Something you don’t want to hear your mechanic say: “This hose went in the side here, right?”
Sunday began with a power outage at our hotel, but we were on the road by 8 a.m. The temperature had cooled to 61 degrees from the 90s on Saturday, and it continued to drop as we traveled west.
We again traversed rough roads for much of the morning. I took some video of the rough ride in the Roadster, and I’ll try to figure out how to post it later. Our guide, Ksenia, started riding with John mid-morning so she could experience the Roadster.
At a gas stop, I spotted this sculpture of a swan made from an old tire:
Swan tire sculpture on the way to Ulan Ude (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
We spent much of the day in forests in the Buryatia region of Siberia and saw numerous places, such as the one below, that are still recovering from the 2000 fires that destroyed 78,000 hectares.
Fire damage in Buryatia region (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
By 3 p.m., the temperature had dropped to 45 degrees and John pulled over so Knesia could retrieve a heavier jacket from Leo’s car. During the stop, Luke noticed that a few Roadster parts were no longer attached to the Roadster, but had fallen into the space between the engine compartment and the right front fender — the parts below are from two brackets that hold the radiator guard in place, and both brackets had broken. Luke made an emergency repair with tie wraps in about 30 seconds and we were on our way again.
A few extra parts (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
Tie wraps to the rescue (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
By 6:30, the temperature had dropped to 36 degrees and it was raining, with occasional snow flurries. About 7 p.m., we stopped in Targabatay, a town of “Old Believers,” who maintain the earliest rites of the Russian Orthodox Church. The town has an Old Believer museum filled with artifacts collected by the town’s priest. The man in the picture below is the priest’s son, and he gave us a tour of both the museum and the church.
Old Believers Museum in Targabatay (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
One of the artifacts he showed us was the century-old oil barrel in the picture below. Due to a scarcity of fuel, the original 1908 racers had to pre-position barrels of petroleum along the race route in Siberia, and it’s possible they used something such as the barrel in the picture.
Century-old oil barrel (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
The priest also owns the 1940s Russian jeep below:
1940s Russian jeep (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
We arrived in Ulan Ude about 9 p.m., but with a one hour time change, it was only 8 p.m.
John and Luke started today by pulling the right front shock off the car and we visited three auto parts stores trying to find a new one. It was close, but not quite enough — one replacement shock was too long by one inch and another one was the right size, but had the wrong type of mount.
Parking lot surgery on the right front strut of the Roadster (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
Taking a break from the shock search, we toured Ivolginsky Datsan, the main Buddhist monastery/temple in Russia, complete with Buddhist cats and dogs.
Buddhist Monastary tour (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
Buddhist cat (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
We also did a walking tour of Ulan Ude, which included the world’s largest head of Lenin.
World’s largest Lenin head, located in Ulan Ude (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
Back at the hotel, John and Luke did some Roadster maintenance, which included reinstalling the old shock while we continue to look for another one,
Roadster parking lot maintenance (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
cleaning the air filter from the dust accumulated on the dirt and gravel roads the past two days,
The “pound the part on the ground” method of cleaning the air filter (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
Cleaning the gunk out of the air filter holder (or whatever it’s called — I made that up) (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
pumping up the rear struts again, fixing the brake lights again, this time with a tie wrap to keep the right-hand bulb more tightly in place, and adding two more tie wraps to the radiator guard for more security.
The Roadster’s ever-growing collection of tie-wraps (Eileen Bjorkman photo)
We now have five tie wraps on the Roadster, and we’ve decided to start a contest to see who can come closest to the actual number of tie wraps that will be holding the Roadster together when we reach Paris. Make your guess by making a comment here or on the Facebook page. The prize will be a Roadster part that has gone around the world!
Tomorrow we head out at 8 a.m. for a 522 km drive to Listvyanka, which is on the shores of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake.
