www.privateairny.com Private Air | Winter 2020/2021
88
POSTCARD
"I CIRCUMNAVIGATED
A HUGE, FROZEN LAKE
IN SIBERIA ON A
WWII-ERA MOTORCYCLE"
I
've had quite a few
adventures now, including
driving from London to
Mongolia and back in a
£150 car, so I'm always looking
to push myself. I'd been wanting
to do something pioneering
in an unusual environment
when a company called e
Adventurists got in touch to say
they were looking for people to
try out something on a remote,
frozen lake in Russia. It was
a circumnavigation of Lake
Baikal on a World War II-era
motorbike, a ride that would be
just short of 2,000km. No one
had ever done it before. I said I'd
give it a go.
I'm based in Hong Kong and
was able to get a direct flight to
Irkutsk at the south-west edge
of the lake. ere I met the local
contact, had a look at the bikes,
and started wondering what I'd
let myself in for. ere were seven
teams of two people each, and I
was paired up with an Australian
army colonel named Dennis.
e bikes were Russian Urals,
WWII-era motorcycles – the
most inappropriate vehicle you
can imagine. When we first
started ours it caught fire; it had
no brakes, no lights, it was a piece
of junk. Luckily, they weren't very
fast, so we mostly got a bit wet if
we came off.
e first day we all stuck together
because it was a bit unknown.
It was definitely strange riding
on the ice. I kept thinking about
news footage you see of people
going out on a frozen pond and it
not being thick enough and they
fall through... en that first night
on the ice we had an earthquake.
We'd been told it was a
seismic area and susceptible to
earthquakes, and just after the
Sun had gone down the whole
