Motonomad 2 through Asia

[MastaMax]

Looks like a awesome adventure again from Adam:

http://motologyfilms.com/motonomad-ii-underway/

We’re 6-days into our 12’000km Adventure and have travelled 2’500 km across Kazakhstan. The Kazak people are really friendly despite speaking absolutely no english. We have already spent 4-days living off the bikes and camping wherever our days end, but so far our most brutal day was yesterday – 800km of treacherous Kazak dirt roads and pulverised motorway to cross the Russian border. We’re having a rest day today to repack our gear, service the bikes, and, rest our bodies. This afternoon we’re continuing into a mountain range in the South of Siberia towards Mongolia. It’s been tough, we’re finding our groove, but getting it done … as a team.



THE MOTONOMAD II TEAM


Piloting M2 and M3 are my friends Scott Britnell and Hein Schwartz, who are very capable and experienced riders. Both have covered some ground racing enduro in the past, but Scott has more recently engineered a few monumental Desert challenges for himself. He currently holds the record for an unnassisted East to West crossing of Australia, which included crossing the Simpson desert. Now piloting M2 & M3 respectively for this 12’000km journey, I believe Scott and Hein are the right men for seeing this epic adventure through to the end. It’s been a solid start with a few hiccups already, but we’re recomposed, repacked and replenished. We’ve eaten everything from Horse meat to fermented sheep cheese … fuel for the body in Central Asia.


I suspect we’ll be offline for about the next ten days …


Catcha soon.


Adam.

 

[MastaMax]

Part 2 is out. A bit of drama but still looks amazing! They are in Mongolia now.

http://motologyfilms.com/motonomad-ii-into-the-back-gate-of-mongolia/

We've made it through to the remote Western end of Mongolia to literally come through the back gate of this epic country. The ground is both rich and baron with water flowing sporadically from the mountains in raging torrents, which cross our path every 20-30km. Having successfully crossed a few dozen torrents, it was inevitable one would drag me and M1 over 40m down river …



The water currents are so strong, it's dislocating the plastic bash plates from beneath the KTM's engine.


Being the lead rider means I 'm also the one who has to test the water. It took all of my strength to hang onto M1 in the current and slowly wade it into the river bank. I'll admit it was a little freaky, but with the situation under control, the real concern is that we were over 100km from any town or village … to source fresh engine oil.





The powerful current swept M1 off it's wheels and completely submerged it. Riemann managed to salvage the bike, laptop and hard drives after a solid struggle.







M1 was completely drowned and the motor suffered "hydraulic lock" from taking in so much water. I've been in this situation many times so it wasn't really a big deal to resuscitate her and get the engine firing again. M1's engine oil now resembled an olive milkshake though, so I basically nursed her at 80-90kph for the next 100km to find a small village, which luckily had some motor oil. It's hardly the quality Repsol oil that's kept our engines singing to this point, but it'll have to do until we get to our next Repsol drop in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbataar. All good.











The people roaming the Steppes of Mongolia are real life Nomads, living purely off the land in portable Yerts. They move with their animals to find rich pasture and fresh water. They have little, yet offer everything with a smile and an open heart. We met "the boss" a herdsman in a high altitude Yak camp. He took us into his family Yert and fed us every possible dairy product you can extract from a Yak. I gave him my Fox flat brim hat as gesture of our appreciation. He shaped it to his liking, wore it with pride and sang us a song …










From the Russian border, we'll have traversed another 3000km of the Mongolian Steppe before we reach the capital. Every day is a big day on the bikes as the sun rises at 4:30 am and sets at 10pm. We're averaging between 4-600km everyday across battered dirt roads, animal trails or pure cross-country. I knew Mongolia would be epic, but being here has really opened my eyes to a truly mysterious and beautiful part of the planet.


I'll check in when we reach the capital.


Later …


AR

 

[MastaMax]

Missed a few parts, and it's a pain as somehow I have to go through a proxy/vpn to access the page, but it seems like their adventure is as epic as ever. The full blog here:

http://motologyfilms.com/happenings/

The only tracks you'll find deep in the Gobi desert are those left by camels.


Motorcycle riding is dangerous, but for the last 600 kilometres, you could say our lives have depended on our KTM's. No fuel stations, no water sources, no marked route, no support vehicle, and, no guarantee - we stepped further outside our comfort zone and rode into the magnificent nothingness of Mongolia's great Gobi Desert! Having already traversed over 8000km of epic trails and overland sections between Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia - with nothing more than waypoints and road networks punched into my GPS - I was confident enough in our moto-nomadic skills to take on the challenge of riding through the Gobi.



An additional bladder of fuel per bike extends our 500 EXC's fuel range to over 650km, given the bikes are averaging between 20-24km per litre in varying terrain. And just for the record, the 500's didn't even complain about the 80 octane benzine they were forced to burn across the Gobi.



Leaving established trails and accepting the risk of venturing into such inhospitable and remote terrain demands careful consideration and confidence in your equipment.





Completely removing yourself from used tracks and traversing unknown terrain is a genuine lesson in adventure, and one that demands your complete focus. The focus to stay on target to waypoints while navigating through or around the perils of unmapped landscape. At one point, we were burrowed into a 50km square patch of vegetation and could no longer see any reference points on the horizon. You can't freak out - you simply don't have the fuel range to back out and look for an easy way around … you have to push through and hold your line. I had just as much faith in my GPS as I did in M1 to make it to each waypoint … perhaps a gamble, but a very rewarding one.











Traversing the Gobi is a rare motorcycling experience and makes you feel like you're truly riding across the planet. The ever-changing landscape tells a story of survival and co-habitiation between camels, vultures, lizards, foxes and other small birds and rodents. Seeing these animals makes you feel part of an amazing habitat, but as the animals become scarce, you know you are deep in the nothingness of the great Gobi.




Navigating across a dune system is very taxing on the body and the bike - especially when the deep sand demands horsepower to ride downhill.






From here on we're continuing a loop via the mountains of Central Mongolia to return to Ulaanbaatar and prepare for the final leg of what has been an epic journey. Stay tuned, I'll post another blog when I can …


Adam

 

[MastaMax]

Last part is done, they are now sitting in the trans-siberian off to China:

http://motologyfilms.com/motonomad-ii-trans-siberian-rail-to-china/

Can't wait for the full movie.

 

[James Blackwell]

These movies are amazing does anyone have information on the fairing they used on the KTM's ?

 

[TB-Racing]

These movies are amazing does anyone have information on the fairing they used on the KTM's ?

Was asked somewhere (Aussie forums) before and AR fabricated the fairings himself and won't make anymore for the public....

 

[CRFMike]

These movies are amazing does anyone have information on the fairing they used on the KTM's ?

They are very similar to the Rallye Lite fairings made by HDB.



http://www.highwaydirtbikes.com/index.php?app=ccp0&ns=catshow&ref=HDB_Rallye_Lite

 

[schrauberklaus]

Or this one
http://www.britanniacomposites.com/index.php/productmenu/lynx-r

 

[TB-Racing]

MOTONOMAD 2 is out and downloaded after the email notification arrived earlier today ~ know what I am doing tonight in front of the big TV screen over a large extra cheese & pepperoni pizza......

https://gumroad.com/l/motonomadII