RTW East to West: Ulan-Ude

We finally made it to Ulan-Ude Friday evening around 9:30pm. Not the best time to enter a large city as it was dusk and getting dark fast. We had traveled through a time zone earlier in the day so sunsets are now a hour earlier. We luckily found a fairly cheap hotel near the outskirts so didn't have to venture too far into the city in the dark. By most adventure motorcycling standards, you just don't ride at night for many of the obvious reasons.

The ride this day was the toughest yet of the journey. The roads were absolute shit and the rain was relentless. After the 2 hour rain delay at the cafe it was about 6:30pm when it looked like there would be a break in the weather. Ulan-Ude was about 150k away so we decided to go for it. To start things off I dumped the bike again in the cafe parking lot. I must have mistakenly started in second gear when I took off because the bike stalled just as I got rolling. I was hard turning right so a stalled bike with the wheel turned means a tip over. I put my foot down to try to save it but the lot was muddy, my foot slipped and down I went. Again no damage to the bike and I was fine - but this was the second time in two days dumping and falling off the bike. I need to be more focused, even when tired from riding all day.

Very soon after we got started we hit more rain - no lightening so we pressed on. Just as they were earlier in the day, the "good" sections of road were bumpy, potholed and narrow. Since leaving Chita I have noticed that the roads have gotten much more narrow. They are all two lane, two way traffic with no shoulder in most spots so the choices for dodging potholes and the room for error has shrunk considerably. It was hard to see as the helmet mask was rain and mud splattered from trucks and many sections in the hills were a bit foggy. Mix in the construction zones where the roads were the shittiest we had encountered and you get some very tough conditions. The construction sections that weren't littered with unavoidable potholes had gravel the size of baseballs that had been spread but not rolled. Going over these sections the rear tire was weaving all over the place. One section of supposedly "good" road was actually like driving on a sheet of ice - the road looked glassy but you just didn't believe it could be as slippery as it looked. I've never been so tense on a bike in my life. It felt like one blip of the throttle or lean of the bike to change direction would result in a crash. The rear tire was just walking all over the road. Scary shit!

It was through one of the construction zones that I thought I was going to crash for sure. The potholes were bone crushing and unavoidable. I was slugging along getting punished and saw a few cars and Mark had moved on to the right shoulder. It looked like the shoulder was actually packed dirt and not the usual deep sand which is basically not rideable. I moved right to get to the shoulder and saw there was a 3 or 4 inch lip dividing the torn up road and shoulder. I know a 45 degree angle is necessary when hitting any lip on a bike, but the potholes bounced me off course and I ended up hitting the lip at a shallow angle. For anyone that rides you know this is usually a bad thing - my tires caught on the lip and by the time the bike was up on the shoulder I was in a death wobble. Just when I thought a crash was most definitely going to happen my right foot went down and I bounced my boot off the ground just enough to correct the wobble and continue in a straight line. I don't even remember telling my foot to do this so it must have just been an instinctive survival reaction. All I remember thinking was bail out and jump off the bike because you are going to crash. Another close call avoided. Next time in that situation I will just pound the potholes and not try to make risky moves with potentially harsh consequences. Although I wasn't going very fast, a crash there would have certainly done damage to the bike and possibly me as well. I ride in a lot of protective gear, but you don't want to have to test it in a crash.

We are not sure if we are going to stay in Ulan-Ude for a carryover day or press on to Lake Baikal. The forecast was originally 90% chance of rain and thunderstorms! but this morning it now says 20%. Our plan was for Saturdays to be a day off the bikes - this week I need it. My body is pretty beat up from riding yesterday in crappy weather and harsh road conditions.

Coming into one of the shit sections - this one was actually not too bad.