The Vintagent Selects: The Ice Knights

SUMMARY

“We always had love for the motorcycles. Building bikes, traveling, doing MX, but flat track was a real game-changer for us. We built three flat trackers: a Soviet-era IZH Planet Sport, a Triumph T120R, and a KX450 DTX, and found an old speedway track 300kms away from Moscow. As the Summer season is only about three months in Russia, we also discovered Winter ice track racing, which is a great fun actually. So that’s how we got to Lake Baikal. The world’s biggest and deepest fresh water lake, in East Siberia near Mongolia, with a perfect flat ice in Winter, where they hold a motorcycle mile festival (something like Bonnevile Salt Flats but ice!).  Lake Baikal is one of the top 10 must-see destinations in Russia, we always wanted to get there but for various reasons it didn’t come to the point. This time everything worked out perfectly.

We had a flat track event in Moscow with Motul, “In Dust We Trust”. The only flat track in Russia. So we loaded all 3 bikes to our Sprinter and drove 800kms from Saint Petersburg to the capital. The fun thing that our mechanics Rodion and Alexander are brothers and were born in the small place – Tarasa, 2 hours drive from Irkutsk (big city two hours drive from the Baikal), and due to the Covid situation here they haven’t been home for a while. A 5100kms trip from Moscow to Baikal wasn’t a big deal for those two.

Got couple of first places and the next day after the event Rodion and Alex headed east. Peter, Mikhail and Me (Egor), Video and Photo guys decided to take a worst you can imagine (six hour flight with non-folding seats and no meal) to meet our mechanics on the spot. Just before the flight my buddy sent me a video of 2 heavy trucks drowned under the ice on Baikal but it didn’t change my attitude much as the trip to Baikal was postponed couple of times and we decided to go.

We landed in Irkutsk rented a car and drove down to the lake. It is a middle of a spring and the whole way down the road we were watching the fast, clean river on the right and we laughing that it would be a great swim and a long flight home) later locals told us that even when its -50 the river looks the same way) But there was sense in our joke when we got to the place Listvyanka (small village on the bank of the Lake) where we decided to stay. We passed the place where trucks drowned, that’s kind of a scary thing you don’t want to see when you are planning to have fun on the track. Ice wasn’t that crystal blue and wasn’t easy to slide. It was about +10C and it was melting. Still conditions were good, but the time was against us as the ice was already soft.

Locals were talking stories of people falling in thawed patches and seriously warned us not to ride out. In winter there Is a highway on ice and about 600 cars drown each year. But we had bikes locked and loaded and nothing could stop us. 2 days of sliding nonstop. The ice situation got worse every hour and after I almost got caught in the huge crack we decided to stop!  It was scary like hell hearing all the breaking noises under the wheels but it was worth it.

We made some shooting, got really good images and definitely had some fun. Some breakdowns that we managed to fix right on the ice thanks to Rodion and Alex, but that’s what you always have when you deal with old bikes) The last day we decided to spent with guys parents’ house they were super kind to shelter our squad and we felt the full power of Russian hospitality and national dishes)

Baikal has its own energy. Don’t know how to describe it, but when you see it you can feel its mighty power. These expanses, snow-capped mountains in the horizon. I think that’s why this place is full of legends and spiritual things, it’s a real mecca of Shamans and Buddhists (official religions in this place). We plan to get back here next winter to slide its hard and cold ice.”

– Egor Stepanizhov

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