This weekend things have started to move on the Andes Moto Extreme website development. Walter Colebatch got in touch about his latest project and through mutual support of each others projects I am now following on from my work on Sibirsky Extreme to now focus my efforts on the new website.

Sherri Jo Wilkins has also joined the team and will be the base camp manager, photographer and videographer. Other members of the team include:

Walter Colebatch – Team Captain
Lukas Matzinger – Technical Director
Barton Churchill – The Mountain Man

The plan is to take a troika of Husaberg FE 570s to South America and make a world motorcycle altitude record attempt of 20,500′ 6,250m!

You can follow the prep here (www.andesmotoextreme.com) ready for a kick off in March 2012.

Sibirsky Extreme Project DVD

Join prolific adventure motorcyclist and Siberia aficionado Walter Colebatch and his friends on a ride of discovery into Central Asia and the darkest depths of Siberia.

Sibirsky Extreme was the journey that pioneered new routes across Siberia, including the legendary BAM Road.

This journey also features the Tuva Track, Vilyuisky Trakt and the Road of Bones.

Full of interactions with locals, as well as stunning scenery. If you ever dreamt of exploring Siberia on two wheels, this is the DVD for you!

Enjoy the main feature and then feast on the fantastic extras that really give you a feel for life on the road (and off it) in some of the most remote parts of the World

Main Feature: 31min

Walter’s Extras (people, places, lots of river crossings, the ups, the downs and the girls!): 73min

NTSC Version For North American customers & PAL for Europe & the rest of the world

Click here to Buy PAL version or click here to but the NTSC version

I have not posted for a long time because there were a number of false starts and idea changes. My circumstances have changed quite a bit and after much thought I stopped compromising on the kind of bike I needed. I was considering a bike that would be a halfway house between going two up and adventure overlanding. Well to be frank that just ain’t going to work.

So for now the requirement has shifted to a significantly lighter 400cc bike that is cheap to run, easy to service and with parts easily available anywhere in the world. That bike is the Suzuki DRZ400SM. yes you read that right, the SM as in Super Moto. I need a bike I can use on the street once in a while and the SM is good for that… check the video below…

As you can see it fly’s pretty well too and I like flying! There will be many detractors on my choice. Some will say it is an old design, others will say it is too heavy (at 295 pounds / 133kg) even though I will be losing 100kg in comparison to my old BMW and some others will say it is too slow. yet more will say that compared to a 600 or 800cc bike the service intervals will be too frequent.

I have checked all the pro’s and cons and for my purposes this is THE perfect bike. It can be easily changed into a dirt bike, it is easy to work on, with limited electronics. Fuel range can be increased quite substantially and my luggage requirements these days are in the realm’s of Dave Lomax etherealness.

Will I be trudging the painfully boring expanses of Europe’s autoroutes, motorways and autobahn’s? No I won’t. I’ve done that, been there and to be honest it is a waste of time and effort. The real fun starts when you get to the perimeters of this continent of ours.

The bike you see below belongs to a friend of mine in Holland and he has very kindly offered to cast a fairing from the same design he has used on this bike.

I like his fuel setup here which is a 17L Safari tank. That said I’m toying with a 17L on the front and a 5L on the rear similar to this configuration.

While 22litres of fuel is more than enough in most places I have a riding style that means I like to keep stops to a minimum and keep on riding. Every fuel stop usually ends up with 30 minutes of faffing about especially if other people are involved. So I am thinking of doing a 28L on the front and a 5L on the rear. The only downside to this is weight if fully fueled up and the 28L suffers from having 5L of fuel you cannot utilize because it needs a vacuum pump to drag it up from the bottom of the tank. If I can sort the pump issues and have some degree of control with regard to the distribution of the fuel front and back then I will go with the bigger tank.

As far as spares and kit goes for the bike I have drawn up a list based on Dave Lomax’s advice after his numerous trips into the deserts and lonely places around the world on a DRZ400.

Take a look at my bike kit list here

if you are interested in my pack list for myself it currently looks like this…

My friend Simon is keen to get into motorcycling. That said he has 3 large tasks before him. Firstly he needs permission from his wife (or I say get it anyway as it’s easier to ask for forgiveness), then he needs a bike license. This is somewhat complicated by the fact he lives in Germany. Lastly he needs a bike.

In the meantime he gets to sit on my bikes when I visit

It was a beautiful day and I decided to ride in Jeans and T-shirt. I know all the ATGATT (All The Gear All The Time) crowd will go on and on about this but I believe sometimes it is good to be aware of the dangers. Not having all the gear makes you more cautious and a cool rider is one that is concentrating as opposed to one that is hot, sweating and perhaps has restricted visibility due to wearing a full face helmet.

I mentioned previously that I didn’t load all the maps on for expediency. I didn’t realise how close I was cutting it cartographically

Riding between Dusseldorf and Linz is a long slog. In order to fend off fatigue and boredom I have regular stops and treats along the way. To find Chunky Monkey on this trip was a particularly rare and welcome find

I took a wrong turn at one point which mean’t I had to do a bit of cross country. This gave some welcome relief from the blazing sunshine. The cooling effect of the forests was wonderful. I’m not much of an environmentalist but I have to say I really do like trees. They really do have a tempering effect certainly on the immediate environment. With the detour over I was soon back on the autobhan and to my surprise… gridlock

Filtering or lane splitting is illegal in Germany but in situations like this such rules are not enforceable and so I made my way gingerly between the trucks and cars. This jam was about 10km long and towards the front portion of the queue people were standing around, getting out of cars and truck drivers would open their doors without any warning so I kept my eyes peeled and took it slow.

I noticed this Hungarian truck had a double puncture!

It got dark around Regensberg and by then I’d had enough. It had cooled down considerably and despite the warm clothing I just wanted to use the instant teleport button to get me to Linz. I got to Linz just after midnight. The CB500 had done its job valiantly and while not my first steed of choice I was surprised that it covered the distance without fuss.

Before I write another thing I would like to thank Grant & Susan Johnson and Chris Colling & Dave Lomax at adventure-Spec for making my attendance possible this year. Without them it would not have happened.

the 2010 10th anniversary event was much bigger than previous years. As I rode up the driveway to Lumb Farm I said to myself “Oh Wow”. They had pulled out all the stops. There were more vendors, more bikes, biggest tents, a video screen. It was all together an impressive event.

The campfire was blazing, the road kill cookout was in full swing but most importantly the people made the event special. Old faces, new faces, adventurers to be and adventurers with many years and locations under their belts.

In addition to the great setup the weather was perfect. It was consistently warm and sunny for the entire event. 28C and wall to wall sunshine. You could not have asked for better.

Attendees included Austin Vince and Lois Pryce, Jenny Furneaux, Simon Gandolfi, Walter Colebatch, Jenny Morgen, Peter & Kay Forward and many many more that can be found here

This year I was of course without my F800GS and arrived on my 1994 CB500. I guessed I would be the only attendee on a CB500 but by some strange quirk of the universe two guys arrived on loaded up CB500′s. Not only that but they plan to ride around the world over 80 months on these machines. I was heartened by their story and impressed at their low tech approach to luggage and increasing comfort. They were good guys, with a good sense of humour and I reckon they will go far and I personally will be looking forward to reading their story.

To find more photos of the event have a look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/everywherevirtually/sets/72157624238859917/with/4736800180/

Or click on the gallery above.

My YouTube buddy Svangalie has put together a compilation of his crashes on the ice and snow. It’s handy because I didn’t have a camera with me when I went down so it demonstrates to my friends and family how it can almost be fun.

When people think motorcycle crash they they high speed impact and sudden death. Unfortunately this scenario is reinforced by the summer sports bike riders who only ride for half the year.

Adventure riders fall off regularly if they are trying hard enough but most often they are low speed offs because the terrain is difficult.

They’d probably not be as good as these…

So the videos are fine but everything looks good in the factory. I can tell you that I have had over 5 heavy offs whilst riding the bike off road and in the snow. It has gone down hard and the bars only sustained cosmetic damage. In fact the rear footpeg hanger bent before the crash bars did. In my view these are the best crash bars in the world.

oh yeah… and now for the weaker foot peg hanger…

Photo courtesy of NÖN - Niederösterreichische Nachrichten

Photo courtesy of NÖN - Niederösterreichische Nachrichten

I spent a very pleasant few days in Linz seeing friends and making new ones. Linz is the 2009 capital of culture and has made noticeable strides since I was last there in April and August of 2008. It has an energy and vibrancy which is tempered by the fact it is also a provincial city. So unlike the brashness of a capital city the people are still warm and friendly.

The weather was of course fantastic and the cold temperatures and rain of the UK were now a distant memory.

The city have erected walkways, a Ferris wheel and numerous installations on the roof of one of the city’s main buildings. It is a fantastic idea whereby you literally get a birds eye of view everything.

This is my kind of thinking!

Linz is of often unheard of in the English speaking world due to it being an industrial city. It is in the shadow of Vienna and Salzburg not to mention all the famous Austrian ski resorts. The pace of life is welcome after the dog eat dog attitudes found in the UK. Nice to soak up the warm sunshine and enjoy the cafe culture.

I was most certainly rejuvenated after my endurance ride to Austria

As the day warmed up to a pleasant but not uncomfortable temperature I soon made it to Germany. En route I chuckled to myself that I was nearing Helmond in the Netherlands… I thought this trip is so hardcore I’m going through Helmond. (referring to Helmand Province in Afghanistan)

I made good progress and arrived in Dusseldorf by 13:30. I was set to meet my friend Simon who had recently moved from the UK. Unfortunately he was out with his wife and his son was home playing Warcraft on the computer. We had a chat and then I sat on the bottom step of the stairs while his son went back to Warcraft. I was pretty tired at this point and I felt like I had a micro sleep but it could have been as much as an hour.

At 3pm I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and would catch Simon on my return. I got out of Dusseldorf and headed for Frankfurt. Germany is a big place and I figured I would be in Frankfurt in no time at all. In reality it took a lot longer and it would take longer still to reach Nuremburg, Passau and ultimately Linz.

This trip would not have been possible without the power of Red Bull

By late afternoon I was in Bavaria and dodging the thunder clouds.

Having been a little chilly as I rode over the German Jura Mountains I was greatly relieved to arrive in Linz at midnight. It had been a long slog with little sleep but worthy of an iron butt award.