Unfortunately this didn't last long and the road very quickly turned into a nightmare. Dirt with massive potholes and the remnants of pavement reduced my speed to a crawl, even so the bike took some serious hits as I couldn't avoid all the potholes. Even more treacherous were the areas of loose sand over 6 inches deep and couple of times I very nearly lost control of the bike. The bike is equipped with a set of mostly street tires right now,.I didn't think I would need proper off road tires until Mongolia so I have a set waiting for me in Siberia, but I could have used them on this road! This lasted for around 50km or so, strangely enough I didn't see any other cars or vehicles except a logging truck. The road was very clearly marked on the GPS and map, however, so I pressed on. Eventually it turned into a rather good paved road and intersected another major paved road. I thought I was clear, but my troubles were just about to begin. A few kilometers past the intersection the bike erupted in noise and violent vibrations. I immediately pulled over and saw that the exhaust had fallen off! The support bracket attaching it to the frame had snapped and it had been wrenched free from the header pipes and was hanging between the rear wheel and the side bag. I took off all the bags and noticed that the rear tire was ruined – the bracket of the exhaust had cut into the sidewall of the tire all the way around:
My first thought was to find a truck to take the bike to a town where I could find some help, upon closer inspection the damage was not as bad as it had first seemed. The exhaust had come off with a clean break and could be reattached to the header pipes. I attempted to do this myself thinking I could maybe zip tie or bungy cord it in place until I found a welder, but it was hard work and already almost 10:00pm. Not wanting to be on the side of the road in the middle of a forest at night, I decided to strap the exhaust on top of the bike and slowly backtrack to the intersection. There I saw a sign for a hotel 3km away, I headed for it. Fortunately I had broken down near one of the few villages in the hundred of kilometers between major towns! I asked the hotel staff if anyone spoke English, but they showed no interest whatsoever, so in desperation I went up to a table of people drinking and asked. One of the guys there didn't speak a word, but he came over to the bike to see what the problem was. I tried to give Anastasia a call to translate, but couldn't get through so I called Yana, a Russian girl who had offered to host me but who I hadn't met yet, and explained that I needed either a welder or a truck. The guy knew a welder 1km away in the village, he called him up and explained the situation and set off in his car with me following on the bike, leaving his kids behind to guard my bags in the parking lot!
The mechanic was a giant dude, 6'4” over 300lbs with a massive belly. He starts welding the bracket back together, no shirt or mask on, sparks flying everywhere into his chest, face, back, hair! He managed to get the bracket back together, it wasn't the cleanest job, but it would probably hold up until I could find a better solution. Reattaching the exhaust to the pipes was more difficult, but we were able to improvise and get it back on. The consensus seemed to be that the tire, although it definitely needed to be replaced, was safe to ride on. The mechanic refused all my offers of payment, and with the other Russian guy I returned to the hotel to spend the night, it was nearly midnight at this point!
In the morning I called Denis, he runs a motorcycle tire distributorship out of Moscow and had already sent a new set of tires to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia for me. Fortunately Denis speaks perfect English, and even more fortunately he had a rear, half used tire in my bike's size that he would give me for free! He would mail it to Vologda and it would arrive Friday or Saturday.
I repacked the bike, putting the heaviest items in the top bag to keep weight off the exhaust (normally I have my heaviest items low in the side bags for better handling) and started off towards Vologda. It was over 500km away, a long day even under normal conditions, I was careful to keep the speed down at first until I saw how the rear tire was reacting. It didn't seem to get any worse, however, so I continued on at normal speeds on a more or less decent road passing through vast, seemingly endless pine forests and arriving in Vologda around 6:30pm. Legend has it that Ivan the Terrible thought about choosing Vologda as the capital of Russia, but when inspecting the building of the kremlin he was struck on the head by a falling brick and thinking it a bad omen chose Moscow instead.
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