The first thing I did this morning was to check and see if Mary received all the pictures I sent her last night. She sent me an e-mail back saying she had and that was great. Today I will be leaving Novosibirsk on High M53 to Achinsk. I think it’s about a 400 mile ride. I put Matilda on my bike, typed in Kemerovo, and said go. Much to my surprise she calculated a route out of the City Novosibirsk all the way to Kemerovo. I was so thrilled. Matilda was back on line with brains, so leaving the city was a breeze. I now have a second hero on this trip; the first one is Peter Breeser and the second, Volker. They both fixed Matilda for me which takes a lot of stress out of my life when it comes to getting thru these cities of 500,000 to 1,000,000 people. Somewhere along Hwy 53 at a police checkpoint, an officer pulled me over and wanted to look at my motorcycle. He walked around it and attempted to talk to me. The questions he was asking went right over my head which usually leads to frustration by the person asking the question. Since we couldn’t communicate he just waved me on. When I arrived at Kemerovo, Matilda started thinking for herself and almost took me on a scenic ride through the Russian countryside. She started heading southeast when I wanted to go northeast. Then I realized the city I was going to was actually more south and east than northeast. She wanted to go as the crow flies and wasn’t interested in following Highway M53. I finally got thru the city using my arrows pointing in the direction I should be going. All this monkey business took about two hours and 40 miles instead of 30 minutes and 15 miles. But I’m happy I got thru the city by myself. I didn’t make it to Achinsk, only as far as Mariinsk. I stayed in a roadside hotel that got very noisy with the hotel arrangements. I met three Swiss bicyclists: Mat, Beet, and a guy with an Italian name which I can’t remember. Sorry about that, it wasn’t intentional. Mat spoke Russian and helped me with my hotel arrangements. The hotel lady wanted me to stay in the same room with another traveler which is done in Russia and no one thinks anything of it. It’s called packing them in to get more people in the hotel and to increase your ruble profits. If the last bed would have been in that room I would have slept there. But it turned out if I paid for both beds I got a room to myself and that is what I did. The whole hotel smelled of liniment and the Russian lady told the Swiss guys to close all the closet doors so the smell didn’t permeate the linens and that she had a bad heart and couldn’t stand the smell. After each day of riding they put a variety on liniment on their legs to help with stiff and aching muscles. After the room issue was settled, I joined the Swiss bicyclists for supper in the café and Mat ordered for me. We all ate and talked of our adventures and what our plans are. They ride for four days, 120 miles/200 Kms each day and on the fifth day they stop and rest. Their plans are to ride bicycle to Shanghai, China. I don’t know how much time they have but they said they’re going into Mongolia. So I’m not sure if Shanghai, China is in their destination this year. They did tell me they broke their trip up into four legs and I don’t know for sure if they’re on their third fourth leg of the journey. This is a four year bicycle ride. Every day they make entries into their blog about their experiences and the people they meet. They told me I was in their blog as a person they met along the way. They also told me each guy had specific task/job they performed. Mat is the interpreter, Beet was the mechanic in charge of keeping the bicycles in good condition and the guy with the Italian name, well, I never quite understood what his job was. They were saying they have quite a following on their blog. As I’ve said before, there hasn’t been a place in the world that I’ve been that a bicycle rider wasn’t there with me. We retired for the evening and they said every day they leave at 7:00 a.m. for their next day’s ride.
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