7 July 2009 Irkutsk Russia

I woke up about 9:30 a.m., just barely early enough to eat breakfast. I hot-footed it down to the restaurant, and guess whose sitting there? The Scottish guys. I said to them that I thought they’d be on their way to Chita. They kind of hinted about a little too much beer last night. We ate breakfast and they set about loading their bikes. Gordon was offloading anything he didn’t need. He gave me some Bite and Sting Crème…..Allergy Tablets…..Some Oral Electrolyte Powder. I took it to my room and that’s the last time I saw these guys. I went and took a picture of my front motorcycle tire and wrote down the size. I then walked down the street to the address and showed them what I wanted. They looked up the tire on the internet and found it. I asked them how long before it would arrive. He said it would take a month. No way, Jose. He then called around town and found a Michelin tire. First he was going to print out a map to the business with the tire. I asked how far. He said about 10 kilometers. I told him it would take me 4 hours to get there. He said no, maybe 20/30 minutes; it’s a small town. The population is around 600,000 people. He offered to drive me there and I said ok. So we jumped into his car and drove over there. They showed me the tires that were available and I took the Michelin tire. I like the tread the best and I like the performance of the Michelin tire I have on the rear wheel. It’s been holding up pretty good. He drove me back to the hotel and I showed him my motorcycle. He said it’s a nice old motorcycle. I told him it’s a 2007 Kawasaki. He couldn’t believe it. It’s covered in dust and mud, and that tends to affect the image of the motorcycle. I thanked him for his help and he left. I covered the bike and took my new tire to my room. I’m not going to put the tire on unless I absolutely have to. I don’t want to change tires till I get to Anchorage, Alaska. I checked my e-mails and then wrote a couple of e-mails. I came back to my room and fell asleep. When I woke up, I worked on my blog and then went to bed.