stream of images. My mirrors won’t reflect it without the same blur, with which my memory recalls it. And even the postcards don’t depict it. Mongolia has an elusive life. It captivated me but I can’t capture it. It lies somewhere in a past time. It can be visited but it can’t be transported. Even its eagles don’t fly over the border to Russia. In years to come they may tame the environment like America did in Alaska but they could never tame the climate, how can you stop snow in August with modernization?

My week off was much needed. I knew I needed it,
staying in a ger surrounded by other gers all inhabited by broken down overlander Brits, 2 different Landrovers held together with ratchet straps, Araldite and silicone. Mongolia will kill you vehicle.
I constantly tracked the progress of my brake on the DHL website, but my tracking ends with a Monday spent in the office impatiently sitting on the couch whilst customs detain my package and charge me 50% duty. Whilst I read in house magazines on corporate expansion and worldwide domination, of obedient employees rewarded with in print recognition, and mutual back patting for an upward moving graph. It’s all so career and company orientated if I had some TNT I’d blow em UPS but my eyes are peeled for the courier to arrive from the airport. It’s the first time I notice that the yellow and crimson of a Buddhist monks attire is similar to DHL uniform and I look at them expectantly like I'm looking for enlighten, when all I want is to lighten them of their load. Why is a monk in a DHL office? To collect his package I assume, I don’t know I didn’t ask. The office closes at 6pm I don’t budge my brake arrives at 6.30 and it is fitted and bleed by 7.30. Tomorrow I start stopping again.
I had shared the ger with a German couple who had come down from Russia and were just starting their Mongolia adventure, I envy them, I helped them change their tyres, it’s the only time I've got out my tire leavers this trip. We had both watched examples on you tube, but our efforts aren’t a patch on the videos when we are you tubeless. I take over with the confidence of theory but my ego is soon deflated.
They were good roomies better than the arrogant Dutch, fully sponsored quad bike riders, they were going to break a world record apparently , the bikes had be abandoned for 2 weeks whilst they took the train to Beijing, I asked if it was the world record for ‘longest unattended quad in Mongolia’ but I didn’t get a comprehendible answer.
Having managed to avoid all the invitations of vodka binges from western Russia to nomadic Mongolian herdsman, I fall victim to the transparent poison in a guesthouse with the German couple. And man was I ill. A 24 hour hangover. I’ll never drink again.
I had finally decided to abandon my old tyres they were an insurance policy, but I will bravely go on without them. It means a different packing technique. How many people leave this guest house saying ‘feels so good not to be carrying my spare tyres anymore?’

I'm so used to my system. I know everything I carry and where it goes and I notice when something is not there, both my tooth brush case and comb are missing and I search and find. The comb was hidden between the cracks in the wooden floor, I would not have seen it if I hadn’t been looking, I’m so proud of my organization and methodical packing, I can only apply this now I can go at my own pace travelling alone.

I can’t even do a paved road from the capital to the border without making myself stress
, I'm low on money and fuel , I can only afford to put in 10 litres when I need 15 and I'm wondering if I can make it, I have my fist and only stop check in this country and have to pay a road toll , only 25p but it was assigned for noodle soup, which I buy anyway and leave Mongolia with 2 litres left in my tank and a spare 2 pounds worth of currency. Why do I make myself ride this way? Doing constant calculations on distance, fuel used and money left. I could have changed another $10 and worried about something completely different. When I'm not calculating, I'm remembering Russia, the lack of road signs, the constant police checks, and how I can’t fine my way out of cities, then I remember shashlyk, the meaty shish kebabs and everything seems better, I ride on my bike but, really do travel on my stomach.
I know I’m going to miss Mongolia I would love to return sometime, my only regret is I will never be able to visit Mongolia again for the first time. Will I ever get that awe of the wild or only a memory of a feeling I once had. Something changes instantly when you leave. I know I say that about every border crossing but I get my exit stamp from Mongolia and at the next barrier are blonde haired white skinned Russians, I didn’t realize it but for the last month any hair colour but black and any skin rather than wind torn and sun died dark and weathered and blushed cheeks have indicated western traveller and therefore a minimum of a nod of acknowledgement was offered and now I have to physically stop myself from smiling at every western looking person they all look like me again (well you know) but they are native. I wondered if I would ever get so far out that places like Russia on a 2nd or 3rd visit would become familiar when on my first entry it all seemed so foreign, but now it’s not that I feel closer to home, I just feel used to being away from it. Whilst Mongolia lays in its own shadow just a fence away despite the fact the roads here are still dust the accommodation may have been up rated from cloth and felt to wood and corrugated iron. But the difference is children play in the streets, just like at home; out on the wild steepe of Mongolia there were no streets to play on. In just a few miles it changes to an almost familiar life. Although water is drawn from roadside pumps and transported in Ladas and not horse and cart, I guess they still have to catch up on that one.
I find a pizza parlour where some music channel is playing, the time is 3pm in Moscow where it is broadcast from but its 8pm here and the realization of the size of this country is dawning on me, whilst it’s dusk in Siberia its lunch time for the capital.
My room seems to have no electric, how am I supposed to charge my phone, I look for my head light in my tank bag, it’s not there, I know where it is, it’s on a headboard in a ger in Mongolia, shit, I remember my comb but forget my bloody head light. Mr methodical has no one to blame but himself. Dam it.
I hadn’t really intended to stay in this boarder town but with another time zone at the boarder I was too late to get insurance and I’m not going to ride in Russia without it. Too many tales of incarceration, impoundment and fines.
I fall into a deep sleep and so the knocking at my door takes a while to bring me back to consciousness. Oh that will be the prostitute I suppose. I find some cloths and sheepishly open the door with annoyance and a little intrigue, 2 women, wow, I recognise one, and it’s the hotel receptionist, with her translator. ‘It’s ok I can’t afford 2 and anyway I have a phrase book.’
Turns out my bike is not safe outside, I have to get dressed and follow a man on a bicycle to a gated and dog guarded barn. I ride lidless, without insurance or underwear and leave it there; it will cost £1.75 well that seems reasonable. I thought you were gonna fuck me. I jog back to my hotel, and lay wide awake in bed for hours.
The next morning I find my post-it note from Kazakhstan written for me in Russian by and embassy employee asking for motorcycle insurance. I show it at reception and its starts a 4 way heated discussion and eventually a very vague map is drawn for me, how vague? Actually it's not so much a map more a squiggle it could just be a rune. So I walk into toon and see what is arooned. I go into a bank ‘this is a bank’ says the teller,
‘Yeah I know’
‘Go to administration’ it seems to be the answer to most of my questions. I go to a big building, a cleaner who doesn’t clean looked at my note and with the same enthusiasm he applies to his cleaning he nods something negative, so I go to another bank, she points up, I go upstairs I find an unlocked door, a woman sits behind a desk and I show her my note, from a draw she pulls out a blank insurance certificate and without emotion starts to fill it in. I have enough joy for us both I searched through a town I don’t know, signs I can’t read and communicated in a language I can’t understand and I got what I wanted, 2 months insurance for £15. Whoopee. I'm well chuffed with myself.
Once again I'm heading in a direction that is not the usual. I'm north and then I'm west to Lake Baikal.

Want some facts? The largest fresh water lake on the planet, over a mile deep it contains 1/5 of the worlds fresh water, pure enough to drink straight from the lake
without even worrying if you have an en suite room. If it were emptied we would all be standing a foot deep in fresh water, something like that.
I ride for 5 hours on good road with road marking and signposts. There are laws and assumptions that people will obey them, indicators are used as are lanes, and it’s so much easier to drive this way. My map is in cyclic like the sporadic sign posts and I know exactly where I am, I just can’t pronounced it, it’s all such a novelty, has the hardest part been done? Kazakhstan and Mongolia always filled me with a trepidation but with only the trans Siberian hi way to go the only fear is when that death rattle in my bottom end will stop as the crank pierces the casings like as alien out of a chest.
I have ridden into autumn.
Riding into fall as opposed to falling when I ride. Not on these asphalt roads.
This trip became my longest bike trip 6 weeks ago in time spent but as of yesterday it became my highest mileage too. I broke the 11750 mile mark that I did on my Alaskan trip. On this road of frustration so close to Lake Baikal but barely getting a glimpse of it. The trans Siberian railway hugs the shore and the road runs parallel to it but is separated by a strip of changing aspen an pine trees although it’s pretty I came here to see a lake.
I sit in my room writing this with my back to the window and realize I'm missing a sunset, so I wonder down to the shore, and the lake and the day redeems its self. I left my virtual world just in time to catch a sunset in the real world.


A good night’s sleep shall I stay another night? Shall I go have breakfast?
I take my point it book to the restaurant and point at eggs and then at toast, ‘no toast’
I point at a loaf,
‘No’
I’ll just have eggs then, I sit a look at the pictures in my book until the eggs arrive with 2 slices of bread and butter, whatever.
Indecision is the curse of my days now, not professional decisions to make, just where to wonder, it’s always been ‘what next?’ And now I'm heading west I wonder should I go home, but what about the hi way east, should I camp tonight or get a hotel, how much further should I keep going round the lake if I'm going to turn round, my visa is for 3 months, my bike insurance for 2 and my medical insurance has 1 month left, how much longer will the money last and what about that dam bottom end?
Sentiment should not be a decision maker, it is pointless to ship the bike anywhere when the transport costs are more than the replacement costs, just so I can have the bike in my garage and say where I went on it. I will have to settle for a blown up photo and a number plate on the garage wall. That’s how I can afford to do these things, if I had a 11 grand BMW I wouldn’t be able to come here in the first, not that I would want to be seen on a BMW, even by people I don’t know. My bike and everything on it was all bought to be disposable it was all bought for a one way trip. It was never meant to own me but the bond of my 2 wheel travel companion is so strong and it will be so hard to just abandon it.
‘Thanks for the ride, see ya.’ A one trip stand?
Now I ride without spare tyres I’ve lightened my load, I consider all the spares I bought with me, the tubes so heavy and bulky , the leavers and cables, all the dehydrated food I haven’t touched. At least I have a use for my wind-up torch now. I can pull off a sticker festooned pannier and jump on a plane, and instead of giving my money to a shipping company I can buy another bike in another country, wouldn’t that make sense? Can I think about something else now?
No I can’t, then I get one of those flashes of brilliance and it’s born in soba morning thoughts, most unlikely. Based on the theory of ‘I have had the same broom for 20 years, 5 new bushes and 2 new handles but it’s the same broom.’ What if I take the essence of the bike, its individuality, the oversize tank the one off pannier rack the spotlights and leaver protectors, etc? It would make for a small create, cheap shipping and would turn the next KLR into an overlander like the one I have now, I wouldn’t mourn the loss of a tired shock or burnt out spark plug. I keep its identity and leave the frame and engine numbers behind.
This is a completely brilliant idea and now I can find something else to occupy my thoughts, I mentally build a create with all that I will keep. I’m worry free again.
Oh wait.
The engine noise is getting worse.
I take a diversion round a little peninsular but still can’t see the lake and now I can’t see the delta I came here to see either just a neat line of fishing boats.
I take off my helmet and ride with my head bowed down towards the engine, it sounds awful, really ill. I tune heads not from my exhaust note now but from the singing metallic chinking from within my crank cases. I’ll be lucky to make it to Ulan Ude let alone Vladivostok. Shit. Just as I find a solution I get a new problem. The stress in my back is aching and I limp along and get to the out skirts of the city. I call my KLR buddy in England and describe the sounds and symptoms and ask his advice, in desperation for a diagnosis I even hold the phone to the running engine, the phone call running higher than the revs, he says if it is big ends they will go soon if not already.
I take out the filter, it’s not really metally. 2 guys pull up in a van. ‘Ah England, Chelsea, Beatles, do I need help?’
‘What’s Russian for magnet?’
I look in my point it book and there is no magnet, I check both my phrase books and nothing, I'm so busy looking at books they decide I stopped for a reading break and leave me to it. I drain some oil to check the magnetic sump plug it’s not really a pyramid of swarf. I put the same oil back in and some new too. Then by-pass the city. I ride out till the shadows get long, the road follows the river, and this would all be idyllic if I was not waiting for the termination of my engine.
I follow a track into some pines
I am relatively well hidden so I make camp. The stove wont light and I can’t heat what was to be my first boil in the bag meal of Lancashire hot pot, I dispose of the stove fuel and replace it with fuel from the tank and ‘woof’ I have ignition and soon boiling water and a dam good and effortless meal. Well the food preparation was effortless if not the heating method.
It’s always scary camping alone, I have full phone signal so send a few texts but it’s too silent and when there is a noise it makes me jump. I have put my phone on silence, I do it every night cus I'm 8 hrs ahead of UK now. When it lights up with a reply even that makes me jump. Oh god, I'm not going to sleep tonight am I? But I do, the crazy dreams are evidence of sleep all be it light and disturbed, walking round the lake shore with Keith Chegwin with a commentary from Janice Long, where does it come from?
Like a terminal patient it’s always a relief to see the light of a new day has arrived. and relief keeps coming like a multiple orgasm, with a packed bike and not being discovered, ooo, and when the bike starts, arrhh and again when I find my way back to the road, oh my god, the sun was in my eyes when I came down this track and its is again now. It’s an early start heated grips and fingerless gloves it’s a clear autumn morning, with a fresh chill. I slowly accelerate up to 60mph, heading east. Here I come again.
I see another overlander coming the other way but very fast, we wave and turn our heads to try in that nano second to indentify number plates and nationality, but neither of us brake, bummer cus I want to know how far Vladivostok is and how much of the road is paved.
I think of the people I have met and the invitations I have to go to stay in Soule and Taiwan, and that starts me singing ‘Yellow rose’ to myself by Roger Waters, with its Chinese Taiwanese themes. It’s as if my un-distracted mind is focused with either perception or empowerment because another biker with flags flying comes towards me, I break and go meet him. Oh right, I've heard of this guy, a crazy Chinese guy with no luggage except a massive subwoofer on the back and his daughter wearing a cardigan and open face lid, no camping gear, no food, no water, nothing, and on the road for 7 years and 3 to go.
He is the epitome of amazement. We take each others photos and emails, not really much to say to each other. There are lots of questions but I prefer to have this encounter shrouded in mystery. I'm in awe and respect he tells me he is for peace, I show him monklet and tell him monklet is for smiles.
And after that encounter I feel so much better, if he can make it, so can I.
I have a sausage stop and once again I re-fasten my tank with its ever braking brackets. I notice the exhaust is a little loose in the cylinder head. So I decide to use my spare exhaust gasket to replace the old one. But there is no old one, gone, and when the new one is in, the entire noise stops. So was it transference of valve noise through the pipe not insulated by a gasket? Is that why the sound reverberated all around? Have I fixed it?
Why I am the prophet of doom? Why is every problem considered terminal? The engine still knocks but now it’s just a top end low revs under strain noise, I can live with that, the engine won’t die with that. Is that all it was? I don’t so much ride with confidence as much as waiting for this easy fix to reveal itself as blatant optimism. But the bike continues, I can cope with excessive oil consumption. Anyway how far is it to Vladivostok? Some might say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing in my defence I would say an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less. I shall continue to into my many experiences and learn a little from them all.
I’m still in anticipation of the road ahead, not really sure what to expect, but that’s half the fun isn’t it? That’s why I left home. The element of the unknown. I'm glad this feeling still exists, if I knew it was a smooth hi way how dull it would be, it would be nice to know how far I have got to go though. I heard once 4500kms but that doesn’t really help cus I don’t remember where I heard it? Kazakhstan? Mongolia? Altai Russia?
What’s Siberia like?
Well I heard it described as endless but after 12000 miles it seems anything but, its vast

, ok, but the end is near, I'm just not exactly sure how near, the end of Eurasia, from Atlantic to Pacific, sort of. Its hilly, its flat , it pine covered and then barren it varied in a slow sort of way, but all the time I'm riding into autumn, yellow slowly turns to orange like a 3 day sunset. Turn away and ya notice the change when you look again.

As I approach Chita a sign 2165 kms to Khabarovsk and now I know, cus it’s another 700kms from there to my new final destination. And that is where I'm going to leave it,yet another timezone, they don’t need it. It is still light at 11pm and the sun don’t rise till 8.30am they are just showing off. Take a break in my last modern city for a while, before I head off fearlessly into the slightly more know that it was before.
I'm very into my own company at the moment it feels like my swansong will be a solo and I can’t stop stopping or can’t start going, always another photo to take. My start button works again it doesn’t miss a beat, so I'm happy to keep stopping. I think my journey will end alone like it began and that’s just fine by me, I'm late behind the rest. When I asked at a hotel why they aren’t busy don’t they get many tourists she replies ‘yes in summer, and skiers in the winter now is fall’ yeah I know. Sorry I'm a bit late, been dragging my feet a bit. As long as it doesn’t snow again I’m happily off peak.


When it’s just him and a guard dog in a stale musty barn all night, monklet smiles.
When we can’t see the lake for the trees monklet smiles
When we are deafened by the deathly rattle of a sick engine he smiles.
In the silence of a forbidden forest he smiles his silent smile
When I stop getting emails cus no one replies to a blog, he smiles like I'm not forgotten.
And when we are confronted with a ride for peace he displays how he rides for smiles, miles and miles of smiles.