I headed North parallel to the Turkish border with Armenia. My goal was to reach the mountainous Black Forest region, with a stop at the Ani ruins on the way.

The day began well with a spectacular view of Mount Ararat as I headed out of Tatvan. The scenery was barren, rocky, and at times volcanic, with generally good empty roads. As ever, there were hilltop military positions and checkpoints in all the towns - one even had a soviet era BTR APC, which was the first I had seen.

The good start changed dramatically during a 30km shortcut along a road that was under construction. The surface was a mixture of dirt and gravel, but nothing too challenging.

I passed a construction truck in a cloud of blinding dust, probably at around 25kmph. The road had virtually no traffic and so, although I could not see through the dust cloud, the truck was going so slowly I thought the maneuver was going to be OK. Imagine my surprise when I cleared the dust cloud and discovered 6 goot pile of dirt in the middle of the road.

I had no time to react, and certainly not to brake. My life flashed in front of my eyes. This was going to be hurt…

Except it didn’t. The bike went down and so did I, both of us ploughing into the dirt… which turned out to be as soft as hitting a matress. Aside from being covered head to foot in grey dirt, I was unhurt. Even more importantly so was the bike, which was now grey, not red.

This led to an interesting challenge - how to pick it up? The right side of the bike was now embedded in soft dirt… I began by removing the left pannier and top box to shed some weight. Then, after positioning my butt on the seat, I was able to walk backwards and get the GS into an upright position. Just like in my training!

I definitely had a lucky break. If it had been a pile of rocks in the road and not dirt, I could have been seriously hurt. Lesson learned - don’t overtake unless you can see what’s around the vehicle!

The Heed crash bars did their job - they lost some surface finish, but had not moved or bent. The right side Cleawater light and its mounting bar had moved, but twisted back into position without damage (although the light protective cover was slightly scratched, and so this turned out to be a great purchase). The right indicator had popped out of its mount, but popped back in again.

I plucked up my courage and continued along the road to the 10th century ruined city of Ani, which turned out to be interesting and impressive. It was originally Armenian, and at one time one of the world’s largest cities. It is well worth a visit.

After Ani, I stopped at a gas station to use their air compressor to blow the bike clean of all the grey dust. And there was a LOT of it,

For the rest of the day I was rewarded with a great ride through winding mountain, forest and valley roads. Definitely some of the best scenery of the entire trip. The Black Forest gets a BIG thumbs up.

To nitpick, there was a lot of fresh tarmac and grit that sandblasted the bike. When I reached my overnight stop in the mountains, I actually washed it. I managed to get the rest of the dust off, but not the fresh layer of tar.

The stop in Velikoy was great. A cabin, kofte, (praise the lord) and (with Google translate) conversation with an Istanbul motorcycle cop who was on vacation. In particular we laughed over the thrashings of Fenerbahce and Besiktas by Manchester United and Liverpool.

In summary, an action packed day with a happy ending!!

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