We awoke at 7am. I washed my face. During the night my stomach was upset. In dark, I stand up from bad and tried to locate some toilet paper in my bag. After some time I understand that was not my but Xaviers bag!
Xavier spent a lot of time getting dressed and preparing for the day. We ordered some food in a restaurant, which was a small hall and still under construction.
Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, ravioli, salad, sandwiches, and a piece of chocolate! We ate everything! Returning to our room we picked-up our packs and stowed them on the motorcycle.
We then put on the rest of our driving outfits and attempted to start the motorcycleno success! We cant start it! After several attempts a man offered to push our motorcycle, and only after this we started it and we could continue our travels.
We drove to the first camber and wheel repair workshop we saw, and asked
the service man to make repairs and put a new tire on the wheel. He did
the work, but Xavier didnt like the job because the rubber seal between
the metal wheel and camber was missing. Again, the man disassembled the
wheel to replace the missing rubber. Again, Xavier didnt like the job
because the tire was not carefully inserted into the metal border of the
wheel. A third time the man disassembled the wheel. Finally Xavier said
okay, but I think he said this only to please me! In fact, Xavier was
right.
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Leaving this workshop we again could not start our motorcycle. This
time we managed to start it again only by pushing it. We drove about 170
km. We stopped for gas at a gas station. After filling the tank we decided
to start the motorcycle by pushing it. No result! We pushed and pushed,
but had no success! Then it began to rain. We tried pushing it from a high
point on the road but still had no success. Children arrived on the scene
to watch us. We even asked them to help. Xavier injected a special gas
mixture into the carburetor for easier start-up, and I controlling the
gas and pushing along with the childrens help still could not get the
motorcycle started.
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Deciding it was a good time to break for dinner we discussed what possibly could be the problem. Perhaps the rainwater hit the electric coil and prevented a spark from starting the motor.
During the dinner I was very upset. Several days before the beginning
of our trip was a wedding ceremony of my friend Dima Strelkov. And yesterday,
he with his nice wife must be already arrived at Canary Islands to spend
several days of their honeymoon. And today, they must be relaxing near
the seaside, while Im sitting in this dull likeness of restaurant!!! The
photo was made at the moment I'm thinking about Canary Islands!
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After dinner I went to a nearby garage. There was a hotel there too and a workshop for large trucks in which wheel repairs were done. Two men allowed us to put our motorcycle in this garage and make repairs.
While we were pushing our cycle into the garage a truck driver decided to help us.
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He checked the spark plugs and asked us to replace them. This did not help. Another man suggested opening the vent cover. By this time there were a lot of people inside the garage, including children, and everybody had ideas and suggestions! Lifting the vent cover we found some kind of mayonnaise substance under it.
Xavier concluded that the gasket between the vent chamber and engine was broken and the oil was mixing with water. Because this is a water-cooled engine (very special model, usually its air cooling system installed on this type of motorcycles) I was not able to find or order in a short time a spare gasket we needed for our cycle in Moscow.
Xavier said that our trip was finished. He was very upset; Ive only seen him this angry once or twice in the past. The first time when he negotiates with French insurance company from Moscow, and the second time was when he lost all the motorcycle documents after returning from a Russian insurance company. Xavier and I discussed at length what we should do. For example, maybe a truck driver at the truck stop near the hotel would drive us back to Moscow.
Nobody in the garage was paying attention to Xavier. The Russians there
were still studying the problem. Soon someone said that it is strange that
the start pedal depresses too easily as if there is no compression. This
comment was ignored until someone else makes the same comment. Then I asked,
how can it be fixed? Can the vents be adjusted? No one knows how to do
this on an Ural cycle. A man named Andrew said that he made this repair
several times on his old car and maybe he could try. Otherwise, he has
a friend in town about 50 km from here who is a specialist in motorcycles.
I asked him to make the compression adjustment himself and he did! After
he adjusted the vents, the motorcycle started on the first attempt! We
were so happy! We celebrated by taking some children for a ride on the
motorcycle.
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Then, because it was late, we decided to spend the night in the hotel and in the morning drive to the border between Russia and Byelorussia. We did take some time to place special putty on all the holes around and near the coils and coil wires to keep them dry from weather. Leaving the cycle in the garage under the care of Andrew and his older friend nicknamed Professor, we took our rucksacks and packs to the hotel. The hotel was bad. We asked for an additional heater because we were wet and we needed to dry some things. This all happened in the region near the Smolensk town, not far from the Byelorussia border.
