Offroad from Germany by land to New York, through 20 countries and over 43,000 km with countless breakdowns. The documentation about the tour of the 5 off-road adventurers is now available on DVD.
When our off-road ancestors invented motocross as a sport, they didn’t think of whoops or wall jumps. It was about races in unpredictable terrain on a motorcycle. It should be a challenge for man and machine. The construction of a motocross track is now like building a road.
Riding a motorcycle off-road, off-road, off-road, i.e. on the right terrain, is no longer really compatible with the comfort zone of a generation who think of smartphones rather than ring spanners when they hear the word ‘screwing’.
Almost 7 years ago, when no one had heard the word Covid-19, five fearless globetrotters from Halle an der Saale set off with their all-terrain Ural carriages. They resolved to reach New York by land. A look at the globe shows that there is no overland route to New York. If you cross Siberia and Mongolia by motorcycle, which is difficult enough, you have to cross the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska at the end.
It was a tour into the unknown, a tour that was all about getting through. A tour away from any civilization. A tour without a service car, without a cell phone network and emergency numbers, without the safe prospect of any gas station or even a breakdown service, without helping workshops. An off-road tour without a net or a false bottom.
When there were no paths but only river beds, the Halle students converted their old Russian teams into rafts and chugged 1,600 km north on the Kolyma River, watched by bears that were already lurking on the bank.
The adventurers covered 43,000 kilometers with the carriages from the 1990s and kept getting stuck. But due to the simple construction of the vehicles, the bikes could always be repaired by yourself. “Because of our many breakdowns, we kept getting to know new people in the most remote places,” recalls Anne Knödler.
But why did the adventurers choose the archaic Ural carriages as a means of transportation? “These motorcycles are still widespread in Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia to this day. It is the only motorcycle for which spare parts can be obtained on this route. “
The Ural teams were built as an indestructible means of transport for the Soviet Army during the Second World War and – only slightly modified and modernized – are still produced in Irbit in the Eastern Urals. In the meantime, the off-road teams are mainly exported to Western Europe, Switzerland and the USA.
“It was interesting to see how there is an Ural behind every yurt in Mongolia and that even there spare parts could be procured. In addition, the people were very familiar with the device. It was also fascinating that in Kazakhstan, in addition to detergent, cheese and tinned food, there are also piston rings, Bowden cables and head gaskets for the Urals in the corner shop », says Elisabeth Oertel.
Incidentally, what is called the road there is pure off-road terrain, where there is only one traffic rule: the law of the fittest. Road traffic in Russia is and will remain a battlefield, in stark contrast to hospitality and warmth away from the roads.
The Uralists first crossed the Balkans, Turkey and Georgia. Stage 2 took them across the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan to Siberia. The last stage went from Russia via Alaska, Canada, North America to New York. The Straits of the Bering Strait, where the coasts of Russia and the USA are ‘only’ 150 km away, the Uralists also wanted to cross by raft, but this plan failed. They had to get on a plane to reach Alaska, which was sold by Russia to the United States in 1867 and only became the 49th state in 1959.
Now the film about the tour is also available as a DVD offered. The film was shown successfully in art house cinemas last autumn. As a tip for the race-free Easter weekend: The DVD contains 60 minutes of additional bonus material from a fascinating off-road expedition.
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