If the idea of riding through Russia, Mongolia, and Siberia on a couple of KTM 690 Enduro Rs with a buddy appeals to you, stop whatever you’re doing and watch Broken Roads to Siberia right now. It’s a beautifully shot and edited short film—just 31 minutes—that may give you more than a few ideas about some future trips you need to take. 

Directed by Jyri Koski, the film follows friends Tuukka and Jyri as they outline their journey at home in Finland, then progress across every kind of terrain you can imagine. They took no support crew and no chase vehicle, a fact they specifically mentioned when laying everything out at the beginning of the film. 

Naturally, you might wonder how they recorded some of the amazing shots they captured if there was no crew. In the YouTube comments, the Broken Roads team wrote that they used a self-following drone cam, or else set their cameras up on the ground and rode by them to get certain shots. Clever editing also helped in spots.

Plenty of gravel, muddy dirt track, gigantic puddles, and desert greeted the BR guys as they headed for their ultimate goal: the BAM road in beautiful but unforgiving Siberia. The Baikal-Amur-Mainline train line (BAM) was built through extensive use of this service road—and it’s now mostly unmaintained, quietly dissolving into the landscape as nature reclaims it.

The full road stretches 4,300km (or around 2,700 miles), and runs from Vanino through to the Trans-Siberian highway near Taishet. Loads of gravel, as well as rickety, nail-filled, partially rotten wooden bridges make up the path. There are also plenty of rivers that run waist-high to get through. 

This short video, shot in 2012, shows you the infamous Vitim Bridge that ADV and 4x4 enthusiasts alike enjoy traversing. There’s a relatively brief time each year that the weather allows anyone to cross, so you have to time it just right. Otherwise, it’s far too frozen. 

By the time the Broken Roads duo cross the Vitim Bridge seven years later, you can see in their video that the road is currently in much worse repair. In fact, Tuukka and Jyri advise anyone who wants to experience this challenge to think about doing it ASAP, before the bridge is completely impassable. 

Videos like this serve as a great reminder that there’s still plenty of wilderness to explore if you take a friend, take some good bikes, and pack well. 

Sources: YouTube, Dangerous Roads, Yellow Yeti ADV, The Litas

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