Felix returns home

After more than two years riding his BMW R 80 GS around the world, Felix Bergmeister has safely returned home to Austria. The final challenge saw Felix leave South Africa en route to Russia via South Korea and then ride from Vladivostok all the way back to Europe, experiencing some of the worst road and weather conditions imaginable in Siberia. However, despite everything that Mother Nature could throw at his trusty GS, it took the beating bravely and still runs like new. Felix tells BMW Motorrad about his long and memorable ride home

How did you get the bike from South Africa to Korea?

The most direct route to minimise the sailing time and the time the bike would be in transit was to Pusan in South Korea, and as South Korea operates a car ferry to Russia this would allow me to ride from the Pacific coast of far eastern Russia back to Europe. With this plan in mind I had to get the Russian visa in Cape Town but a recent change in their visa policy meant that they would not issue visas to foreigners outside of their home country. This proved to be a big problem but with a letter from Unicef Moscow I finally got my travel permit.

After I had the necessary paperwork sorted out, BMW of Durbanville very kindly donated a crate once again and I had the bike crated up in three hours, as I was very familiar with the procedure by now. I left the top open for the customs authority before I sealed it the next day after my documentation was stamped. The bike then arrived as scheduled in Korea, only seven days after I flew in. Everything was fine and it didn’t take me long to reassemble it. As I had serviced the bike in South Africa prior to departure all I had to do was bring a can of fuel and ride it to the car ferry.

What did you do to occupy your time until you could ride again?

In Durban, South Africa I ran the Comrades Marathon and after my arrival in Korea I took some time for sightseeing, as Korea is a very diverse country with great cultural heritage as well as having a fast-paced technological side. I met a lot of very interesting people there, all of whom were very accommodating and helped me prepare my onward trip. The great thing about Korea is that most of the youth speak English and enjoy meeting travellers from around the world. I stayed in a really nice guesthouse that was connected to a Tae Kwon Do school and they were extremely helpful with everything. When my luggage did not arrive on the same flight with me they immediately sorted everything out for me.

How did you then get from South Korea to Vladivostok?

I took the car ferry from Sokcho to Zarubino, a small port south of Vladivostok. The sailing took about 17 hours and as it was an overnight voyage I also managed to get some sleep. On arrival in Zarubino the customs officers were very helpful and the formalities were done in a couple of hours. They offered me coffee and even though there was a huge language barrier we still made good conversation, as they were really interested in my project.

What were your expectations of the long road home? And what was the reality?

I had expected that the roads in Siberia would be bad; however I did not know just how bad. Several people had told me that the Russians were a friendly nation and this was certainly true. Finding a place to stay and a hot meal was never a problem, as most of the time I was invited by fellow bikers into their homes.

One day I stopped for a picture at the side of the road and a car suddenly turned around with the driver shouting and gesturing out of the window for me to follow him. He was a biker and invited me to meet his friends from the local motorcycle club. In the evening we had a barbeque and the next morning my new friends escorted me through their town to wish me goodbye. What truly stood out was that all over the country, the biker community has a massive amount of respect for one another and that gives the impression of a big family – which was something I really needed at that point of the journey.

When you look at the distance on a map, it seems massive. How long did it take to actually get home?

Indeed the distance was massive, but as with many things it is better not to look at the whole distance in one but to take smaller pieces and tackle the days as they come. The daily distance I was able to cover was dictated by the terrain: some days I managed to do more than 800 kilometres and on other days I only managed one or two hundred. From the day I got on the bike in Zarubino, it took me 35 days to arrive back at my home in Austria. As nothing went wrong with the bike, it was almost twice as fast as expected.

What were the memorable moments of your final stage?

Riding through another completely diverse kind of terrain that was totally different from Africa and the Americas, as well as everything I had experienced before. As this was the final leg of my journey, the solitude of the Siberian landscape also allowed me the opportunity to reflect on the kilometres which lay behind me as well as come to terms with my innermost emotions in terms of what I had set out to achieve and was actually about to achieve.

How did the GS cope with what looked like treacherous road conditions?

As I was experiencing harsher terrain than I had crossed at any time of the journey, I regularly had to stop and check for loose nuts and bolts. Keeping to this routine religiously meant that I prevented several trip-ending problems that would have certainly been caused by the vigorous and unrelenting vibrations. There was only one minor bit of damage that was completely unavoidable and this was on my right pannier, where the aluminium wore through at the bracket connecting it to the pannier frame. I managed to fix this problem however by improvising with a hacksaw blade, and fortunately for me, this got me back home!

Were parts of the final journey physically exhausting?

Several thousands of kilometres of corrugated gravel roads wreaked havoc on my entire body, particularly my wrists and my neck. In fact, even the chin-strap of my helmet caused irritation under my chin from all the movement, and this had never happened before.

Did you receive kindness, shelter and assistance from the local people all the way home?

The Russians – and especially the Siberians – made me feel part of their families and offered me everything a biker could possibly need or want, especially in the small villages. This was even more overwhelming as most of the time they did not have very much but still they made me welcome in their homes and communities.

Did you have any celebration to mark your ‘homecoming’?

I initially planned to arrive on a Monday, but as the weather in Poland was extremely bad I did not want to stick around and wait, so I covered more distance than I had anticipated. I arrived at the border on Sunday and then I got the feeling that sleeping in my own bed might not be such a bad idea, so I decided I might as well finish the journey that night! This got me home a day earlier without anybody knowing – much to the surprise of my mother. Later in the week I met my old friends and then we had a reunion celebration to mark my homecoming.

What have you been doing since arriving back in Austria?

I started university in October, but before that a lot of my time went into sorting out paperwork and spending a lot of time with my friends. I am busy sorting my photographs for a presentation, which is by no means an easy task, as I have so many! I am also working on editing the chapters of my book as well as focusing on my training. Life has gone back to ‘normal’ really but I know it is going to still take some time to completely readjust.