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.