Have you got what it takes to swap tarmac for ice?

So you’ve ridden across Europe, raced the Nürburgring track and are more familiar with Donington Park than you are with your partner? What could be left for you to challenge your bike skills with?
How about racing hundreds of miles across Siberian ice in temperatures below -20oC…

That’s exactly what 17 brave / mad ‘Ice Run Pioneers’ and a host of Ural motorbikes, complete with sidecars, have just undertaken; having taken part in what is quickly becoming touted as one of the world’s toughest bike adventures ‘The Ice Run’.

This year’s Ice Run route consisted of a 2000km journey over and round the biggest frozen lake in the world, Lake Baikal in Siberian Russia – also the globe’s oldest and deepest lake; like a Ming vase, (or Cheryl Cole), she’s beautiful, but empty.

As well as navigation and camping skills the organisers of the event, The Adventurists, made sure mechanical skills played a big part in the Run by using old school Russian Urals, built like tanks and slightly rusty they’re so notoriously temperamental they make John McEnroe look like the Dalai Lama.

But it wasn’t the bikes that created the most memorable ‘highlights’ of this year’s Run, rather the environment. Large cracks in the ice had to be crossed/jumped on the bikes, with often wet, but thrilling conclusions (see picture above), and an earth quake one morning made the ice, and competitor’s minds, even more fragile than they had been the night before. There was also a rather crazy party at the end of the journey, which caused a few extra casualties.

Next year’s Ice Run looks set to be even ‘cooler’ than this year’s and places are filling up fast. If you want to test your bike handling, mechanical and survival skills to the max then check out www.theadventurists.com/ice-run