25th to 26th of April 2011
« Back to journal
« Back to journal
Fascinating Russia!
It took me 4.5h to get to Krasnodar, not too bad. And I found Uralskaya road in Krasnodar on which the Bikeland Russia shop is but… I was at the wrong shopping center.
I called Dmitry from the shop and I didn’t understand that he told me that he was at home. I tried with a Russian on the street calling Michail in Moscow in order to translate where I should go but the line was too bad and I guess my Russian on the street and also the second Russian who attended our session could not clearly explain how I should find my way…
So, all of us confused, we shook hands and while I wondered how to get from A to B another Russian came to me and asked me if he could help (in English!). I (still confused) tried to handle my stuff while I talked to him and he introduced himself as Dmitry. Of course I thought he is the one from the shop who wanted to pick me. No, he was another Dmitry, who guided me, following his car, to the bike shop. So friendly!
At the bike shop we discovered that those tires the service team originally had chosen as an alternative were partially not there and that those anyway wouldn’t have worked on my bike. Great.
Meanwhile Daniel - who overtook us on 1 wheel (crazy guy:-) on the way to the shop - joined the “team” as a translator (my guide Dmitry left already because he had to work).
Trying to find alternative ways, I asked them (smiling) if they could not take off the tires of a brand new KTM 990 Adventure in the shop…Hmm…In the end I had a "brainwave", “if they sold already a 990 to other customers (this shop is only open for 2 weeks)…based on this Daniel had his flash of thought, a friend of him with a new KTM 990 supposed to have 1 new (!) spare tire in his garage. The tire hunt started. And also the tool and mounting equipment chase because there was nearly nothing available in the shop for the mechanic Volodija. The whole set up was brand-new.
First Volodija drove us crisscross through Krasnodar (> 1Mio inhabitants) with his Lada, at his home he took some tools for the shop, then we met somewhere in another quarter a friend who sold me his spare tire in his garage (this guy wants to go with his motorbike to Mongolia in the June time frame!:-), then we went back to shop, demounted my back wheel + then hunted for a shop who could do the change for us.
Meanwhile after 8:40pm, we wanted to give up already when we passed by an open door in wooden fence, some light & people behind. Yes, they would do, still working in a gloomy, oily, greasy environment…I got the impression that everyone looked greasy & blackened in this atmosphere. I guess they actually did but maybe I looked the same after 11 hours in my motorbike clothes:-)
What followed frightened me…I told Daniel and Volodija that they should be careful with my wheel rim, my tube and my tire because I have only 1 each and I have to cover at least (if not double) the distance to Almaty with this set. But they told me, relax, those mechanics are also bikers and they know their job. What then followed was really a bad job. I mean we changed tires with our hands in the desert of Morocco and that was not that ugly.
After a while Volodija pulled me out of that garage put down my hands from my face and showed me the stars in the night to relax. But after another 10min also these guys got worried and had a closer look to the job these guys wanted to finish. In the end the tire was on the wheel rim but still not in the right position. My friend Oleg from Sochi would have had other words for this….:-) The uncompleted wheel job went in the trunk of Volodija’s Lada for rework at home with his own tools.
We returned to the bike shop at 9:40 pm, picked up my clothes and tried to find a hotel close by; the third was a hit. The next day I went to the shop at the agreed time around 12 to get my motorbike. “Everything ok”, Volodija told me and he refused to take any extra money from me (we are all bikers and friends; such a nice guy!!) for all the trouble he had driving through the city and with the rework of the tire.
Conclusion: 1 new back tire, no new front tire…hopefully the calculation I made is accurate. And I do hope that I find something in Almaty. If not…hmmm.
I decided to stay in Krasnodar in order to make the “big jump” to Elista the next day.
In the late afternoon I went with a taxi to Krasnaya Road in Krasnodar, THE road and surprisingly beautiful because before I had seen only the “backyard” of Krasnodar.
I stayed in that area until the evening and I met Dmitry, his wife and his friend in the Gray Goose (one of a kind they write:-) discussing life and my trip & looking photos. A pleasant evening with very nice people and later they brought me to my hotel.
Krasnaya Road
All operated by women
It took me 4.5h to get to Krasnodar, not too bad. And I found Uralskaya road in Krasnodar on which the Bikeland Russia shop is but… I was at the wrong shopping center.
I called Dmitry from the shop and I didn’t understand that he told me that he was at home. I tried with a Russian on the street calling Michail in Moscow in order to translate where I should go but the line was too bad and I guess my Russian on the street and also the second Russian who attended our session could not clearly explain how I should find my way…
So, all of us confused, we shook hands and while I wondered how to get from A to B another Russian came to me and asked me if he could help (in English!). I (still confused) tried to handle my stuff while I talked to him and he introduced himself as Dmitry. Of course I thought he is the one from the shop who wanted to pick me. No, he was another Dmitry, who guided me, following his car, to the bike shop. So friendly!
At the bike shop we discovered that those tires the service team originally had chosen as an alternative were partially not there and that those anyway wouldn’t have worked on my bike. Great.
Meanwhile Daniel - who overtook us on 1 wheel (crazy guy:-) on the way to the shop - joined the “team” as a translator (my guide Dmitry left already because he had to work).
Trying to find alternative ways, I asked them (smiling) if they could not take off the tires of a brand new KTM 990 Adventure in the shop…Hmm…In the end I had a "brainwave", “if they sold already a 990 to other customers (this shop is only open for 2 weeks)…based on this Daniel had his flash of thought, a friend of him with a new KTM 990 supposed to have 1 new (!) spare tire in his garage. The tire hunt started. And also the tool and mounting equipment chase because there was nearly nothing available in the shop for the mechanic Volodija. The whole set up was brand-new.
First Volodija drove us crisscross through Krasnodar (> 1Mio inhabitants) with his Lada, at his home he took some tools for the shop, then we met somewhere in another quarter a friend who sold me his spare tire in his garage (this guy wants to go with his motorbike to Mongolia in the June time frame!:-), then we went back to shop, demounted my back wheel + then hunted for a shop who could do the change for us.
Meanwhile after 8:40pm, we wanted to give up already when we passed by an open door in wooden fence, some light & people behind. Yes, they would do, still working in a gloomy, oily, greasy environment…I got the impression that everyone looked greasy & blackened in this atmosphere. I guess they actually did but maybe I looked the same after 11 hours in my motorbike clothes:-)
What followed frightened me…I told Daniel and Volodija that they should be careful with my wheel rim, my tube and my tire because I have only 1 each and I have to cover at least (if not double) the distance to Almaty with this set. But they told me, relax, those mechanics are also bikers and they know their job. What then followed was really a bad job. I mean we changed tires with our hands in the desert of Morocco and that was not that ugly.
After a while Volodija pulled me out of that garage put down my hands from my face and showed me the stars in the night to relax. But after another 10min also these guys got worried and had a closer look to the job these guys wanted to finish. In the end the tire was on the wheel rim but still not in the right position. My friend Oleg from Sochi would have had other words for this….:-) The uncompleted wheel job went in the trunk of Volodija’s Lada for rework at home with his own tools.
We returned to the bike shop at 9:40 pm, picked up my clothes and tried to find a hotel close by; the third was a hit. The next day I went to the shop at the agreed time around 12 to get my motorbike. “Everything ok”, Volodija told me and he refused to take any extra money from me (we are all bikers and friends; such a nice guy!!) for all the trouble he had driving through the city and with the rework of the tire.
Conclusion: 1 new back tire, no new front tire…hopefully the calculation I made is accurate. And I do hope that I find something in Almaty. If not…hmmm.
I decided to stay in Krasnodar in order to make the “big jump” to Elista the next day.
In the late afternoon I went with a taxi to Krasnaya Road in Krasnodar, THE road and surprisingly beautiful because before I had seen only the “backyard” of Krasnodar.
I stayed in that area until the evening and I met Dmitry, his wife and his friend in the Gray Goose (one of a kind they write:-) discussing life and my trip & looking photos. A pleasant evening with very nice people and later they brought me to my hotel.
Krasnaya Road
All operated by women
