Warming up

The rain and cold seem to be behind us now, even the mechanic changing our oil in Novosibirsk commented how abnormal the weather has been.

That was after he had washed, or maybe disinfected the bikes.

And now that it was hot, Jean's bike chose to spring a radiator leak. I spent ages translating bottles of fluids to make sure they contained coolant and then assessed the situation and options.

We know from prior experience that brazing or soldering these ones is not an option, the aluminium is too thin.

The initial obvious choice was to try radiator sealant, if we could find a shop selling it and be understood. As luck would have it I took a wrong turn and as we pulled up to check the route we were sat outside an auto shop.

The woman behind the counter was amused but understood our request. She then presented us with two bottles, one Russian and one English. I managed to ask which was best, she smiled and pointed at the English one.

Early the next morning before breakfast we set about adding it to the radiator.

As this point I would normally have a picture of me working on the bike, but my photographer had the day off. So here is the view from the motel.

It has now held for 1000km. It had a severe test on one city bypass, 11km of gravel, ruts and pot holes that could swallow a truck. 

But we don't trust it to do the full trip. The obvious thing would be to get a new one, however there is a 6 week wait just to get them in the UK.

But I have another bike back home, with a decent one on it. Time for it to become a donor. Once more our friend David is coming to our aid. He will strip it off and post it. We have a contact in Barnaul, back by the Kazakhstan border, who will hold it for us. We will still go to Mongolia, ease the bikes back east and switch the radiator over.

Great. A plan. Now we just need to think about my bike burning oil.

In the meantime we have arrived at lake Baikal.

And our new tyres are waiting in Ulan-Ude.