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Customs & Cruisers
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Issue 124 : August - September 2002Heinrich's Eastern Adventure
I am concentrating hard on the flashing red-and-blue lights of the speeding police car in front of me, trying to keep up and to keep my Varadero in line with Sasha's Africa Twin to my right. But the concentration is broken time and again by a mad giggle and the persistent question at the back of my mind: "What the hell am I doing here?" Not a good thing to consider: I lose concentration in the gathering darkness and almost crash into a pothole which the police car swerves to avoid while we steam along the middle of the road between lines of cars respectfully slowing or stopping to our right and left. "What the hell am I doing here?" There's that question again. Indeed: what is a visiting western archaeologist doing, riding motorcycle escort for a fake VIP behind a bribed police car? This can only happen in Russia. It's been an utterly Russian day. It started with my friend Andrej offering to lend me his new Honda Varadero, which I accepted with alacrity - the alternative was Sasha's Africa Twin with those horrendously bad brakes which I remembered from last year ("just pull the lever several times", Sasha had said). Off we went, from Sochi on the Russian Black Sea coast, down towards the Abkhazian border (famous for the ferocity of its civil war), then left into the mountains to Krasnaya Polyana, a mountain resort reached via a narrow winding road through a spectacular gorge. A brilliant ride in sunshine, marred only by typical Russian roads (bad, and spectacularly so in places), typical Russian drivers (mad at the best of times, particularly when it comes to overtaking), and typical Sasha speeding (one and a half times the legal limit appears to be his minimum speed). At our destination, we drop in on friends of Sasha's for coffee, are joined by Andrej and friends who followed us by car, and by more friends of Sasha's from Moscow. While clouds gather over the mountain tops there is a discussion about what to do with the rest of the day. "Have you been to the new banya up on the hill?" I admit that I have never been to a banya (Russian steam bath) at all, and I add that I hate to bike in rain in unsuitable clothes on bad roads (this with a glance at the, by now, threatening clouds). The latter is ignored as the first sinks in: there is immediate agreement that I need to be introduced to a banya. We set off on two bikes and in two cars, and end up being boiled to a crisp, beaten with twigs and pushed into cold water tubs while an enormous mountain thunderstorm goes down outside. At the end, I am so relaxed that I couldn't care less about the weather - I would have ridden back in the pink, if need be. No need for that though: my luck with the Russian weather holds. As we step out after a sumptuous tea, the rain has stopped, and the road is almost dry. As I get back on the bike, I am casually informed by Sasha that there's a new plan: we will not go straight back to Sochi, we will all go to the airport to collect a friend of his Moscow friends. Sure, why not? It's on our way back to Sochi. At the airport, we head for the VIP exit and arrange cars and bikes right in front of the door while bread, salt and cognac are acquired for a Caucasian version of the Russian welcome ritual.
Later that night, back at the dacha in Sochi, there's a review of the day over several bottles of various liquids. Sasha declares me a "real hooligan" - apparently one of the highest accolades among Russian bikers. He's being generous: I found it quite difficult to keep up at times, in spite of the greater power of the Varadero; I had qualms (and sometimes outright fears) to overtake where he didn't hesitate; and I was looking out for potholes all the time while he, apparently instinctively, knew where to expect them. He also knew where to expect police traps while I was nervously looking out for them. Police checkpoints, permanent or provisional, are found at regular intervals of a few kilometres along all Russian roads. While we are talking, there is the sound of an unmuffled motorbike down in town somewhere. "I know the guy, he's from Moscow" says Sasha the Second who lives in Sochi. He explains that there are only half a dozen bikes of 'western' marques (that includes the Far East) in town, and he knows them all - hell, he owns three of them, and that includes the Africa Twin which the other Sasha had borrowed. And indeed, we had seen few bikes today, all of them (with one exception) sturdy Urals, Dniepers and IZHs. Our bikes attracted stares wherever we went, and crowds wherever we stopped, and by no means just youngsters. I already knew that from last year when Sasha the First had lent me his Honda VF-850 for a tour of historic towns east of Moscow. One of the most abiding memories of that trip was the curiosity of just about everyone (except police who were just too stunned to stop me, I suspect). Kids would gather in clusters round the bike, girls would wave, and old boys would inspect it respectfully, asking the size of the motor, bhp, maximum speed, weight, price.
Thirty-six hours later, on the coastal road north to Novorossijsk and something has happened over the last few kilometres, but I'm not quite sure yet what it is. I have stopped looking at the Black Sea to our left, or the Caucasus Mountains to our right. All I am seeing, all I want to see, is the winding road - all I want to do is ride, ride, ride. I have forgotten my diarrhoea which has already forced me to eat Immodium, and little else, for breakfast. I am not interested in a minibus full of waving teenage girls: a serious symptom, that, as I realise even in my somewhat unreal state of mind. Cars are a nuisance to be shrugged aside and left behind in reckless overtaking. I miss by a mere 20 centimetres an equally reckless BMW car overtaking in the opposite direction, but there's not even an adrenaline surge - I just shake my head, wonder about my own risk-taking (not normal, that), and swing into the next bend.
By now, I am taking the bends and switchbacks as if I was born in the saddle. And I don't have to think about it: the ideal line appears to be stencilled into the tarmac, and I go through the bends at angles which so far I have only seen in pictures. I am right at Sasha's rear wheel now, and in the next bend I have to brake to avoid running into him. Either I am getting faster, or he is getting slower. Whatever it is, I don't want to be delayed: a road sign promises 27 kilometres of bends ahead, and I don't want to be stuck behind Sasha when we hit paradise. At the exit of the next bend, I speed past him and take over the lead, doing what he has done over the past 50 or so kilometres: signalling 'clear road' or 'traffic ahead' as soon as I can look into the next bend or over the next crest. Again, I don't have to think about it: it's all happening intuitively. Next time I look into the mirror, Sasha is 200 meters behind and struggling to keep up. Then it dawns on me: this must be The Flow that I have read about, but never before experienced - a state of trance in which the rider develops tunnel vision and acts, and reacts, automatically, achieving an almost perfect union of bike and human which is impossible to achieve under ordinary circumstances. This constant swinging through the bends, right - left - right - left, must have done it, hypnotising me like a swinging pendulum would. How come this has never happened before? Have I never been on a road like this before? Well, I have, but not at these speeds; Highway 1 in California was clogged with caravans and RVs when I crawled through its bends. Perhaps the BMWs I have owned so far cannot send me into this realm of unreality? Here's a project for the rest of my life, because this is addictive.
So, off we go, but for the rest of our journey, another 40 or so kilometres, I am listening for the wail of a police siren, the sound of a chopper overhead - nothing. Just short of our destination, an archaeological excavation on the coast near Dzhugba, there's a fork in the road, with a concrete police tower in the middle. Jesus, that's it now, they are bound to look out for two bikers on non-Russian bikes, and there's nobody else answering to that description within 400 kilometres, I'm sure. But again, nothing: the policeman standing in the middle of the road inspects our bikes curiously as we stop briefly, then he waves us on. That's when it sinks in: of course, police in Russia don't communicate, they are in competition with one another - because they don't enforce traffic laws, the only thing they enforce is supplements of their meagre salaries. By now, I can see dark black clouds when I look over my left shoulder, and I am glad we are reaching the end of our 190-kilometre trip. What luck, again: I was woken up this morning by rumbling thunder, and lightning was flashing over the sea. There was a sprinkling of rain when we set out, but by some kind of miracle we had a dry, and often sunny, trip. As we park the bikes under trees in front of the building, the first heavy drops splash down. Half an hour and a hot shower later, I watch from the balcony as the world appears to end in lightning and rain - this is what happens in summer where mountains meet the sea. I am glad I am in here and not out there, but there's already a feeling of sadness: I know this was the last biking day this year on the Black Sea, it is time to go on to Stavropol and Moscow, and then back to Blighty. I'll just have to come back, and I know I will - how could I stay away? Heinrich 'The Hun' Harke
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Heinrich ventures into the former Soviet Union and experiences the rider's road trance...
While we hang around waiting and I fool around with two Russian beauties who want to try the seat of the Varadero, Sasha strolls over to a police car from where we are being watched with some displeasure. I thought he was just trying to explain why we felt entitled to block the VIP entrance and undermine security arrangements, but it turns out later that some money changed hands at that moment. When Sasha returns, he explains: "When our friend has arrived, we'll head back to the beauty spot where you took photos, for coffee and drinks. The police car will go first, the two bikes will follow in formation, then the Merc and the Land Cruiser." He has to explain this twice - I thought I hadn't heard that right first time round. You know the rest.
Western bikes are still exotic items in a country where two-wheelers are predominantly a means of cheap transport. Most Russian bikes are sidecar combinations which can be loaded with sacks of potatoes, stacks of hay, or building materials. Biking as a hobby and a lifestyle is spreading, albeit slowly. Sasha keeps telling me of a vibrant biking scene in Moscow which I hope to see some time. I spotted at least two Harleys in Moscow, and one of the new Ural choppers gleaming with chrome. Outside Moscow, the roads are often so bad that enduros, like the Africa Twin and Varadero we had ridden today, are likely to become as popular as heavy 4-WD cars of the Land Cruiser type have already become among those Russians who can afford them.
