Don’t do this adventuring thing. Just don’t. Ever.
Woke up thinking what the actual FUUUCK have I got myself into here. This is really not good at all.
My Russian mate has given me an address of a ‘bike post’ about 100 miles away. These are a network of community run sort of road houses where bikers can meet, stay, eat and hopefully help each other. I’m thinking this will be a waste of time but it’s Saturday and the freighters he suggested will most likely be closed for the weekend.
Go to the garage. Fill the expansion tank with antifreeze.. again. Start her up and head off. The route back is steep and tortuous. The bike isn’t getting an easy ride but the gauge isn’t moving. The thing is though, my right foot is getting hot. It’s getting hot because it’s covered in hot water. Hot water that should be in the engine, not on my boot and leg. Stop after 50 miles and refill the expansion tank. This bike is not going to get me home in this state. That’s a fact.
I stop at a jet wash. To clear the radiator. Because that will fix it. NOT
Get to the location and it’s an abandoned building. BEAM ME UP SCOTTY. DO IT RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!
I hear footsteps approaching in the puddle of tears im sitting in with my thumb in my mouth. A bloke with a pork pie hat on. He points at the closed building, picks up his phone and looks at me. Someone will be coming in 10 minutes. Now all you lot who are hard anti-Russian haters can just fuck off right now. Forget what you see, what you read and what someone told you.
The Russian people are generally extremely helpful, very polite and show no animosity whatsoever. If today proves anything it’s that they’re good people. They look after each other and strangers too. Obviously that’s a generalisation but I would not get the same levels of help and patience in many countries I go to. Not unless there was something in it for them.
So we look at the bike. Water is dripping on the floor from the front. I can see at the top left of the radiator it’s all wet but that’s where the pressure cap is too. Water leaks are an absolute prize bastard to pinpoint at the best of times.
I know what’s coming. But I don’t want to do it. And The Bitch doesn’t want to get naked and be examined and poked at by Russian men. Well I’m afraid love this is what happens if you piss on my feet.
Take all the clothes off, and the tank. It’s all wet around the pressure cap but there is water everywhere. One of the blokes examines the pressure cap. Pokes it. Blows it. Declares it operational. Or should that be ‘Russian operational’ I get the torch and have a look at the radiator.
There is a mount just above the fans and at some time or another I have hit a speed bump the size of Alison Hammond and it’s actually bent the mount and compressed the top of the radiator. Cunty arse wanky knob pimples. Shit fuck shit shag and bollocks. FUUUCING HELLLL.
So now we go next level. Out comes the radiator. A bastard job. And here I have it in my hand. I can’t see a hole but I’m not Joe 90 and I don’t have glasses thicker than a submarine door. So we jump in a car to go and see a mechanic. We arrive just as a couple of SU-27 fighters scream over and head west.
The mechanic has spent the morning bathing in soot and oil. He’s like a miner/oil rig worker cross breed. I’ve never seen anything like it. Jeeeeesus Christ almighty. I walk in through a gate and a rabid dog comes running only to be drawn up by a chain an inch from my leg. Another old bloke is sitting smoking. Pissed as a fart. But what a face this bloke has got. A proper old face with a map of his life etched into his skin. Clear blue eyes swimming about in a mist of cigarette smoke. I want to take his picture, but he doesn’t look too friendly.
The oily chimp grabs my radiator, starts up a small compressor and sticks a rubber bung in the upper hose hole, holds his hand over the lower hole and gets his mate to stick his finger in the other one while they dip it in an old bathtub full of filthy water.
And there are bubbles. The radiator has a hole in where it has compressed. I’m out of swear words by now. I just grab shit and happens and squeeze the little bastards until their eyes nipples and balls stick out. YOU LITTLE FUCKERS.
Oily chimp issues instructions to someone and I jump back into the car to go to the local Petrol Station/bakery/porn/automotive pastes and potions shop. The bloke I’m with doesn’t know what exactly to buy so I do a supermarket sweep and pay half their yearly turnover. Back to the oily chimp and he declares one of the selections suitable and then proceeds to destroy my radiator by rubbing it hard with a piece of sandpaper manufactured some time around 1910 and used constantly since. He pours on some cleaning fluid, makes up the aluminium glue and slaps it in. Then tells us to fuck off for 20 minutes.
Outside the front of the place there is an old bus. The door is open and I go and sit down for a cold drink. Blue eyes comes in and sits across from me. This is one of those times where the world goes quiet. Where there are only you and him. You can focus on nothing but his face.
He starts talking. I don’t understand most of it and he had a very croaky voice. I suspect from what he says he has throat cancer. He’s got some gold teeth and I ask him about them. Turns out he was a boxer. I can see it in his nose. You’re so fixated on the eyes you don’t notice much else. I look at his hands. He gabs my hand and he pulls, hard. I pull hard back. He starts to smile. We’re there both pulling against each other, smiling, minds meeting. It’s a rare spell and it’s soon broken by oily chimp coming on and saying the radiator is done. I make bubble noises to ask if he tested it and he just laughs and smiles too. “You think I’m an amateur?”. I dunno mate. I’ll find out later.
The driver takes me back to the bike stop. I ask if I can stay a couple of nights. He says stay as long as you like, then buggers off and leaves me all alone in the building.
This would never work in . There are tools here. There is a kitchen with a fridge and cooker. Washing machines. And a shit load of “hot beds”. Choose one and hope the last occupant didn’t have anything nasty. I’m past caring. Way way past.
I start putting the bike back together but I don’t start it and test it. If I tell myself it will be ok I might sleep tonight. If it’s still fucked I don’t want to know until tomorrow.