Tag: season09

How much fun can you have during one weekend?

So, TGIF, the day is done and you’re pondering about the upcoming evening as well as the two upcoming days. Important: you have a motorcycle, and it is, afterall, a fun machine. So you want to have as much fun as possible during two days and an evening, to prepare for a wild biz week starting Monday.

Naturally, after a dinner you start with a visit to the Burnt Ministry (Varvac Ministrutyun, Վառված Մինիստրություն). You meet with the fellow motorized fun colleagues, discuss some motorbike–related topics and kick a sweet small ride across Yerevan and the suburbs, enjoying the dusk, the rumbling of the cruiser’s engine behind and the whizzing of the sportbike’s engine ahead.

You then schedule a ride to Ijevan for Saturday and go clubbing till 5 in the morning.

In the morning you pack and head out to start the Ijevan ride.

You move out at around 11, ride on the M4 across a freezing wind, and take a short lahmajo / tea break in Dilijan.

Then you warm up and start riding to Ijevan, around 40 kilometers.

In Ijevan you meet a friend who invites you to his house in Gandzakar, where you meet some very nice people.

And enjoy a freshly slain (sorry nature activists) lamb BBQ

With some home–produced vodka

And awesome stories.

You then receive a call from another friend who invites you to join him in Dilijan and ride a section to Sevan. So you ride back to Dilijan, join him with his car and his company, then on the Shorzha intersection you turn to stack up with more friends at Sevan.

You spend the night playing a guitar, watching the stars and the fire, and in the morning you swallow some wonderful omelet after watching a new boat being put into the lake.

Afterwards you receive a call inviting you to a racing event in Arzni, you pack again and head out to meet more friends

..and watch some outstanding fun action!!

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You watch some very fast cars

Meet some very fast motorcycles

And of course meet me who has incidentally been also doing exactly everything that was described above!

Then you ride with me to Yerevan for a coctail at a favorite cafe, go home for a shower and just when you want to go back to more clubbing, you drop dead sleeping.

Great weekend: [ SUCCESS ]

Recommended: Ejmiatsin — Ashtarak

I had a wonderful and spontaneous small ride with the guys today: Yerevan — Ejmiatsin — Ashtarak — Yerevan in the dusk, enjoying delicious roadside watermelon in the middle. The Ejmiatsin — Ashtarak road is fantastic in the dusk, so if you have two hours in the evening and want to have an immensely aesthetic and atmospheric experience, just hit the Ejmiatsin M5 highway then M3 then M1 (then have some chocolate ice cream at SQ1?).

You won’t regret it.

Safety Tip: Of Vigen

  • Do not buy a Honda CBR 1000RR Fireblade (or any other 1000cc sportbike) as your first motorcycle!
  • If you do, do not ride 200km/h during the day!
  • If you do, do not ride it on Komitas avenue!
  • If you do, do not ride without fastening the helmet!
  • If you do, watch out on the intersections!
  • If you don’t…

Get well soon, Vigen.

Giddy Yerevan <3

It looks as though the ice is melting in Yerevan — slowly but very firmly. And how could it be otherwise when the weather is so hot and so are the girls!

Season ’09 has started to prove my old claims that Armenians in their essence are people of two wheels, not willing to give up any freedom for any security. I can spot and hear more and more motorbikes in the streets of Yerevan and that makes me excited! I remember how different everything was back in the day, how riding a motorbike was considered outlandish and how criticized the very idea of riding a motorcycle was.

An SUV has stopped me 10 minutes ago as I was approaching the restaurant where I’m posting this from and a charismatic guy in his early thirties asked me how to get into motorcycling. Earlier in the day I was discussing the same with a colleague from my company during a coffee break… And everywhere seems to be this cool atmosphere of people who are tired of watching more TV in their car cages.

This gives me a profound feeling of responsibility. I’m going to do my best, making sure that their starting experience with getting on two wheels is most pleasant and smooth. It freaks me out to think that maybe I had my unbelievably small contribution in making these people want to ride. That perhaps it was my motorcycle they saw in the street that got them thinking. That perhaps it was me entering a curve that thrilled them. These very thoughts get me into this groovy mood! Every time I pass by a child in a car who looks at me with these specific burning eyes and dropped chin, I smile and think that perhaps —  just perhaps — I will remain a vivid memory in his small neural network and as years pass — one day, after an intense conversation night with parents, he will open the local dealer’s door with that distinct determined look. I hope his chin drops again, with that same childish amusement he used to have over the motorcycle he gets!

Thank you everyone who has been riding. Thank you all who will be riding. Thank you. Everything will be fucking awesome.

Just hit the fucking road.

Trip: Odzun – Dilijan. Second Part. Ode to Jaguar.

In the morning we made more barbeque for our breakfast and started moving out. It was just about time because there were clouds gathering above and we thought we needed to outspeed the rain at all costs.

The first nasty thing happened just as I was riding out of the grain field — my bike slip off the edge and I hit a rock with the bottom of my oil tank, breaking two protectors. Fortunately no oil seemed to be leaking so we continued the way, though the incident really pissed me off.

We wanted to visit Haghpat on our way and take the Dilijan-Sevan road to Yerevan. So we headed for Haghpat and it was another amazing experience after yesterday – Alaverdi was such an amazing city with this heavy and addictive spirit of industrialism! Afterwards came Haghpat and the one word that came to my mind was — magnificent!

On the road from Vanadzor to Dilijan the rain started and it was pretty intense. This Vanadzor-Dilijan road, by the way, is great for some speedy riding: it is not straight and boring like the major highways in Armenia but with its minor curves it allows some nice pace. In Dilijan I was already pretty wet and had to take a cozy tea break with friends. But the rain was intensifying and the worst things lay ahead!

I changed my socks and got on the bike to ride the omnifamiliar Dilijan-Sevan-Yerevan sector. After thirty seconds I became as wet and uncomfortable as I was before my tea break. Then the rain got worse with more cars on the road and the trip became the wettest one in my life. I rode the Dilijan curves, up to the tunnel, then to the lake and just stopped as I physically could not ride no longer! My 50% waterproof leather coat completely gave up on the heavy rain and my shirt and pants felt like heavy cold water sponge all over my body. I was planning to just sit by the road and wait till the rain is over.

It was in this moment, when all hope had faded, that Jaguar, son of Alexander, took up his friend’s motorbike.

On the toughest part of the ride, with reported terrible storm and sheer cutting wind. Jaguar rode through it with no single piece of motorcycling gear except a helmet, leave alone any rain gear. The one thought that lingered in my mind at that time was that the bar of the capabilities of the human being are absolutely not where we foolishly think they are.

Through the insane conditions on the road and in the sky we finally made it to Yerevan for some shower and tea. The Odzun trip turned out to be an amazing experience and into amazing memories.