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

This has been in the pipeline for a while but 2011 is the year it all kicks off. I am very much looking forward to this.

As we trip into the wee small hours of the morning I remembered that I should log two highlights that happened to me yesterday. The first being the arrival of Austin Vince & Lois Pryce’s DVD.

As the embryonic components of a hack are beginning to take shape in a secret Austrian garage I have to say this is a very welcome and timely arrival. I saw Austin last week and he gave me the jewel case of the DVD as the actual DVD’s had not arrived from the guy putting them together. Myself and others wrote our addresses out on sticky labels and so as of today I was reunited with my label and a shiny shiny new adventure DVD.

The second momentous event was that of Si Johnston calling me on Skype from Volgograd. I was beginning to wonder if he would ever make it to Russia as the Ukrainian cops were bleeding him dry. I wondered if it had put him off the Ukraine but what at the beginning was a negative had turned into a positive namely because of the generosity and friendliness of the people he had met.

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.

I have been rather remiss of late in updating this blog. I’ve been annoyed at myself because there has been a lot going on. A lot of good stuff going on… a lot of adventure motorcycling goodness

I recently attended the Horizons Unlimited UK summer meeting at Ripley in Derbyshire. This is an event that draws people from all over the world. That phrase is often used for events and it’s always a little hollow but on this occasion it was true. We had Canadians, Americans, Dutch, Germans, Greeks, French, Irish, Spanish, Australian. Then there were the bikes. Not shiny, immaculate machines but battle hardened adventure motorcycles that had travelled the world. Sometimes many times over.

They bore the scars and stickers of many places around the globe and it was a delight to see. These bikes take on an almost mythical aura and are more than the sum of their parts. They tell a story of themselves and of their owners.

The welcome at Lumb farm was fantastic. I had ridden the 50 or so miles to Ripley straight after work in Manchester. Not long after leaving home I spotted another 800GS in front of me and assumed he was also off to the meeting. As it transpired he wasn’t and lived locally. nevertheless I made a new friend and had made a promise to share a brew in the future and talk bikes

I pressed on and arrived at Lumb Farm by 8pm. I had a very friendly welcome. I was given a map of the campsite, a bottle of water and some stickers. This was great because I’d been at thsi place the previous year for another event and the welcome was non existent. In fact it was bordering on rude. So I was setup for a great weekend.

I met Chris & Dave from Adventure-Spec. Despite me bringing a tent it would transpire that I would crash on the floor of their marquee shop. Although after one night of my snoring Dave decided to upgrade to the hotel “Volkswagon Van”.

The weekend was packed full of talks from adventurers that included Austin Vince, Sam Manicom, Ted Simon, Nick Sanders and many others. There was a roaring camp fire that was burning the whole weekend. A road kill cook out, workshops on how to change a tyre out in the wilds, yoga and many more events too numerous to mention.

It was a great event and not dominated by BMW GS’s wannabe travellers (I say that as a BMW GS owner myself). The people who attended were the real deal and hadn’t just bought into the image of adventure motorcycling. Most of these folks made their own luggage for Gods sake. They are hardcore!

I have finally started to get around to processing the video from the Touratech Travel Event in March. by a complete stroke of serendipity I happened to find one of the funniest clips.

Austin Vince regails the audience with Viz style hilarity as he talks about his travels through Russia.

Yes I have created a logo for the site. Why? I’ve no idea. I don’t plan on distributing them but then again if I want to publicise a trip maybe it’s not a bad idea to have a few decals. I put it together in Adobe Fireworks and you can see the results below

The final day at the Touratech Travel Event was a good opportunity to catch up on any talks I had missed, make some more friends and the whole point of the weekend… “Talk Bikes”.

I met Charley Boorman and had a small chat with him. he kindly obliged with the obligatory photo. In fact he obliged twice because the first time I fucked it up as it was inside, I had a weird puss face on me and well I’m such a narcissist I had to get the damn shot right didn’t I? I’m a Gemini just bear with me on this one . He comes across as a decent bloke… not that I’m expecting him to be any different from anyone else. You just get the feeling he has time for people and is a pretty genuine chap when all is said and done.

I bumped into a fellow rider I knew from Cheshire. he was keen to get going so I decided to tag along and he was packed and fueled in double quick time. Even though I have streamlined my packing process I was feeling hot, bothered and rushed.

I was all sorted in the end.

We set a fair pace as we headed North but he wasn’t happy with his sat nav. He had a route he wanted to take and I was happy to let my sat nav figure out a nice route. We had different kit and no doubt slightly different maps and thus the two units had different ideas of where they wanted to go. Add into the mix two riders who had obviously set different home locations and the end result was that it all went to pot.

After an hour of nailing it through the Welsh countryside I got fed up of seeing the natural beauty go past in a blur. I eased off the gas and let my IAM speed demon companion disappear over the horizon while I took in the sights, stopped for a few breaks and took photos.

The shot below looks quite ordinary but it was the hay bails that caught my eye. I took this in mid shropshire

I made it home in the early evening with a sense that I had experienced a very good event. It was how I believed adventure motorcycling should be. Not crossing a desert but meeting people and sharing a passion for motorbikes.

I’m sitting down to write about the Touratech Travel Event and all I can do is smile. With a few false starts at various bike events and meets I was beginning to wonder if I would find a bunch of friendly bikers.

I was not disappointed this weekend.  I managed to get away from work early and get packed up relatively quickly. Now that I’m a seasoned biker after my trans continental trip last month

Anyway I set off on a mild and sunny Sunday evening. I knew that I would arrive around 10pm so decided to stop for some supplies. Namely a snickers, a can of red bull, a peppered steak slice and some cheese and onion crisps.

I noted that the mileage on the bike was 6660 and chuckled to myself that it was an omen… an ‘Omen’, get it? OK never mind. Anyway I walked into Hilton Park services and watched as the lights fading in and out and then bam… the whole place shutdown. It’s one thing when the lights go out at home but when you’re in a shop with 60 or so other people it is a surreal experience. A few kids started crying and then the lights were back on. I discovered it was not the Devil leaving his calling card but local workmen digging through the mains supply as only local workmen can.

I forged on to South Wales and made good progress. The only real surprise of the trip down was the temperature drop. It went from 18c to 5c when I was passing the Brecon Beacons. I was in my summer biking jacket and freezing my nad’s off at that stage. Before too long though I had arrived at Touratech just outside Swansea.

I was apprehensive that everyone would be settled down for the night but I needn’t have worried. There were people still arriving and marshal’s all over the place.  I looked at my watch and  thought if I was quick I could get some pints in at the local pub and pitch my tent. I managed to get it erected in 20 minutes which I believe is a personal best. Doubly astounding considering it was pitch black.

I walked into the local and ordered two pints figuring that it was close to last orders and I needed to hurry. The pub had an unusual mix of clientèle. One half was BMW clad bikers and the other side karaoke singing locals. It was hard to strike up a conversation because groups had been formed and I was the latecomer, the outsider.

After drinking up I headed back to the tent and tucked into my Ginsters peppered steak slice, washed down with red bull. I retired to bed after that. It was a cold night but my trusty down sleeping bag did the job.