After I was woken up at 4 am by the guys driving across the river I fell back asleep and woke again at about 10:00, which is very late for me. I hurried up and gathered my stuff up and headed to Syniver lake. I was almost the only one there. This lake is incredibly famous in Ukraine. I dont really understand why. Its cool and all but I would hardly call it a lake. more like a pond. I walked around it in 15 minutes, at a leisurely pace. The road to get there was through nice scenery though!
Here you can see the tiny island in the middle of the lake
Since I got a late start to the day I didnt hang around long. I headed out to go to Shypit Waterfall. It wasn't incredible far. It was pretty cool a 14 meter, 46 ft, tall waterfall.
From there my goal was to get back to Kiev. I didnt plan to do it in one day but to make things simple I just said GPS take me home! it made a route and I started following it. It was fine then told me to turn down a dirt road..... I thought it strange but sometimes it happens here that a road is dirt or bad pavement for a while then gets better so I went for it. Then the road got worse then worse then worse. Finally about 20km later I hadn't seen much in the way of houses or anything and I started to think ok this isn't so cool. This is pretty rough in this big bike maybe I should turn around. Then I thought well do you want to drive back through that so I pressed forward up the side of a mountain, not switchbacks just straight up the side...
It was crazy! the center of the road was washed away and was about a foot lower than the rest of the road. It was all I could do to keep it on the ruts from previous logging trucks. Then I came to a plateau.
Its at this point I really debated going back but man it was so steep getting up the mountain and so rutted up that I was afraid to go back down it. So I pressed on. I remember thinking this is probably stupid but there is no going back now. Worse comes to worse I could see they had been cutting trees recently so if I crash someone should be along in the next day or 2....
The pictures really dont do it justice. This was one of the worse paths/roads I had ever been on.
The views were nice though!
I am not 100% sure where this was the GPS said Mount Rivna, I believe, from what I can find it is located here 48.740698, 23.387804
Finally I came down into a village! this church was there!
I was so happy to be out of that mess! I really was fairly worried. My phone had no reception and if I went down I though well this will be interesting. When I got to the village people kind of looked at me funny as I went through. Then I got to the other side of it the road turned into a brand new paved road!!!! I was sooooo happy!
So I kept going and going and going. I decided not to take the super highway from Lviv to Kyiv but the road that runs parallel to is but to the south, through Ternopil again. This road wasnt horrible but not great. I went through Ternopil and ran into Sergey again. We stopped chatted a bit then I went on.
Finally I found a place to camp in a field near a river and just passed out. It was only 400km that day but it was a long day...
Next morning I woke up and headed to Kiev. I was about 100km from Kiev when I heard something funny. I stopped and found this
Some tie wire and I thought I had it fixed!
But when I started the bike it was loud..... the exhaust had cracked...
I drove a little further until I found a gas station. I stopped and bought a can of coke. Now normally I would use a steel can to repair and exhaust leak but they only had aluminum. I figured well at this point I only have 80km to go and its all on the super highway so its a smooth road this wont be an issue.
I got on the bike started it up and it wasnt perfect but good enough. As I was wrapping the exhause with the can I tried to feel if the exhaust was completely broken or cracked. I could feel anything so I wasn't to worried. This will work until Kiev.
As I cruised along at about 70mph I was thinking. Thats it! Thats all the gods of motorcycling are going to throw at me! The trip gave me everything I wanted and then some. The only payment is a loose fork bolt, loosing a headlight bolt and now the cracked exhaust.... HA! Thats childs play :)
About 50km from Kiev the bike got REALLY facking loud :) Looks like the gods heard me. The exhaust broke completely in two. I jammed it back together wrapped it with tie wire and continued on. The bike was near deafening loud but so be it. I pulled into Kiev 50km later parked the bike went home and had a celebratory beer! Trip well done!
Here you can see the tiny island in the middle of the lake
Since I got a late start to the day I didnt hang around long. I headed out to go to Shypit Waterfall. It wasn't incredible far. It was pretty cool a 14 meter, 46 ft, tall waterfall.
From there my goal was to get back to Kiev. I didnt plan to do it in one day but to make things simple I just said GPS take me home! it made a route and I started following it. It was fine then told me to turn down a dirt road..... I thought it strange but sometimes it happens here that a road is dirt or bad pavement for a while then gets better so I went for it. Then the road got worse then worse then worse. Finally about 20km later I hadn't seen much in the way of houses or anything and I started to think ok this isn't so cool. This is pretty rough in this big bike maybe I should turn around. Then I thought well do you want to drive back through that so I pressed forward up the side of a mountain, not switchbacks just straight up the side...
It was crazy! the center of the road was washed away and was about a foot lower than the rest of the road. It was all I could do to keep it on the ruts from previous logging trucks. Then I came to a plateau.
Its at this point I really debated going back but man it was so steep getting up the mountain and so rutted up that I was afraid to go back down it. So I pressed on. I remember thinking this is probably stupid but there is no going back now. Worse comes to worse I could see they had been cutting trees recently so if I crash someone should be along in the next day or 2....
The pictures really dont do it justice. This was one of the worse paths/roads I had ever been on.
The views were nice though!
I am not 100% sure where this was the GPS said Mount Rivna, I believe, from what I can find it is located here 48.740698, 23.387804
Finally I came down into a village! this church was there!
I was so happy to be out of that mess! I really was fairly worried. My phone had no reception and if I went down I though well this will be interesting. When I got to the village people kind of looked at me funny as I went through. Then I got to the other side of it the road turned into a brand new paved road!!!! I was sooooo happy!
So I kept going and going and going. I decided not to take the super highway from Lviv to Kyiv but the road that runs parallel to is but to the south, through Ternopil again. This road wasnt horrible but not great. I went through Ternopil and ran into Sergey again. We stopped chatted a bit then I went on.
Finally I found a place to camp in a field near a river and just passed out. It was only 400km that day but it was a long day...
Next morning I woke up and headed to Kiev. I was about 100km from Kiev when I heard something funny. I stopped and found this
Some tie wire and I thought I had it fixed!
But when I started the bike it was loud..... the exhaust had cracked...
I drove a little further until I found a gas station. I stopped and bought a can of coke. Now normally I would use a steel can to repair and exhaust leak but they only had aluminum. I figured well at this point I only have 80km to go and its all on the super highway so its a smooth road this wont be an issue.
I got on the bike started it up and it wasnt perfect but good enough. As I was wrapping the exhause with the can I tried to feel if the exhaust was completely broken or cracked. I could feel anything so I wasn't to worried. This will work until Kiev.
As I cruised along at about 70mph I was thinking. Thats it! Thats all the gods of motorcycling are going to throw at me! The trip gave me everything I wanted and then some. The only payment is a loose fork bolt, loosing a headlight bolt and now the cracked exhaust.... HA! Thats childs play :)
About 50km from Kiev the bike got REALLY facking loud :) Looks like the gods heard me. The exhaust broke completely in two. I jammed it back together wrapped it with tie wire and continued on. The bike was near deafening loud but so be it. I pulled into Kiev 50km later parked the bike went home and had a celebratory beer! Trip well done!
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