2nd Update on the 2007 Peking Paris Challenge
June 18th, day 23, a day-off in Moscow
Yesterday we had an easy ride from Niz. Novgorod, at just over 400 Km. The
usual mix of reasonable road surfaces intermingled with appalling and in most
cases totally unexpected series of potholes…
Tomorrow we are off to St. Petersburg, followed by another day-off there.
The rallying side of the event has been totally absent in Russia. Virtually all
the time controls were changed to passage controls, and all you have to do is to
clock in at the start of the day and then again at arrival. The time allowed is
sufficiently generous, so unless you break down you are safe from road
penalties.
We are told that once out of Russia and on the Baltic States there will be timed
test stages on gravel forest roads and even a city circuit. Can’t wait to get
there...
With so little to report on the sporting front, how about a short round up of
some of the characters we meet on the event? The other competitors and the rally
officials of course make an important part of our experiences, if for no other
reason at least because we travel together for so many days and thus get to know
most of them reasonable well. But the occasional encounter with all sorts of
locals and travelers has so much charm…
Take a look of this amazing couple we met on the Mongolian side of the
China-Mongolia border. He is French she is English, they left London a year ago
on a world riding Tour planned to take up to 5 years…They were having trouble
entering China on a bicycle (of all places !) and planned to follow with Korea,
then Japan, etc, etc… If you plan to travel light, this is the example to
follow.
Or watch how easy it is for my wife Maria to get on the best of terms with every road side café attendant in Russia…
Or better still, look at this charming little fellow, sitting on the pavement and wearing a sort of bandana, fascinated by the chrome and glitter of our team mates Phillip and Yvonne Haslam’s 1950 Chevrolet Bel Air…
Or finally take my friend Sebastian Welch, whom I met for the first time a
year ago as the organizer of the AMOC Le Mans Tour (and hadn’t seen since), who
now did exactly the same route we did out of China (i.e. the west route through
Mongolia into Russia) only taking twice as long, but … on a tiny Austin Seven!!!
He was here today at the same Cosmos Hotel and he remembered I told him then
that he was crazy to attempt that. How wrong I was… Well done Sebastian!
