We had pulled off the road at a bridge over a river, and had just gotten off, when Cory looked down, and a portion of his chain was shattered.. likely by a thrown rock. It was a 1-1000 that he even noticed.
Se he began the process of removing the chain, and getting the spare one out to replace it... until he realized, to our utter amazement, that the spare chain he had bought from the local dealership (unnamed), was wrong. Now Cory remembers asking the sales rep to DOUBLE CHECK the chain, and MAKE SURE it was the right one, because we didn't want to be 800 miles from nowhere and have a chain break with no spare.
So here we were, 800 miles from the next town (really), in the ABSOLUTE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, with a broken chain.
We were seriously hooped.
So we screwed around with it for 4 hours in the baking sun, till we were all about heatstroked, and with the help of a passing Russian Motorcyclist named MAX (Thanks MAX!), he was able to fashion a replacement chain link out of pieces of the original broken piece, the (wrong) spare links Cory had, with a Russian Hammer, a Canadian Axe handle, and a big block of wood, we were able to patch Cory's chain back together.
We took off in the dwindling daylight, aiming for the closest town about 100km away where Max, our benefactor knew of a "Hotel"
Once you're off the main road in Russia, you are really out of this world. The people have never seen motorcycles like ours, or people dressed like us, so when we drive through town, they stop, wave, honk... clap.. we're like a parade, or the circus. It's quite fun actually.
So we meandered through town, till we got to the "hotel". It was built mid century (pick one from the last 2 or 3) and looked like it might fall over in the night. When we were in the office doing the paperwork (there is always paperwork in Russia), I didn't want all of us to stand on one side of the room, because I thought the whole building might tip over.
They had a Barn like structure, with a door and padlock for our bikes, so we were happy they were safe.
Our "rooms" were two beds (couches with the ends cut off so you could stretch out). The bathroom had a shower that had a knob kind of thingy on it that had two settings.. cremate or ice age.
There was no pressure, so you kind of wacked the handle thing on yourself, till some boiling hot or freezing cold water squirted out.
While Cory was having his Shower, a guy came in, took a pee, and introduced himself to Cory, naked in the shower, in Russian.
Have I mentioned this place can be a bit bizarre?
After we had cleaned up, such as it was, we wandered next door to the local barn/cafe/disco, where more of the most beautiful women you can imagine served us dinner, but there we no lights because the power had been cut off and they were working on the diesel generator. They came on after a while, but they turned them off so people could dance. We ate in the dark, which is likely best, since Cory and Petar ordered beef, but I hadn't seen a cow in days, but there were an awful lot of cats and dogs running around.
The "View" out of our hotel window
Every dog we've seen is either pregnant or just had puppies. These were 3 of the 10 in this litter. :)
A pretty standard house in this part of Russia.
Dinner at the Disco, in the dark.
Today: 417 km 14 hours on the road.
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