Page 18 - Australian Motorcycle News (January 2020)

the

w

They did what? WORDS PETER WHITAKER PHOTOGRAPHY THE ADVENTURISTS

Three wheels

on thin ice

A couple of Aussies, a learner’s permit, a Ural outfit and one of the coldest

and most remote places on earth. What could possibly go wrong?

A BMW R71 air-cooled, 1
horizontally opposed
750cc sidevalve outfit, was
sent to the USSR in 1938,
complete with a licence for
the Russians to manufacture
in the Ukraine. BMW had
quickly realised the R71 was
decidedly dodgy and, with
overhead valves and other
improvements, built the R75
in time to invade Poland. By
this time Harley-Davidson
had built a clone of the shaft
driven outfit, naming it the XA.
After the war, both BMW
and Harley-Davidson
progressed to better machines
while, east of the Iron Curtain,
the Russians continued to
assemble the R71, then known
as the IMZ-Ural. The factory
at Irbit wasn’t exactly a Gulag,
though workers were treated
like slaves, as the build
quality of the machines at the
time amply demonstrated.
This is exactly the reason
Urals were selected by ‘The
Adventurists’ – Aussies
Dalbs Hutter, 36, and Dylan
Thompson, 38 – for the
inaugural Ice Run in 2012,
an event which followed the
frozen River Orb to Salekhard spring, participants need be a result of taking part are
in Russia. It wasn’t easy, then as wary of thin ice as they high,” read the pitch from
again it didn’t press the limits navigate the undulating the organisers.
of impossibility and all the moguls and monstrous “Individuals have
participants made it through crevasses created by the icy been permanently
with minimal mechanical winter winds. disfigured, seriously
knowhow. A harder challenge There is no set route as disabled or lost their lives. only two weeks before the
was required. such, but GPS coordinates are These are not holidays. These 2014 Ice Run. The pair quickly
It wasn’t too difficult for provided for known hazards are adventures, so you really discovered the organisers
the organisers to locate and refuel points. are putting both your health weren’t kidding.
Lake Baikal in the Republik It’s made abundantly clear and life at risk. That’s the “Each night we had to sleep
of Burjatien. Baikal is over by The Adventurists that whole point.” with the bike’s battery in
30,000 square kilometres in the risks involved cannot be How could such a spiel our sleeping bags and each
area, is more than a kilometre overestimated. not attract Hutter and morning we’d light small fires
deep and, while the surface “Your chances of being Thompson? The latter had under the bikes to thaw the
remains frozen well into seriously injured or dying as obtained his learner’s permit engine oil and frozen fuel

18 amcn.com.au