The following summer...

"There were five of us on four motorcycles: one BMW-R75 with a sidecar, and three K-125. (Our serious mugs reflected our notion at the time of how serious people were supposed to look in historic moments). One flaw these motorcycles had in common was the absence of a rear suspension, and that caused one of our most frequent break-downs: spokes falling out. We replaced the missing spokes by twisting two broken spokes together to make one. That stopped the wheels from locking or turning into a figure 8.

One could easily ride these bikes from the dacha to the nearest river, but if loaded down with say, a couple of canisters of gas, they could turn a trip along beat-up post-war roads into a typical Soviet adventure for lovers of the endless hunt for scarce parts, oil, gas, and even food. We had a whole lot of such adventures, and for a long time afterwards remembered them with great pleasure."

The full story of their trip can be read here.