Blogging weekly at Flesh & Relics and TransverseAlchemy

NEW! Balkans Burn Part I of III; Varna, Bulgaria to Gianitsa, Greece

Some years ago in Germany I watched a documentary that featured a Russian biologist tooling around Siberia on an old motorcycle with a sidecar. I’ve always loved old vehicles, and I was immediately intrigued by a bike that would handle those conditions: I'd never seen a "boxer" before, and little did I know what that seemingly innocent program on Discovery Channel was going to do to me.
We later moved to Bulgaria, and as life seemed more permanently settled transportation became an issue. We looked at several second hand cars but nothing appealed to me, and I decided to go back to a bike. I've always had a preference to Harley's, but they aren't very practical here due to a lack of parts and the expense: my mind drifted back to that film and I started checking out Russian Motorcycles. At first glance they all looked pretty much alike: I looked up the Dnepr & Ural bikes, then found the Chang Jiangs, and finally I ran across the M72. It was love at first sight.

People always thought I was a bit off the deep end, so I spent about a year proving them right. I asked every biker I met, put ads in the paper and looked in every village we went through. People suggested I go with a tractor or something since it would be easier to find and get about the same mileage. One guy had a warehouse full of rusty 1992 Dneprs in parts, another tried to pass off an MT11 as an M72 at an insane cost. Finally, in December 2005 I found an advertisement for a running "1953 M-72" in Sofia (which happens to be on the other side of the country). I managed to arrange the trip there and back, found a trailer, and 48 hours and a couple of snowstorms later the bike was safe in Varna and the adventure started.

December 2005	August 2006

Since then I've put over 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles) on her: she's forded streams in Romania, climbed mountain tracks in Greece and plowed through dust storms in Albania. What she lacks in speed she makes up for in determination, and although I get my share of ribbing from the guys on the cruisers and café racers most of them are quick to ask for a photo.

Click here for information on the restoration.