I love the internet. I know I’m an IT engineer and (in theory) understand how it all works, but when you add the human element it becomes most powerful. For example, I met a guy at the traffic lights very briefly. Just enjoy time to say hello and toss a card through his window. It was about a week ago, near the border.

He wrote about me on livejournal. (http://moto-ru.livejournal.com/9722850.html). A few people saw that and one of them was Nikolai from Cheboksary. He looked at my live tracking and saw that I was just a day’s ride away, so he got in touch and said “come stay at my place!”.

It was another act of Russian hospitality, very generous and unexpected. I met Nikolai just outside the city in a small village and we rode in together. He turned up on a TRX 850 with no fairing and high bars. I was impressed. The TRX is super light and very narrow with plenty of power. It was supposed to be Yamaha’s answer to Ducati, a cracking bike which for some reason was never they popular. You can pick them up for a good price.

Loose the fairing and add high bars and you’ve got a hooligan tool for city riding. I wish I’d thought of that! In the right hands it would be devastating through the traffic. Nikolai has the right hands and it was a struggle to keep up! As we blasted through the traffic and down some back dirt roads, suddenly I was 19 again in commuting in Birmingham city centre. I was really enjoying the few minutes of madness!

With the bikes securely locked away, we went in to meet Igor and Valya.