Author: admin

You’ll notice today that there is something missing from my bike. My spare tyres. Despite their protestations that I had to take them out the country, and the fact I paid a fine, the wankers just drove off with them in their clown car and wouldn’t give them back to me! BASTARDS

Anyway, after my 30p per minute, 2 and a half hour sleep I awoke with a massive .. careful… stretch. That always means a sleep coma when I’ve not moved a muscle. Despite my mind being awake though my bum was still asleep. It gave a significant snore when I lent over to get some bread at breakfast.

Total silence.

Bit awkward.

Saddled up, pressed start and away we go. My temper this morning is shorter than an Asian cock after an ice bath and I’ve got to make sure to keep it in check. It’s always like this when I’m tired so I have to make a deliberate effort to be methodical and not just start chucking stuff about.

This part of the trip is always going to be about just turning the handle. That said, if it were pissing down and miserable this would be a chore. But you really can’t be anything but happy when you’re scooting through lovely scenery in the 20 degree sunshine I’ve got 360 miles to do today and the first 200 are A roads. Or A++ roads in Lithuania’s case. I drop into Kaunas City for some lunch. A lovely old town with cafes away from the traffic and noise.

I get an hour back in Poland, get on the toll road and let my tired old brain have an hour or two off before holing up in Łomża for the night. Don’t do it. I did it so you don’t have to. Really. Don’t

Fuck only knows what happened with the pictures today. I threw 90% of them away.

Łomża was asleep when I got up. It looked exactly the same as when it was supposedly awake.

I’m on the motorway in a few minutes. I’ve got earplugs in which I don’t usually do and I can just hear the hum of The Bitch beneath me. She’s not a happy girl at the moment. Low speed riding is getting worse, I think (hope!) it’s because she’s having trouble breathing. Her air filter will be blocked with 10000 miles of shit but cleaning it involves a lot of disrobing and disconnecting, all of which involves risks I’m not taking. On the motorway where she can open her stride and run she’s fine.With the relative quiet and a fat line on the satnav saying the next turn isn’t for 250 miles I can start to reflect, replay and reassess bits of this trip.

When I was eating my breakfast this morning some very good friends of mine said they had been worried in case I was anywhere near the munitions facility that was delivered a 100 UAV shit storm on Wednesday morning. Well..it just so happens..

When I wrote my notes for Wednesday my entire cranial capacity was consumed with white hot rage about my experience at the Russian border, and I’d completely forgotten about that morning.

That morning I had been awoken by the sounds of percussion. Big percussion. I laid in my bed listening to what sounded like huge, but distant explosions. They were going on and on. It sounded like there was some firing going on too. I did cross my mind it could be an attack but I just dismissed it because I was quite a way from Ukraine. That and the fact the town I was in was obviously an army town with people in fatigues everywhere. I thought maybe they were just doing live firing exercises, even though the depth of the percussion sounds was very deep. I went down, sat in the dark and looked for news but couldn’t find anything. BBC is blocked and even VPNs don’t help.

But when I got out on the road there were loads of police cars going past at full speed with their lights on. I went into a fuel station and there were 3 police cars quickly fuelling up and fucking off. Then I saw police cars in the woods off the side, and a couple at some junctions.

So, in another strange twist of fate, I randomly chose to stay the night up the road from where Zelenskyy had aimed his ire. And it must have been the Toropets attack I’d heard. This run of being in a particular place when stuff is happening is really quite eerie. It might have some bearing on why I was fucked about to such a massive degree that evening too.

And then that made me think about a couple of days before when I’d watched what I assumed was a Russian UAV fly across some fields and head off east. Earlier that day, just before I’d seen a new field of graves, I saw a big plume forming to my right, then just after, another bigger one forming to my left. I thought it was strange at the time but you always assess a situation based on your knowledge and experience. I’ve never been in this situation before so I thought it could be burning the fields or something, but as the cloud grew it started to behave very strangely. It stopped climbing and instead the wind started to pull a diaphanous sparkling veil across the skyline. Like one of those half hight net curtains in a cafe being drawn. It seemed to reflect the light as though it had glitter in it. Not something I’d seen before. Given the fact many new graves were close by I assume there was a local military presence, and on reflection I think the UAV I saw was probably Ukrainian and on its way to make some more work for the Russian undertakers

Sometimes my life is just odd. I relate these things not for melodramatic effect. They’re just the facts. It’s scary, but also just experiences of life on the road. I was never in any personal danger or under any threat at all thank God, but it’s something I certainly won’t forget.

Unlike this ride today. It’s dull. It’s tedious. It’s like sittting on a plane for 8 hours watching a boring on-bike movie showing all the parasitic life that forms along these arteries. Appealing to the eyes, stomachs and wallets of the passing masses. All trying to distract drivers to come and make a small donation to their jars.

I’m in one such distraction, sitting drinking a coffee and letting the blood flow return to my arse. I’m looking out the window and there are 4 blokes round my bike. Pointing and talking. They’re there for a while. The Bitch is absolutely filthy. She’s scratched and scared. The windscreen is twisted slightly after heavy contact with some scenery. The panniers are dented. There is oil all over the back from a can that the top vibrated off of. The paintwork in the frame is worn through to the metal where my boots have rubbed. The tank has two wear spots where my knees have been. She looks like it’s been in the wars. But she looks beautiful. She looks absolutely perfect. I know people that wouldn’t trust a Ktm to ride to the supermarket. Those same people wouldn’t be seen dead on a bike like The Bitch. Well, that’s their loss.

The prices of hotels in the cities on my route home are still at ‘taking the piss’ levels. I’m not here to sightsee. I’m just mile munching so I find a cheap and I suspect, 90% unoccupied hotel a few miles off to the side at a truck stop. And truck stops means truck driver dinners. My favourite

After dinner, drugs. There must be a dairy drugs den here somewhere, I can smell it. Wander outside the cafe and there is a 24 hour shop next door. And all it sells is stuff for trucks. Where the hell have they hidden it? I close my eyes, follow the scent. Go through a few doors, it’s getting stronger now. Open my eyes… spoons. Another obsession of mine. Anyone that rides with me knows that the left pocket of my jacket contains many sachets of brown sugar, and a spoon. True story.

But no spoons today. Close my eyes.. open.. truck lights.

Again, The Bitch has a broken tail light, probably due to someone smashing their nose into it sniffing her tail in Uzbekistan, and a truck light would look good. But no. Last try. Here we go, I’m getting close, I fall to my knees, open my eyes. Oh yea. COME TO DADDY

Get up and go to breakfast this morning only to be presented with this. Looks like the hotel doubles as a penis reduction clinic. Still, waste not want not. I’ll stick one down my leathers and see if it bonds.

The satnav says 360 miles, 2 turns. That’s going to be interesting. I wish there were easy options to just put the bike on a train in Europe and fast track the hell in and out.

So all I can do is reflect. Again. And rant. Last night I saw something from someone that had completed an ‘Epic’ tour of his local Sainsbury’s car park in Dulwich. I responded, questioning the use of the word ‘Epic’ in this context and he responded as though I’d touched up his granny. Immediately wanting a pissing contest.

Nothing on this planet irks me as much as this modern propensity to use our beautiful language inappropriately. This fuckwangle insisted ‘epic’ means the same as ‘majestic’, despite one being a noun and the other an adjective. “Here is an idea Mr IQ of two. If something is majestic, use the word ‘majestic’, and if it’s epic, then use the word ‘epic’” But no. He still wants to fight.

It’s endemic. Every monosyllabic moron plucks superlatives out of their arse and sticks them all over their mundane mumblings in a desperate attempt to stop them sinking without trace into the social media cesspit.

“Had an EPIC night in with the neighbours discussing the pros and cons of 4 different wooden spoons”

Of course you did Malcolm.

“Hi. I’m Jaqui. I’m an amazing voluptuous Venus with an incredible smile, a nature as bubbly as a glass of fizz and I can knock you up a 5 Michelin star breakfast in the morning”

No Jacqueline. Your figure is a feat of origami using only fatty flesh flaps, you have the brains of a barnacle, the personality of a peanut and the cooking skills of a dog. There. Fixed it for you.

Does my head in. I try to keep out of it. You have to be realistic. I like to think I’m about average at most stuff. Averagely intelligent. Averagely educated. Below average on some things I’d rather not discuss and maybe a little above average at caustic character assassination, but never far from the norm. But most people now seem unable to accept that and are completely incapable of any sort of honest self reflection. I always like to lend them a hand when I meet them

Anyway. These trips aren’t ‘epic’. To me they’re simply adventures. Maybe some of it is about getting older and testing myself too. Not giving in. Keeping the dark thoughts at bay. I can’t emphasise enough how lucky I know I am to do them. But the flip side is they also come with guilt. Guilt at my good fortune. Guilt at my good health. Guilt at my ‘get out jail free’ passport. Guilt over having such an understanding wife and family. And, just occasionally, guilt at being such a selfish old bastard. I worry, too, that all this luck will suddenly come to an end. But I guess that’s just life. Life isn’t fair. That’s a fact.

Anyway, The Bitch is grumpy. She says she wants some selfies of the two of us to send to her mates. I usually insist on staying behind the lens but I want to keep her happy so i make an exception.

Unwilling to pay the price for convenience and a shit, cold coffee I take a 5 minute diversion and find cake and coffee heaven.

Tonight it’s Hamm. Full of German character. I took the smile detector out for a walk. Nothing. Nil. Nada. I do believe the EU has recently introduced a smile tax though. One young bloke stopped next to me on a bike in a service station today. Apparently I was wearing my invisibility leathers. I wonder where he thought the sound of “TWAT” being shouted had come from.

I was sitting the Polish truck stop the other night, watching about the floods they’re fighting. I cannot remember the last time I felt rain. Or even smelt it. Must be back in Kyrgystan a few weeks ago. Surely it’s time. But no. Bonkers.

I’m fuelling up and I can hear some loud quacking. I speak a bit of duck as it happens and it sounds like someone is trying to get my attention. He’s up on the roof. He’s asking if I know any unattached mallards. He’s looking for a mate. His name is Drake, he’s a fit 2m, 50kg 20 year old Scorpio with a steady job with good prospects looking to settle down in a little pond and raise some ducklings. He enjoys diving and sucking weeds. That will only make sense to one person I know

Back out on the road I can smell blood. I hope it’s not mine. On my last day in Russia I came across what looked like a Damien Hurst exhibit. A very large animal, maybe a moose or a bear had very very recently signed out after loosing a fight with a fast moving metal object. A long scrawled signature was laid out in blood along the road and I rode straight through it. It always takes a few days for it to permeate the layers of crap but now it’s reached the exhaust and it’s burning off. Either that or my bollocks are on fire.

All the traffic is slowing down in front of me. They’re all slavishly dropping to the Dutch speed limit. All submitting to the increasingly oppressive omnipresent threat of punishment for daring to ignore Big Brother. It struck me last night as I was waiting to cross a road in Hamm. The closest vehicle was in Latvia but people were still waiting obediently for their permission to cross. Everyone is paranoid about some twat in a hat jumping out the bushes and adding their name to some offence register. You feel it as you come into Europe. You can almost feel yourself being put back in a box. The European road network is awash with technology whose sole purpose is to drop turds in your porridge.

And that’s another attraction of these trip. You can almost feel the shackles falling to the ground when you exit the EU. You learn to live with the ever increasing pressure and control. Obviously all the outlying countries are now doing the same nowadays, but you’re not part of their flock and they generally seem to ignore you

I’m doing a soft landing, staying with my brother and his wife in Holland before returning to the motherland. And treating The Bitch to a night in my brother’s 5 star garage. I hope she doesn’t get any silly ideas.

Final day. I thought I’d celebrate by throwing The Bitch on the road and hurting myself . I was riding out of my brothers village in the pitch black and missed a turn. Went to do a U turn and suddenly I’m in the road and my bike is on my twisted foot OWEWWWW that hurt. I’d calculated the turn using the full width of the road and hadn’t seen the big kerbstones delineating the bike lane in the dark. My bad…. ankle. Two blokes immediately jumped out their cars and helped my right the bike and assess the damage. The bars are slightly turned to the left, I assume they’ve moved in the clamps, but it still rides ok so I’m off and running towards Calais. I’ve got 180 miles to do in 3 hours.

It’s Monday morning and the traffic is horrendous. Miles of motorway queues near every major junction. Filtering through with my confidence now low, my handlebars all askew and my left ankle sticking pins in itself every time I move makes the ride more fractious than I’d like but I make it to the tunnel and on to the train.

There is only one other bike on there. A BMW GS so shiny and clean I can’t bearly look it. He’s with his wife and they’ve been for a weekend away in Normandy. I’m not dissing that. This isn’t a cock waving contest. But he’s not taking to someone who looks like a scarecrow, smells like a tramp and rides a bike without a BMW badge on.

Before I know it I’m home. Back where I started. Completing the circle. Trip number whatever in the series of whatever plus who knows. Unpacking is a 5 minute job. All I need to worry about are the presents for my wife.

I remember asking one rider on a trip what he was going to give his wife when he got back.

“A big bag of washing and a hard-on”

Fair enough. I’ve got the bag of washing, but the only big, fat, solid swelling I can currently offer her is the one on my fucking ankle. I’ll guide her hand to it in the dark. See how that goes

Sit down. Breath out. Think. These last few weeks have done their job perfectly. They’ve got all my favourite emotions out the cupboard and exercised them, often mercilessly, until they’re fully sated and can be safely put away for a while without them moaning they want to go out.

As I’m riding along it would be easy to convince myself that I’m doing what absolutely everyone else wants to do. That it’s everybody’s dream. But of course, it’s not. Pretty well everyone doesn’t give a monkeys. They’re not interested. They would almost pay NOT to do it. And by the same token I’d probably rather slowly slit my shlong with a sharp samurai sword than indulge in their distraction of choice. So I just do these things for me.

Travelling overland like this is often tiring, boring, tedious, and at times even torturous. It’s frustrating, annoying, and can seriously test your patience. You’re often hungry, always filthy and you usually can’t remember what clean clothes feel like. You get bitten, you get sore and you get mad. But all of that can pale into insignificance in the blink of an eye with a smile from a stranger, a wave from a child, a nod from an elder, a laugh from a policeman, coming round a corner or over a hill to be twatted straight in the face with a simply stunning, fuck off view that consumes your entire headspace. Highs and Lows. Quicks and slows. Looking back all I see is a shit tonne of fun.

And if nothing else, this trip proves the old maxim is true.

“Life’s a BITCH”

Until the next time.. thanks for watching

Well nobody joined me in my room last night. I leave my boots at the door. Anyone brave enough to go past those is welcome to sleep next to me.

Sunshine. Again. This trip has been notable for the weather amongst everything else. Every day bar 2 or 3 has been sunshine. The days are growing noticeably shorter as I head north though.

In my experience, Russia was at the back of the queue for natural beauty. It’s largey flat and dull. I sat on a terrace last night listening to a combine clanking its way through the sunflowers. The fields here are absolutely vast. But while Russia lost out on the landscape, someone knocked over the bottle of feminine beauty and it got flooded. I was in Saratov the other night and found myself on my back on the pavement seeing stars after being hit with just one look from a tall blonde with 2 small kids. It’s rediculous. Loads of countries have good looking people though. America has some very fine looking examples, but, I’m convinced they’re all born with incredibly tiny heads. The doctors have to stick an airline in their ears and inflate them so as they appear normal, even though there is absolutely nothing inside. Ho hum..

I wanted to stop and take a picture of the Moscow Region sign but it was in some roadworks. I was fucking about for ages tryng to get the bike to stand up and not fall over. Then I get off and there is a police car parked behind me. Fantastic. Luckily he just motions through the windscreen at me that I’m not allowed to stop there. I put my hands up. He just pulls out back into the traffic. I walk slowly back to the bike and wait for him to disappear, then I take the picture anyway.

I wasn’t planning to ride into Moscow this trip but as I’m riding I get a text. ‘Jason. Would you please stop by for a chat if you can. Thanks. Vlad’. An offer I’d better not refuse.

I don’t have roaming when I’m away. I don’t want to be connected to home when I’m out in the road. I don’t want to know that Lidl is selling wellies for cats, or that Dominoes is doing a special offer where you only pay 100 times the cost of the ingredients instead of 200. I don’t want to hear people trying to be funny or adding lines or emojis and kisses to some inane and vacuous comment someone has made. You can all FUCK OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE when I’m out on the road. So anyway, I don’t have Vlad’s home address. I pull into a fuel station and ask a nice lady to help me. She downloads google maps and has a play, gives me what I need with a smile and I’m off.

As anyone that has done it will tell you, riding a bike into and around Moscow is quite an intimidating and navigationally challenging experience. There is also a shit tonne of extremely expensive metal that you absolutely do not want to come into contact with. I must have seen more Maybachs today than I’ve ever seen in my life. But anyway, we found our way to the big man’s gaff.

He greets me and sits me down at the other end of the long table. He seems friendly enough. He wants to see my photos, and he shows me some of his. He has some nice ones of Donald Trump with a hooker squatting over him, pissing on his head. Apparently, in his defence, Trump says she was only dying his hair. Sounds reasonable to me. Good job it wasn’t brown though

As we chat I can’t help noticing that he’s continuously popping what look like blue pills. Shit.. I hope that thing doesn’t reach down this end of the table.. but on close inspection they’re not Viagra at all. They’re blue smarties. Fuck! That’s the problem. He’s been on 100% blue smarties diet for the last 5 years. No wonder he’s causing chaos. I tell him ‘Vlad. You’re being a very naughty boy. Now give me that big pile of smarties and calm down before any people get hurt’. That should sort it. You’re welcome.

On which note. The war, though not immediately obvious, is very much front and centre. e.g. This promotion at a fuel station.

And everywhere you go there are billboards trying to recruit for the army. I was coming cross country this evening after making another navigational fau paux, and I saw flags flying in field. As I got closer it’s the same story. A new graveyard full of fresh wreaths and headstones. Then the same again about an hour later. Seems to be the poorer towns are suffering the most.

Another random low rent hotel where the reception area is so dark I have to do everything by touch. I can hear a voice but can’t see anyone. A clean basic room, with a key not a card, and a transport cafe across the road. This is what I’m going to miss the most. I’m already feeling a bit sad about it TBH.

I go out for a quick walk. It’s a very small town. A beaten up school. Old houses and flats. And there are a lot of people walking about in their fatigues. Discretion being the better part of valour I decide to show some respect and hang low, keep out their way. I’m finding I’m really reluctant to relinquish Russia. I was going to do a short day today and stay near the border, but, as I sit in the dark in reception this morning and plug ‘home’ into google maps it tells me there are still 3000km to go. So I’m really going to have to get on with it.

It’s an easy ride. Lovely and warm, a good road and I’ve got it mostly to myself. I will miss Russia but it’s easy to become complacent about my situation here. Everything is absolutely fine, until it’s not. My travel insurance is invalid here because  gov says not to go, so I’m riding commando and trusting to luck. It’s a risk, and not one I’m entirely comfortable with, but no risk no reward.

I need to buy a souvenir, for myself. There is only one small town left before the border so I divert in looking for a taxi. I see a row of them, go to the front, jump off the bike and get my spanners out. He’s got the door open and he’s sprawled across the seats. I point at the spanner and ask where there is a shop. He just picks his nose and points. There is a tool shop directly behind me. Tool heaven.

Get near the border and fill up with the last of the cheap fuel. I’ve still got a shed load of Rubles that I can either use as toilet paper, or spend in the garage shop. So I buy 200 air fresheners, some plastic cutlery, 3 cans of random sprays because I like the colours, and 3 sets of windscreen wipers. Front and back obviously. Perfect.

Get to the border at 3. I’ve been through here before and it was quite quick. But that was before. That was before they decided to turn it into the C&*TIEST FUCKING BORDER IN THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD. Seriously, this border is manned solely by C*^T high fliers. The C&@TIEST OF THE C^*TS. The creme de la C&&T. AHHHHHHHHHH

There are only 4 cars outside the gate. As I arrive they let a couple of cars in. After 2 hours they let me and one other in. And the C*^TFEST begins. I have been through a lot of borders in my time and this one takes the C*^TING biscuit. I’ve got to go through customs. There is some fat trollop in the booth and she is NOT interested. The people that were let through before me 2 hours ago are still waiting here. Nothing is happening. At all. For hours. The trollop has had at least two 20 minute fag breaks and her mate goes in for frequent chats too. There are 3 cars here and me. Just 3, and nothing has happened. For hours. Then some other little snivelling C*%T comes to look over the bike. Usually takes 30 seconds. But no. ‘Open’ ‘what? The fuel cap?’ ‘Open!’ And then he points at the seat. ‘Open’. ‘What? I motion that’s going to take ages’ because I’ve got to unload the rack and unbolt it. He smirks, shrugs his shoulders and fucks off. And doesn’t come back. CUIUUUUU*T!!! Another hour goes past. Nothing. A Volvo randomly pulls up with  plates, entering Russia. It’s a Russian that lives about 5 miles from me in Southampton. He says people wait 2 or 3 days here. He’s really happy because he only waited 5 hours this time.

As he’s standing there the trollop comes over and starts ranting and pointing to my tyres. The Russian starts interpreting for me. ‘This fat mingmong C*^TESS says there’s a problem with these tyres. They’re illegal and must not have been imported to Russia’ I may have to pay a fine, and I must take them out. ‘WHAT EXACTLY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I’M DOING YOU USLESS MOUND OF QUIVERING FLESH!’. He tells me I need to wait. They will need to write a special ‘protocol’ to let me take them out. FUUUUUCK THIS SHIT. Get me Zelensky on the phone. NOW. I want to make a donation.

So, after another 30 minutes they wheel out yet another from their never ending supply of massive CU*TS to weigh my tyres, photograph them, and write the protocol. As we speak I’ve been waiting another hour already. It’s gone 9pm and I’m STILL FUCKING WAITING. CUUUUUNTTTTTS.

It’s nearly 10 now. I did wonder why “knackered uncomfortable wooden bench at Russian customs” appeared as an option on Booking.com this morning. I read one review. It just said “BUNCH OF C*^TS!”

11pm. The chief C&£T took me outside 30 minutes ago. Used translate to tell me he’s going to write the protocol now. What? What was that document that took you an hour to write and I just signed then? ‘The legislation has changed. It may take some time. An hour or two’. Just dipping your toe into Russian bureaucracy shows exactly how shit things can get, and how quickly. This isn’t going to be over any time soon

12:30am …. Forget Putin. I’m thinking of starting WWIII. Right here. Right now

2am. I’m wishing there was a WORSE WORD THAN CUUUUUUUUUU*T for this fucking giant KNOBBER. He’s still not finished. And now he’s disappeared somewhere. Probably to send his wife a 3 word text that he’s going to CHECK AND RECHECK AND RECHECK AND PRINT OUT AND RECHECK THEN CHECK AGAIN AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I WANT TO CRY 

3am. He’s printed it out. It’s 2ft thick. He gives me two pens. ‘Two pens?’ “Da. You’ll see”. Not even a Russian ballpoint is up to signing one of these documents. I’m in purgatory. Almost every page, often 3 or 4 times, the pen nob is overheating. I’m signing “William Wlberwank”, “Trevor Tosshandle”, “Yuri Youreacint”, “Benjamin Buttonpenis”. “Idont Giveafuck”.

3:15. It’s done. I’m through. “Niet my friend. Now we go to bank”.

I’m beaten. I’m submissive. I let him drag me across the room and through to the bank to pay a fine. A nana with one finger and one eye hits the keyboard like an old clock ticking..

3:30. “Can I go now please? I’m done. Finished. Take me round the back. Pick a hole. Any hole. Just let me go. Please.”

“Niet. Photo”. So now they bundle me into the back of a wankered 4×4 with no exhaust and we wake up everyone in a 50 mile radius to drive out the border post and back into Russia. He motions to me to get out. Him and his mate make me walk away from the car up the road. This is it. This is where I die. Or get all my holes filled with baby gravy. But he just makes me hold the tyres and takes a picture. Then he wants me to turn round and photograph me from behind for his person album. I don’t fucking care by now. .

They take me back to the bike. A beaten man. I do some more paperwork checks and finally they point to go. To the Latvian border.

The scores today.

Russia: 12 hours 40 minutes

Latvia: 10 minutes.

A freezing, foggy 40 mile ride and I have to ring the hotel bell and wake the night porter at 4:45am.

I’m still planning to come back next year though.

Next Page

I’m out and away early. The Bitch is half asleep too. Coughing and spluttering and generally scaring the shit out of me with her refusal to accept my direct instructions. I try not to dwell on it, but fail. In my head I’m nearly home. In my leathers I’m still in Kazakhstan.It’s another busy morning out on the plainsNormality I have to ride past miles of static trucks before a border but today there are maybe only half a dozen. Perhaps they’re all at church. It is Sunday morning after all.

Passport control here checks you have a valid visa for Russia before letting you go into nomansland. When I came into Kazakhstan I saw the fuckwit put the Kazakhstan stamps on the page opposite the Russian visa. I knew that would cause trouble as there is now no more room on that page. And sure enough she has to hunt trough my passport 5000 times in an impressive display of OCD to check for other Russian stamps. I have a double entry visa this time and she needs to be sure to be sure to be sure I’ve not been in twice already. And then she has to check again.

Get to the Russian border and there is a queue so I do the usual British thing and join the back. But people get out their cars and tell me to go to the front. They even move so I can get through. Very gentlemanly behaviour indeed

I queue up and hand the lady my passport. I see her pick up her phone. Here we go. She gives me a proper evil state and takes the passport from the next person. After 10 minutes a clean and tidy bloke in a different uniform comes out and goes into her booth for a chat before coming up to me. He speaks good English. His first words are ‘Welcome to Russia. We have a problem’. Good start. ‘And you need to wait’. Ok then. At least it’s not a straight ‘Niet’. He supervises a good check of my luggage then he starts asking me questions.

‘Can i have your phone?’ I hand it over, unlock it and he spends a few minutes looking at my pictures.

‘Has anyone in Kazakhstan spoken to you in English?’ What?

And I just knew this was coming. ‘What do you think about the political situation?’ Can i phone a friend? I have a real aversion to lying regardless of the consequences. So I tell him his leader is a psychopathic megalomaniac intent on destroying the world… in my head.. because I never lie to myself.. but after a brief pause I just take a very careful walk through the political minefield spread out in front of me and just about manage not to blow myself to pieces. He’s absolutely impossible to read though. Could have gone either way. ‘You have to wait’ and off he goes again. I just sit on the ground, read my book and pretend this isn’t happening. 30 minutes later he’s back, my passport has been processed and I’m free to go. He’s only doing his job.

I’m let loose outside the gate and I’m back on Russian soil. If nothing else it just serves to remind me. If i attract the wrong sort of attention here and fall into the Russian beurocratic digestive system then I’m unlikely to be shat out for a very long time.

I may be in but it’s still 160 miles to any sort of proper civilisation. Saratov is my destination, on the Volga. But it’s still a few hours away. So I stop in a village where there is a scruffy cafe. It feels off somehow. Everyone is scowling. No handshakes. Nobody asking where you’re from. No engagement at all. It doesn’t feel right. My spider sense is flashing the exit sign so I just up and leave.

As I’m riding out the village I see a riot of colour down to my right. There are lots and lots of huge burial wreaths all over a piece of land, and what to me looks like a very disproportionate amount of brand new headstones. Ummmm.

Cross the massive Volga river and get to a hotel I stayed in 10 years ago. It was an old Soviet style one then and it hasn’t changed. I’m on the 10th floor and I go to put my boots on the balcony. I don’t think I’ll be leaning on the handrail. And there is a fucking great crack along the wall too. Good job this is only the 10th floor. If I was on the 11th I’d be shitting myself standing out here. Go for the usual afternoon wander but leave my inspiration back in my room. Never mind. These will have to do.

It’s time to stop messing about now and put some miles in. I need to split Russia into 3 days so I’ve picked a random point south of Moscow to aim at. I thought it would be about 350. The satnav says 440. Nothing I can do about that, just twist and go. This is where riding alone comes into its own. Only myself to worry about. Only my arse on the line.

Stop for fuel. Go to start The Bitch and she’s playing up again. Not starting for a few tries. She’s been doing it on and off for a while but the other day in the middle of Kazakhstan I thought she wasn’t going to start at all. Same at the Russian border yesterday. You know I swear that recently when the Russian’s bike wouldn’t start, I went to help and left The Bitch facing one way but when I turned round she had turned herself round to watch. She sees the Russian’s hike getting her G-Spot attended to and she thought ‘hey, I need a bit of that action’

So now she’s fucking with my head. Every start is a mind game. Will she/wont she. As I’m riding through the relentless tree lined tarmac tunnel I remember what this problem is. Christ knows what’s taken me so long. This feels like the exact same problem I had when I rode to Vladivostok in 2018.

The Bitch’s stater doesn’t engage directly with a flywheel like on a car, or some bikes. It’s a series of cogs. A cog on the end of the starter has a torque limiter, basically an interference fit that can only take so much torque. That cog connects to another bigger cog that has a sprag clutch onto the crankshaft. The problem is that the torque limiter seems to wear, and then it just spins without turning over the engine. Now I’m sure some of you didn’t understand a word of that, but it’s something I could well live without.

So I do the whole day with 2 only stops. And a very near miss. It’s inevitable that doing this many miles you’re going to have a ‘moment’ or two.

I’m riding along about 65 round a long left hand bend. Nothing in front, but a couple of trucks coming towards me. Just as the lead truck is about to reach me, a car that’s been hiding right under the truck”s bumper suddenly lurches out of nowhere to overtake. I’ve got headlights aiming straight at me and no time to think. All I can do is press the bars hard and swerve to the right. The driver grabs the wheel and pulls the car back and we pass each other maybe a meter apart. Imagine putting a draw string on your sphincter, and tying the end of it to a puppy, then throwing the puppy a ball. The moment that puppy runs out of rope is that moment I miss the car. It’s all just part of the game though.

Around dusk I’m riding along and there is a huge open field to my right. I see something coming towards me flying really low, maybe a couple of 100ft. It’s a UAV, quite large, presumably Russian. It does a sudden climb and a sharp turn and it’s gone. Maybe it saw me watching it.

I’ve done the 440 and I’m looking for a bed. There has only been one city and a few conurbations but nothing very significant. Russia really is a vast country. Every 30-40 miles there are truck stops and random scruffy hotels and cafes along the roadside. It’s luck of the draw. And it looks like luck is on my side tonight. Basic. Clean. A cafe. I may have to share my room with a random but who cares. This is what it’s all about. The different places. The ones that fall between the cracks.

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The Russia has been suffering the last couple of days. I think he’s consummated every toilet in the last 200 miles. So I left him to sleep and went out for a walk, and another shave. I’m determined to get a good wet shave this trip and it’s not happened so far. Walk in. Very hot towel. Good start. He’s not a Master but he’s doing ok. Feels nice and smooth, just a spray of something nice to finish. He grabs a can from the table, covers my eyes, and in an impressive slight of hand swaps the can for a petrol pump and pours 95 octane into all my open pours.

FUUUUUUUUCK THAT!! It’s a bloody good job I chose an S&M barber that’s for sure. If he hadn’t bound and handcuffed me to the chair and put a pool ball in my mouth when I sat down, then I’d have surely bitten my tongue clean off and hit the sodding roof.

I wander back looking for dinner. As I walk past all the queueing traffic, every car I pass starts revving. Must be my new cologne. Still, it does t stop me having the best meal of the trip so far. Oh yea. I need some new socks, so I spent 4 hours in here looking for a new pair. They only had some rubber ones, in different flavours apparently, and some with spikes on the inside. I presume that’s to aid circulation. I went for the spikes. Bit uncomfortable with my bike boots on but I quite like to suffer occasionally,  it makes me feel alive.

The Russian took some drugs last night, but this morning he’s still Russian.. to the toilet every 2 minutes. Poor bugger. It all stems from some Plov that we had at the rubbish dump in Murgab the other night. I ate one forkful and it tasted off. It tasted vaguely sweet like it had been retrieved from a month old takeaway box left on the sun. I only had the one forkful and it was enough to force me into leaving a big deposit of fly food during an emergency evacuation at the side of the lake the next day. But the Russian ate the lot.

So this morning I went for a huge fat boy English breakfast at the place I ate last night then we went for a tour of the Bishkek public conveniences. Just another city. Same same but different.

I only bought my ‘day’ eyes with me because I didn’t think we’d be riding at night. The Russian wants to stay for a while to try and wring his bowel dry so I leave him to join me later and head out of Kyrgystan and back into Kazakhstan. It’s a very busy border but it’s as quick and simple as it gets. In. Out. Shake it all about.

The road initially runs west for 150 miles back along the Kyrgystan border. It’s quite sad looking at the mountains. It’s like looking over your rich neighbours fence, when his athletic wife is playing tennis, after a swim. Forget I said that. That’s what happens when my brain has little to do. It wanders. It wonders. And she doesn’t play tennis either. She’s the captain of the Yummy Mummies beach volleyball team. Forget I said that too. Look at some mountains from afar like I did.

Tonight’s hotel is in the basement of the bargain basement’s basement again. It looks ok. But it has just a couple of minor flaws. The door to the room looks normal, but has a problem in that it only lets 80% of my body pass through it.

The enclosed shower cubicle also seems to be mounted on 2 marbles. When you get in it moves, tips and has you falling about all over the place. It appears, using only the powers of deduction you understand, to be an anti self-abuse prototype. Should someone be foolish enough to start burping their worm in the cubicle, it will fall on its side trapping the incumbent inside until the masterbation police can turn up to arrest them.

Yep you’re right…. It’s a slow news day.

Today is a head down, arse up day. As luck would have it there is an uncommon event happening this evening that the Russian and I are keen to witness if we can. We are in the vicinity anyway. In Kazakhstan, 450 miles away definitely counts as ‘in the vicinity’.

So it’s fuel, tarmac, and a long day playing catski and mouseki with the police.

With a short stop in Kzylorda for plov. The Russian will we riding alone tomorrow as he needs to do some big miles to be home in Moscow in 5 days.

I did think about going with him. Back in the mists of time when I was young and owned a comb, my arse was rock solid. It was so hard you wouldn’t be able to drive a nail into it. After I did an iron butt bun burner gold ride of over 1500 miles in 24 hours, Penzance to John O’Groats and back to Penzance, my wife very kindly suggested she’d like to put that theory to the test. She hired a nail gun, voluntarily dressed up like Sarah Connor, which was nice, and tried putting a full clip into my backside. The result? Bent nails. But now I’m over 60 and my arse is soft and wrinkly like a deflated balloon you find behind the couch three weeks after a birthday party.

So I decided I’m going to just keep the miles down. We did 450 today and the balloon just about stayed inflated but I don’t want to push my luck any further. A burst arse would be a problem to fix out here.

Anyhow. We eventually get to the semi-derelict building that will be our beds for the night. It’s a tip. It’s falling apart, the bathroom has biohazard written all over it and the place smells like it was decorated by Bobby Sands. There are probably only 3 or 4 other people I know that would stay here, and 2 or 3 of those live inside my head with me.

But the Nana in charge tells us we can watch the even out of the bedroom window.

We need to negotiate a price. These rooms are obviously in high demand. This isn’t something you can see every day. If this was  in the USA we’d have had to book it 2 years ago and sell a kidney to pay for it. I’m wondering if I have enough cash on me. But then she says ‘3000 each’.

‘What? Pounds? Dollars?’

‘Niet. Tenge’

So, that’s about £4.50 for the room for the night with a (long distance) view of the Baikonor launch site out the window. I think that’s what would be generally considered to be a bloody bargain.

I don’t know what the ‘right place right time’ odds are for this sort of thing, but, I was randomly in Florida on holiday and managed to see a Space Shuttle launch. Twice.  And now I’m here in Baikonor on a launch day too. My life does sometimes seem to be a series of very fortunate events.

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When I wake up this morning and sit up, the pillow comes with me. My beard has Velcro’d itself to my chin in the night. It’s now as long as my, almost nonexistent, hair and it’s difficult to work out which way up to put my head on in the morning. I need to get that sorted today.

But first I need to attend to The Bitch. She is due a blood transfusion and I know just the place. Zorro’s. Owned by a Swiss bloke, obviously. They rent bikes and also space and facilities for you to do things like change the oil. Or in The Bitch’s case, conduct an enema.

Get the tools out and it seems the rough roads have triggered the can of tyre sealant in the panniers. It hasn’t even sealed the holes in my tool bag. Fuck load of use that would have been then.

Anyway, I buy her the most expensive oil they have. Fully synthetic Motul 10/40. She more than deserves it. Adjust the chain a fraction, tighten some bolts and she’s ready for another 5000 miles back to her bed.. hopefully.

Fire her up, ride her back to the hotel and she’s purring away like the Cadburys Bunny… if she were a kitten.

Get out to find a beard doctor. But first my lips. They’re buggered. Chapped, sunburned and bone dry like I’ve been kissing The Bitch’s red hot engine goodnight. Walk into a chemist, point at my lips, and Katie Perry hands me a strawberry chapstick with a wink. She’s gone off cherry apparently.

Find a barber but they don’t wet shave. First world problems. So he uses a chainsaw instead. Whatever works.

Descend into the dark world of the have nots. Where people sit on a pavement all day everyday selling the same thing as the people either side of them until they die, whereupon their body is removed and the next generation takes over.

Five minutes walk and I’m in a cafe with the haves. Latte, warm mini quiche and a chocolate tartlet (I do love a tartlet). ‘How much?’ ‘£3 please’. ‘I beg your pardon?’ Ridiculous. You get so used to big numbers nowadays it’s often quite shocking.

I went back to the market to find something to secure my screen. I really wanted some ‘fat bird knicker elastic’ but all they could offer was something with the tension of a Thai tart’s tickle tackle. Markets always make my camera happy though

The Bitch knows it’s time to head towards home now. She’s caught the scent and she wants to run. If you habitually walk out and leave immediately after the climax then it’s been nice having you along for the ride. I appreciate your eyes making writing this fantasy/fact hybrid worthwhile. If you’re going to stick around as I descend from this euphoric high and back to reality then you’re more than welcome to stay and (hopefully) watch the miles roll by. I’d be very happy to have you along. Who knows, it might even be fun.

I point the little motorcycle on my satnav north and we’re off. Homeward bound. Still a long way off but every turn of the wheels is taking me in the right direction.

The whole morning my lungs are being beaten black and blue. I don’t want to breathe in. If it’s not the black spot of an overloaded 50 year old truck struggling up a mountain at 5mph, then it’s the blue smoke of an ancient Mercedes saloon with piston rings that fit the bore about as tightly as a catholic with 15 kids fits his wife.

Luckily I have a solution. K&N, purveyors of washable motorcycle air filters contacted me before this trip and asked me to prototype a pair of washable lung linings that travellers like me can have fitted. It’s not a pleasant operation. Removing and washing them is also an uncomfortable experience. And children, always remember not to remove lung lining 2 when lung lining 1 is still drying over the back of a chair. I did. I nearly died. Good job I can hold my breath for 20 minutes.

Anyway I used my rest day wisely and washed my lung linings yesterday. The bath looked like the whole of a colliery had used it after a shift.

And today they’re getting another battering as we head up towards Bishkek. It’s a dull few hours fighting idiot drivers that seem to have come direct from the doctors having been told they only have minutes left to live.

My camera also asked for a sleep in too. Apparently I’ve been overusing it and now it insists that its shutter gets some shuteye.

But 60 miles from the hotel that all changes. Mountains, vividly coloured water and smooth twisty roads you say? It would be rude not to.

Tonight’s destination is Toktogul Lake. Just a small one. Nothing special. And we are the only guests in a huge old soviet hotel. You know how that story usually ends.

Well you didn’t expect me to just go cold turkey did you. There is plenty of time for that later. We.. well the Russian.. gets chatting to a few locals on the beach. All drinking vodka before driving 49km back home through the mountains. They give me a HUGE shot and look at me. Fuck. My empty stomach immediately sends messages to my brain to suspend all cognitive function and I’m immediately completely wankered.

Today in the last day in the mountains. Still they’ll still be here if I come back. As long as I don’t leave it 20 million years.

Our hotel is bathed in morning sunshine. Our destination mountains are getting bathed in rain. We can see curtains of it falling on the horizon. But we live in hope. After an hour or so the rain starts so we stop to put the gimp suits on. The Russian’s bike won’t turn over. ‘I know what this is’ he says as he goes all motorcycle gynaecologist, sticks his fingers inside his bike and pulls out its G-spot. He then proceeds to short across its 2 little pink terminals and with a big spark the bike leaps into life. He looks well versed at it. Maybe it’s how he gets his wife started. I did notice that the lead he used was pink with hearts on . Russian women are notoriously difficult to get going.. apparently..

Off-road tyres and rain go together like tits and scissors. And I’d have done well to remember that as I entered a small village in the storm. I see a dog on the side of the road. He’s going to go for me. He’s off and running and he’s obviously been in training. The bastard is on course for an imminent appointment with my front wheel. So.. I change down two gears, accelerate hard, and mimic a slow motion sequence from The Matrix. The back wheel just kicks straight out and I’m massively sideways (probably about an inch) The front tyre and the dog’s nose kiss gently just as I steer and throttle back to bring the bike back into line. The Bitch could have done that herself but sometimes she likes to dare me. I can feel her laughing between my legs.. that’s not the first time I’ve experienced that sensation either

We’ve got some high passes to cross and as we climb the temperature drops. In the summer the mountains are awash with bees making мед, but now all the bees have carefully cleaned the nectar off their fur with their little honeycombs and flown south for the winter.

Get to the top of the first pass and it’s down near zero. Time to put the smugglers on then But the budgie has flown. I checked the nest . it”s been completely abandoned.

The next 60 miles are fucking freezing. We climb another pass, through some snow clouds chucking it all over the road, through a long tunnel and emerge to a mercifully dry, but still nipple tensingly cold descent back to ground level to defrost.

The ride into Bishkek is the usual bitch. It’s a massive one way system. The one way to do it is to look after number one and ride like a water droplet running down a window pain. Dodge and weave and jig and jink your way though it.

My Russian friend wants to travel a bit less exuberantly than I do so tonight we’re staying at a hostel. Now. Listen. Next time you balk at the price of a hotel room compared to that of a hostel remember this. A hotel spends money on signage so you can find the fucking place. It isn’t just a random door on a floor above a barber shop. A hotel pays a receptionist to take your money. It doesn’t ask you to get a card machine out the cupboard, plug it in, put in the amount you want to pay then hold your card against it. And when that doesn’t work the receptionist is unlikely to ask you to phone a random number and make an international bank transfer, and when that doesn’t work she’s unlikely to tell you to hide the cash In a cupboard and say she’ll collect it later. And hotel rooms give you your own bathroom, which is unlikely to contain enough hair in the shower trap to allow you to create a massive wig and become a Tina Turner tribute act.

But apart from that it’s perfect. You’ll also be glad to know that international bedroom borders are still being respected.

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When I awoke this morning all was well. The Russian hadn’t tried to occupy my half off the room. All he had done was to arrange half a dozen tanks facing me from the high ground of the windowsills and wardrobe. Seems fair enough.

We’ve only got 145 miles to do today. I always make the mistake of asking people what the road is like. I don’t know why I do it. ‘Well the first 144.9 is absolutely shit but the last 0.1 is fine’.

But. I do remember this bit. It’s not in the bin. It’s in my favourites. It’s one of the places my brain was showing reruns to convince me to take the harder route. One of the most beautiful places I know. It’s takes some effort to get to, and a lot of the time part of me is saying ‘why the fuck do you get into these situations?’, but then, a thankfully much larger part is saying ‘thank God you do’.

It’s a fucking hard day there is no doubt about it. The Bitch is definitely going to file for assault and battery as soon as we get home, but that machine is just incredible. Big respect to anything that can take such a massive beasting and keep moving.

A few days ago I missed a target for this journey. I hoped to find a priest that previously blessed my bike at a little village across the water from Afghanistan. I phoned him up. Made an appointment. Arraigned a time and place but he never showed up. Probably busy ironing his dress.

The today the ‘Blessing’ light came up on The Bitch’s dashboard. Oh shit. But one of my Angels obviously saw it and arranged an upgrade. Actual Jesus. As I live and breathe.

We overtook a group of 3 mental cyclists struggling in the mountains and stoped a few minutes later for pictures when they came and stopped for a chat. One of them was wearing a head covering with dense beard poking out. I told him he needed a shave. Fact is, he is travelling incognito, but he is actual Jesus. Reborn as a tall German. Who would have thought. He’s been travelling all over and he says he was actually first recognised in Iran from pictures they have of Jesus in their holy books. And then all the Iranians were calling him it all the time.

I asked him if he’d actually considered saving the world now he’s been resurrected but he just said he’d had a think about it, he thinks it’s way beyond saving, and he thinks one of his rivals has hacked the gene pool so he decided to say ‘fuck it’ and ride round the world on a bike instead. But he did deign to bless The Bitch for me.

Started her up, the light’s gone out. Job done.

When we get to the tarmac road my bike is shouting that something is wrong. The panniers have collapsed again, a common occurrence and mainly caused by my monkey mechanics, but a massive shit none the less. The Russian and I take them all off and replace some bolts but one has sheared and we can’t get the head out. Fuckidy tits and arse biscuits, buggery fart flaps and cock wombles.

We’re at Mogarb tonight. A tiny town at the end of the road. It looks like a refuse tip that’s come alive. People have crawled out the rubbish and made what they can in order to survive. But it does have lifeblood fuel. Served by a Nana from plastic bottles.

And it’s the home of The Master. Yep. I couldn’t believe it either. Jesus and The Master on the same day. The hotel is like your nan’s house. Falling apart, never updated, showers with walls thick with unmentionable fluids, and decor a gypsy would baulk at but who cares.

My Russian friend is keen to get this snapped bolt out. He has a word with reception to see if there is anyone that can help. Yes there is. ‘The Master’. Ok then. His assistant arrives on a bike and we follow him to the hideout… I mean squalid yard in the depths of the dump. Do you want to see ‘The Master’ at work? Now I must admit he’s aged quite badly, and changed race, but here he is at work with his sonic screwdriver. Gets the bolt out in no time and goes back to his time lord duties/working in the dirt keeping alive things that really should be dead. Like the NHS really. Still jobs a goodun and it’s fixed. Ready for another day of the same tomorrow 

The last few days I’ve been ignoring a problem. I’m well practiced at that. I could probably run courses on it. I even carry a bucket of sand with me to stick my head in.

I’ve ridden into Kyrgystan maybe 4 or 5 times through different border points and never needed a visa. The uk gov website says you don’t need one. The internet says you don’t need one. But, just by chance, the Australian I was speaking to last Sunday mentioned in passing about a ‘permit’. Apparently you cannot cross this southern border without a permit now. It’s impossible. No permit. No entry. They turf you out the crossing back into nomansland. You need to apply at least 3 days in advance. So I needed to apply Monday. He gave me a random WhatsApp number, I contacted it and the number said he could do it. I rode off into internet/phone silence. Monday evening I get a WhatsApp wanting more info. I reply but don’t get any response. Then I’m off into the boonies. No internet from then on.

Last night I spent an hour in the pitch black following a drunken mumbling elf in a pointed hat who clearly didn’t have a clue where he was going. Wandering around the rubbish dump to hunt down a random pile of rocks where I’d been told to pay $15 for the permit. A young man appears out the dark and takes the money. Says he doesn’t know if my permit is done. The internet has been down for 4 days. He’s says ‘probably’ be ok. Ok then. Thanks mate. Maybe I’ll just use half a bucket of sand then.

As I jump start my old bones out of bed I look at the floor at my pile of dirty, worn, battle scared kit waiting for me. My leathers are so crusted with sweat and dust they’re more like a suit of armour. All the zips on my bags are snagging and struggling. The clothes are filthy, my wash bag needs washing, my boots are humming all sorts of unsavoury tunes and my socks could be dropped by drone in a war zone. But I don’t see them like that at all. They’re all doing their job perfectly. They’re in this adventure with me. They’re scared and beaten but we’re all in it together. I love worn things. I love to close my eyes and run my fingers over my kit. Every nick and tear and mark is a memory. A bookmark into my in-brain entertainment system that can start a rerun in my head and take me to my happy places.

So. Head in sand. Off we go again. Head out, wave goodbye to Stig (of the dump) and track north.

This part of the route is, yet again, a montage of scenic masterpieces. It’s like wandering through the warehouse of ‘Mountains R Us’. It’s just bloody incredible. The road is tarmac and decent enough at first to let your eyes loose for a few seconds and breathe it all in. Deep deep breaths.

And then we get an even bigger high. Up to about 4600m. The sky is clear, the light is right, what a day to be alive.

Had enough of mountains. How about the bluest lake you’ve ever seen. Lake Karakul. Looks too blue to be true. Amazing.. again.

And just when you think you’ve seen everything, you come across a couple of Italians taking their dog for a very very very long walk.

The road predictably turns to absolute rat shit about 20km from the Tajikistan border but we climb again towards the roof of the world and touch the clouds.

I’m busting for a piss so I walk towards the edge but a guard shouts to use the ‘toilet’. I know that won’t be good, especially up here. It’s just 2 planks of wood resting precariously about a foot above a pyramid of stinking, warm fly food. As I look down to pee my sunglasses fall off and I just manage to catch them in a full on ninja swipe. If they go down, even if I can reach out and pull them out, even if they’re the most expensive sunglasses in the world, then they’re dead to me

Out of Tajikistan and 20km of nomansland. And certainly noroadbuildermansland. Large sections are a proper full on assault course, but a spectacularly beautiful assault course none the less.

Ok. Time to get out the bucket. We’re at the border. And just to make me even more apprehensive there is a Russian standing outside the fence that has been stood there 2 days already because he didn’t know he needed a permit. There is absolutely nothing there. No support. No food. No water. Nothing.

I stick my head in the bucket and ask the Russian to lead me into the compound, feeling the condemned man walking to the gallows. I’m waiting for the trapdoor to open. Waiting .. waiting .. there are footsteps.. and a tap on the shoulder and a very great sigh of relief. The permit has come through and I’m in. I was never really worried at all

So welcome to Kyrgystan. The weather is coming in and the wind is blowing sand and gravel across the road in clouds. But because he’s Russian my mate says he’s going to try and ride to Mount Lenin base camp about 30 miles away and camp. Of course he is. He’s probably going to spend the night half naked, up to his tits in snow, full of vodka singing Patrioticheskaya Pesnya.

It’s getting late so I head north 3 hours to Osh for a warm bed and proper food. I’ve forgotten what that feels like.

Hello old friend. I’ve missed you.

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I went to bed with the words of the Australian ringing in my ears. ‘Leave by 4:30’. Well that ringing didn’t transfer to my alarm. Fuck that! I’m not riding that road in the dark. I’d rather wait at some roadworks than wait in the morgue.

The light was just beginning to come as I gingerly put my front tyre on the sandy road and headed off about 5:30. Slowly does it. The road has a few brand new sections of about 2/3km each but the rest is still absolutely completely and utterly trashed. It’s worse than the Uzbek border road. Still, the scenery is ok.

I phoned up one of the Chinese contractors last night for a chat. I asked him to arrange a perfect piece of road where the sun would rise in a huge yellow ball and illuminate throw sharp rays of light across the water. Looks like I owe him one.

It’s still early and I’m clearly riding through some of the road works but I’m not stopping until I’m forced too. Some of the riding is seriously massively shit. Lots of steep cuts and diversions, sharp rocks, fine sand, mud. But mostly it’s the roughness of the road. It’s a proper bastard.

As I rode I ask myself, as I hit another hole and my balls hit my boots, would I rather have the rough or the smooth. And surprisingly I think I’d go for the smooth. It’s all well and good smashing the bike to bits and feeling like a riding God but I’m over 6000 miles from home and I need this machine to keep itself together and get me there. And the smooth would allow me to really look at all this incredible scenery instead of concentrating 300% on the road.

I keep dodging and riding past working trucks and equipment. One fucker turned on his bloody water hoses on as I was crawling past and I was left struggling up a muddy wet hill. Wanker.

Anyway. Eventually I was stopped. It was 7:30. The little bloke said it opens at 11:30 for an hour. But cyclists kept coming up and being let through. So eventually I convinced him to let me try too. I won’t do that again! Dodging fucking great loaders with 10 tonne rocks in their buckets in clouds of dust. I think I lost a few angels in those few minutes

The miles are crawling down. I’ve got 150 to do and I’ve done 45 by 12. Honestly. If I had a ‘beam me up Scottie’ button I’d have been bashing that thing with a hammer.

Then I hear a funny noise. I really don’t find funny noises funny. The panniers have collapsed again, and the tyre is being cut. I can’t fix it here so lash it all up and add it to my ever growing list of worries.

When I finally make it to the hotel I’m completely fucked. I’m way too old for this shit. My legs are shaking and I’m leaning to the right for some reason. Still, I guess I always have really. But I’m alive

I attend to The Bitch. Replace some bolts check her for bruises. The bracket on the auxiliary tank has cut into the edge of the tyre. You can see the clean black line round the edge. And taken from behind, as indeed is the Bitch’s preference, you can see the blocks on the left have been cut. Still, it’s only got to last another 5/6000 miles

And the road is so rough it has also destroyed my socket handle .. which is convenient.The next few days. More the same. Pray for me

Lots of bad dreams last night. I was glad to open my eyes and escape them. I can’t remember anything much about this next section. I think it’s called the Wakam corridor. Another ribbon laid down along the river between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. But first breakfast, or the terrace. Best coffee I’ve had for ages. The place is basic but clean and the bloke is very helpful. TBH I’d book it again for the coffee alone.

It’s very unlike me to bin a memory. In my whole life I’ve never binned enough to need it emptied. So it must have been bad. That’s my conclusion as I wander about making excuses not to go. To delay the terror and pain.

But when I finally get going I’m wondering what I was worried about. It’s a beautiful little strip of road. And it’s even smooth enough to keep all my unsecured body parts wothin a few inches of their designed location. I can watch across the river and see Afghan kids running about, people tending animals and working in the fields. It’s like an EYEMax super experience.

And it goes on and on and on. A beautiful wonderful ride through fields and small villages with the mountains keeping watch.

We get to some loose corrugated road and The Bitch asks me if I want to dance. I’m a shit dancer but if it keeps her happy I’m willing to try. Whenever we hit the corrugations I open the throttle and skim across the top with The Bitch dancing underneath me. I let he find her own rhythm, hold the bars lightly and let her lead.

The corrugations are making the bracket rub on the tyre and I have to do something. I’m going to have to twat it with a rock. But not just any old rock. Twatting rocks are graded according to the application. Too small and it’s about as effective as hitting a nail with your tongue. Too big and it’s like squashing an ant with a meteorite. No. There is a scientific calculation.

Enjoyment of twatting (100) times level of frustration (3) minus likelihood of serious and irreparable damage (150) minus ‘middle of bum fuck nowhere’ chance of recovery (144.6). So I need a 5.4 grade rock. Now as luck would have it I appear to have stopped at one of the world’s largest rock shops.

After an hour or two I find a 5.4, give the bracket a twatting, and it makes fuck all difference

Ah well. I’ll just have to forget about it and enjoy the ride.

I’ve got 40 miles to go. Jesus, I’ll be there in no time. What am I going to do all afternoon. Maybe go for a swim, or a sauna. Or, maybe not.

I come to a section of deep gravel and corrugations. I know the theory. Get off the bike. Call recovery. And get in a fuck off great big 4×4. But given I don’t have that option I have to get on my knees and crawl. This is why I binned this memory. 40 miles of gravel. I’m crawling along and the bike is overheating. I can maybe do 5 miles and I have to stop because it’s litterally boiling. I can hear it bubbling like a kettle. Good job I’ve got a good book with me. I’m sat reading and another bike comes the other way. First I’ve seen for days. A French bloke. Says he saw some others on Ktm’s with the exact same problem. 40 miles. 4 hours and a seriously strained sphincter.

Get to the 1 horse village where fuel is sold out the can. A Russian bloke turns up on a  bike swearing about the road too. I’ve just got the last room at the home stay. ‘You can share?’ ‘Err ..Ok’. So tonight I’m sleeping with the enemy.

There is absolutely nothing to do here. It’s 3 houses, a shop, a few dogs and 3 big 4×4 Pamir taxis that ferry tourists from Osh to Dushanbe. So I go to the shop with the russian and play ‘guess something they don’t sell’. We had to stop playing after 6 hours and still hadn’t guessed.

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I’m really tempted to put some of this oil in The Bitch to see what happens. I mean it has all the right things on it. But that doesn’t always guarantee the contents does it. I mean the omission of a single word can change everything. If I write MASSIVE on the front of my pants it doesn’t magically morph my maggot into a monster does it.

And for those about to get into their solicitor and prosecute me under the trade descriptions act, I’ve since qualified my sausage signage with the word ‘DISAPPOINTMENT! !’. I even had a very nice young lady come round from the council. She read the sign then carefully unwrapped and inspected the contents before agreeing that in her opinion, the banner did in fact describe the contents perfectly.

But that was where the disappointment ended for today. The Uzbek border was a 20 minute breeze and the Tajik one took about the same though it helps if you’ve been there before. The only thing that keeps worrying me these borders is the way they look at me, then look back in the queue for other bikes. Then they say ‘один?’ Alone? And I’m left wondering if they mean ‘are you brave or stupid?’, or, ‘ok I’ll just phone my brothers and tell them to wait up the road with their Ak-47s and some rubber gloves’.

Anyway, as is often the case, you cross the border and everything suddenly changes. If there weren’t any people in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan there would be no reason to go. At heart they are flat featureless deserts, but Tajikistan had the forethought to grab all the scenery and lasso their border round it. What’s this I see? Mountains? Fuck yea.

Getting closer..

And Closer ..

The scale is getting more and more outstanding as we go. The road has to bend and buckle to the will of the mountains. They’re trying to build a new road but at the moment you’re on the original. Oh well.

At the very top you have to go through a tunnel. The Anzob Tunnel. Affectionately known as ‘The Tunnel of Death’. I forgot about this tunnel until I was about half way through, and half dead. It’s very claustrophobic, 2 way, 5km long, unventilated and largely unlit. It’s also on a slope so the old trucks chuff out clouds of blue smoke and scream like tortured demons as they go. It’s hell on wheels. You can’t see. Your eyes and throat sting and your ears are confused by all the noise and echos. But as the light slowly comes towards you and pops you out, then you get your prize.

Fuck sake. This place is absolutely incredible. I’d forgotten just how beautiful this section is. I’m properly in awe. I’m already planning my next visit. Wanna come. Go on. You know you do.

Get to Dushanbe and it’s just another big boring city. Standard buildings. Standard shops. These bloody ‘Bark at Your Dog’.. ‘Bury Your Dad’.. ‘Build Your Dreams’ Chinese taxis absolutely everywhere too.

Go out for some dinner at a place that has slop pots to choose from. “A bowl of those stuffed lungs from a very tiny cadaver please, I’m sure they’ll be fine”.

And you know what, they were bloody delicious.

I don’t like it here particularly, but that’s not the point. The man made stuff, I can take it or leave it. But I know Mother Nature made a real effort not far from here and that’s where I’m aiming.

After I’ve spent the night in my converted ballroom.

After dinner last night I was chatting to the owner of this bike.

Now normally I avoid people like this like the plague. They’re almost invariably insufferable knobs. The bike is covered in more stickers than a Tesco pork pie sitting on the ‘reduced’ shelf at 11pm on a Saturday night. “I went to Ky”.. “BEEN THERE. 15 TIMES ACTUALLY. GOING AGAIN NEXT WEEK”.. “I really liked T” “WELL I LIVED THERE FOR 5 YEARS AND FATHERED 12 CHILDREN. ONE IS NOW THE PRIME MINISTER”. No. They’re not for me but in this case maybe I just have to acknowledge the presence of a superior traveler. I’m certainly not going to get into a willy waving competition with him. Not after my one star sausage rating from the local council.

This bloke is an Australian. From Sydney. Though he is a Malaysian resident and has a Malay wife who travels with him. He’s going into Afghanistan today then into Pakistan then India and Nepal to fly the bike somewhere. He’s been travelling for 4 years. He was good to talk to. He listened. He asked. He answered. Good bloke. But he gave me some bad news about the Pamir.

It seems the Chinese delivered the Tajiks a massive roll of ready made road that they are busy laying over sections of the beautiful, rough, challenging Pamir highway. The Chinese are obviously famous for respecting these cultural icons and the will of the locals so they’re busy destroying large sections of what was one of the most beautiful roads to ride. The top, high sections are currently safe but it will come you can be sure. If you want to do it. Do it now. It might already be too late.

Get out the city and into the hills. Roads are perfect. Scenery is ‘acceptable’.

And without her asking, I even let The Bitch take a look.

Every so often there’s a small town, always with at least 99% of the population trying to cross from one side to the other. The other 1% taking it in turns to back out in front of me or squeeze me into oncoming traffic. I enjoy the challenge but I know one mistake and I’m fucked.

Then someone falls over in the World Scenery office and knocks the spectaculometer to 15.. possibly even 20. It’s just fucking bananas. The scale is off the scale. You can just see some roads where it winds down into the valley below. I’ve got birds of prey playing on the thermals, daring themselves like small jets, suddenly appearing from below my sight line and soaring up while screaming and laughing to themselves. It’s a truly incredible, unforgettable experience.
Eventually I come to a barrier across the road. We’re near the Afghan border now and you need an extra stamp on your visa to get access. I’ll get checked regularly now. And I’m in. A few miles later and here we are. I feel like driving over to see if they would like to sign my helmet or put a bullet through it. Apparently you can get a visa on the border at the moment but I’ve just run clean out of brave tablets. My bad.

So here was have it. Afghanistan on one side of the river and Tajikistan on the other. Lots of soldiers marching about on this side though which is new. And this is where the Chinese have replaced the old narrow rough worn road with a brand spanking new one.. so I really should spank it shouldn’t I. What a rediculous ride that is. I’m hammering along a silky twisty river road and watching Afghanistan pass by my right shoulder. I watch some Afghans on small bikes riding in the dust just a stones throw away. What must they be thinking?

Sometimes I ask myself if this is real. Sometimes I reach for the back of my head to see if I’m in the matrix. Sometimes it dawns on me just what an outrageously lucky old twat I am.

When I get to Kalaikum I deliberately choose to punish myself by staying in a shitty hostel where all the flies hang out. It looks like there is very little business happening. No other bikes at all.

And from ballroom to not much ball room tonight

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