almaty via kirgistan. russian bearing an local spare parts held. original parts built in an test drive successfull. we are happy. next china.
meest elder people that learnt german in kirgies or mongolian schools. one of them, a geophysics showed us around in his university museum of natural ressources in kasachstan- Lot of gold uranium and rare elements.
as soon as we can upload, you' see pictures of very fiedly open and sharing people we met. they demanded that our fotos be on the web.

Roadies

Local craftmen manufactured needed parts for clutch. Small garage invested one day to assist roman in assembling. He sayed "it is for allah" and only accepted a swiss postcard. He assisted that we tell in switzerland how poeple in shymkent are. We cladly do: They are friendly helpful, simply great! To arrive in shymkent, we needed a truck to drive us over 400km off haevy natural roads-the only one in the south of kasachstan. Local police in aralsk was very helpful. They stopped all truck and insisted to take us and the bikes -most of them were full loaded. After a half a day on the dusty roadside in the sun they were succsesful a driver from turkistan could not decline the 200 dollar. But we had to "buxir" - tow - 160km until he had deposit some of his 30T of potatoes at local merchents. So we spent the evening in a small town and continued 2a.m sleeping in a bumpy trailor between potatoes. 2 days later he invited us to his home in turkistan with wineyards deep fountain and colorful rooms. We left with a melon in the luggage towing another 160km to shymkent only stopped by curiouse engeneers of the south corean company that build the road we are driving on or beside.

break down

0,4mm the reason why we stuck at least 3 days in aktobe. friendly, green, busy town in the middle of a desert like landscape. next town 562 km.
a whole day we searched for a ball bearing, kugellager. the sixth shop had one 20-42-12. big smile. but the box was emoty. three hours an many drives with our very exited grorgiab taxidriver (speaks georgian and kach, little russian, in his morning job he runs a wodka plant) we found in a backyard a specialist. quick buy of for russion bearings. fast back to the service station where we are alowed to store and repair. ... o,4mm. doesn't fit.
saturda evening.  plan A is to tow 2200km to almaty plan B is to tranport bikes with truck. in almaty we will wait for the spare part. plan c we wait for the spare pars in the desert town and plan E is we first try to enlarge a bearing mechanicaly if this will allow transmission from motor to wheel we start if not we take the train. yes ,there is one 40h to almaty. the receptionist knew that there is a rain station but not, where the trains go to. we found out. so our last backup to arrive 21th in almaty is the train.
what happen? I turned around at a dead end of a long highway to enter a muddy road and laid town the bike. the transmission belt broke. the transmission case open we saw that the bearing also was torn in pieces. we had to tow in a acrobatic action over100km. one cycled towed the other. lot of luck- many bumbs loosed and streched the rope and tore the bikes in all directions.
but today is a day off. we will worry on tommorrow. lets discover the town fuerther. we allready knwo the 5d cinema and the scating ring- yes-ice. there is allso a weeding bridge where every 5 minute on.saturday an other couple is fotographed.

Poeple and friends

Fastest way to get in contact with local men is to park the bikes somewhere. Immediately the tecnical interested with cars over 60y.o or 1.2million km - real crackes - gather and discus all details. They dont leave without giving us drink, frutes or advice. Anna and her dad from moskow showed us all around volgograd. I finaly took her on a ride through town and parks.

Boarder crossing: On bothsides ukrainian and russian boarder officials were extreamly helpful and friendly(!) they even faked a forgotten entry paper. Many thanks.

Campsites

We found fantastic campsites. Cooking with fuel give us each evening hot mushed potatoes and soup. Exept at the russian boarder. You should not light the burner in high dry (very dry) grass. Bushfire...

Roads and Roads

Ukraina: Very carefull and friendly drivers on superbe new speedy highways. We rush easely 500km a day. But you can change rapidely the experience if you choose "shortest way" instead of "fastest" in you gps. It leads you through small bumpy dangerous country roads. Trough very small villages. Mostely we drive in idle with our disel engines and only use the gas to grimp out of bomb holes. Haevy stress on material tacho transmission, many screwes, Tool box on the side wrecked. Motorbikes with sidecars are the best transport.

Rest a day in L'viv

Enter in ukraine. Zackig durch den Zoll(1Stunde). Als Motorradfahrer hat man einen Bonus ;) Fremde Gegend, aufgestellte Leute. Wartungsarbeiten an den Motorrädern erledigt. Morgen gehts weiter.

Getting used to new currency and its local value. 0.7 or 8 eurocent for tramway. 60 for a Baileys. 3 for one kilogramm of bred. no idea about local wages. So no feeling about economy. We are strangers. BUT in town we are adressed as locals and ask for directions. May be we are underdressed...

Enter in ukraine.

Warum vermehrt sich das Gepäck so stark? Kaum legt man zwei Packtaschen nebeneinander, werden BEIDE dick und schwanger und gebären bald ein drittes Stück das keinen Platz mehr hat. Abtreiben scheint unethisch, muss aber manchmal sein.

Roman ist seit 6 Uhr früh in Vollmontur unterwegs Richtung Luzern, seinen Architekturkurs beenden. Werden ihn am Mittag in der Mensa treffen und dann nix wie los. Seine gordische Lösung zum Gepräckproblem: alles mitnehmen, beim ersten Camping sortieren... und ich bereite seit zwei Jahren, seit drei Wochen intensivst mit Gepäckliste vor. Im Halbschlaf gibt er mich noch die grossen Kopfhörer. Auf den Gepäckträger oder wohin? Die Packtaschen sind wieder hochschwanger.

Start in 30 hours.
Broken motorparts replaced - we hope that we changed the cause not only the effect. Tenge (kasach money) and Rubel ready.

All tools, oils, break fluid, spare parts, diesel and the electric pump place on the bike, not in the luggage. Will ease camping and hostelling.

Seltsames Gefühl, Schreibtisch leer, Mailbox leer, nichts, gar nichts zu entscheiden, zu erledigen, zu schreiben, keinen Termin. Nichts. Im März 2013 Start von Null. Gutes Gefühl.