Author and Biker Kevin Turner, also known as ‘Hapless Biker’ has recently released his book “From Crystal Palace to Red Square – A Hapless Biker’s Road to Russia” and in a recent interview with Michelin UK he gave his thoughts on the three month trip crammed into three weeks, along with the Pilot Road 3 sport touring tyre which he used from start to finish on his ride out east:
“Last August I embarked on a 6,000 mile motorcycle adventure, from London, up through Norway and across Finland to Moscow. I gave myself three weeks to squeeze in a trip that should rightly have taken three months (or rather, my employer gave me three weeks…)
Still, over those 21 days, I experienced some of the most wonderful moments of my motorcycling life, and also some of the worst. I rode along the extraordinary Trollstigen pass in Norway and felt my heart skip a beat as I looked down on the majestic Geirangerfjord; I experienced first-hand the beauty of St Petersburg and felt the presence of so much history in Moscow’s Red Square. And I also came very close to a horrible, mangled death beneath the wheels of 1,000 enormous trucks as I bounced across the loose rock and rubble which constitute so many of Russia’s roads.
The journey represented the culmination of ten years of riding: it was a challenge set for no good reason; a mountain to climb simply because it was there. Throughout, my only companion was my bike, an 11-year old Ninja 636; stock, except for the after-market exhaust, a tinted screen and a few too many stickers.
The Ninja is a sports-tourer, but it is not an adventure bike. It was not designed to ride across hundreds of miles of rubble, lugging two heavy panniers, a tent and a hapless biker way out of his depth. I lost count of the times I felt sure the poor machine was about to grind to a halt, it’s chain and sprockets thick with congealing mud and it’s suspension hammered beyond belief. But it just kept going.
As did the tyres, a set of new MICHELIN Pilot Road 3s that I’d had fitted a week or so before I left. I had read that the Pilot Road 3s were very good in both wet and dry conditions, and in truth that’s all I expected they would have to contend with. I had not anticipated so many miles of lunar-like surface, so many huge pot-holes and loose gravel tracks. I could have forgiven them for expiring at any time, especially on the return leg. But like the Kawasaki, they not only survived, they excelled. In Poland, on the way back home after something like 4,000 miles, I met an English chap who asked where and when I’d changed tyres. He refused to believe they could possibly have been the same set I left home on. His incredulity was understandable because they looked brand new.
As I write this, the Ninja is parked outside my house, clean and polished and fully recovered from the adventure. In fact, it’s just returned from a rather wet track day at Donington Park, followed by a weekend’s touring in Wales. It’s still wearing those same Pilot Road 3s that I left for Russia on nine months ago, and barring errant nails and broken glass I suspect those tyres will remain wrapped around the stone-chipped wheels all summer long. Hopefully that will include a few more adventures, though perhaps none quite as epic as my Russian marathon.”
The Pilot Road 3 is available to the UK trade at superb prices from Cambrian Tyres along with a complete range of Michelin two wheel product including mousses. For more information on the range please see the Michelin section.
