Australian Walter Colebatch plans to ride his BMW G 650 X further north and east in Siberia than anyone has ever been on two wheels before.

Jonathan Fox will be joining Walter for the early stages of the trip and will be riding a BMW F 800 GS.

This weekend (March 28) will see the beginning of an exciting new adventure motorcycling project that will attempt to go where no motorcyclist has gone before - into the ultimate depths of Siberia.

For several years, Australian Walter Colebatch has harboured a dream to ride further north and east in Siberia than anyone has ever been on two wheels before. He is well qualified to attempt a trip of this nature, having been the first ever motorcyclist legally allowed to ride across China unescorted, back in 1994. In his numerous international motorcycle adventures since then, Walter has ridden on every continent, except Antarctica.

Despite the hundreds of people motorcycling across Siberia every year and the sheer vastness of this region (Siberia itself is larger than any other country in the world) there has been a tendency by adventure motorcyclists to stick to one route across the huge territory, from Novosibirsk to Skovorodino, before splitting out to the two end points at Vladivostok and Magadan. Walter's plan for the 'Sibirsky (Siberian) Extreme' project is to ride new roads and tracks that have yet to be explored by today's adventure motorcyclists.

"We intend to avoid, wherever possible, established routes and to seek out that which is interesting and undiscovered," says Walter. "There is an enormous amount of undocumented territory and roads in Siberia, and we plan to ride thousands of kilometres of it."

This will include riding the Prelensky to Vilyuisky Trakt - a dirt track that runs 1,500 kilometres east between Lensk and Yakutsk; riding the 4,000 kilometre length of the dirt road, from Vanino on the Pacific Ocean to Taishet in central Siberia; riding to the mining town of Udachny, which is further north in Asia than anyone has ridden before, and pushing on across the tundra to the Arctic Circle (66.56 North). In doing so, they will become the first motorcyclists to reach the Arctic Circle in Asia. 

Of the three northern continents, the Arctic Circle is easily accessible in both Europe and North America, but Walter intends to reach it in Asia by motorcycle. His machine of choice is a BMW G 650 Xchallenge that has previously seen plenty of action as a training bike at the World of BMW Off-Road Skills school in south Wales. It was donated by Simon Pavey, who has probably ridden further off-road on a G 650 Xchallenge than anyone else, having completed the inaugural Transorientale Rally last year, which covered around 11,000 kilometres and spanned parts of Russia, Kazakhstan and China. For Walter, BMW Motorrad's 650cc single-cylinder enduro was the perfect starting point for building an adventure bike.

"The Xchallenge is one of the lightest possible bikes to base a properly durable adventure touring platform on. Its base weight is just over 140 kilos and bearing in mind the mud and unpredictability of the road surfaces in northern Siberia, keeping weight to a minimum is critical. The Xchallenge engine is a super reliable 650cc single-cylinder BMW engine which in its basic form has been used since 1994, with more and more refinements every few years. Compared to the competition, the BMW engine is more reliable, has better fuel efficiency and is smoother. All these are factors that made this choice of bike very easy for me."

On the early stages of the trip, Walter will be accompanied by friend Jonathan Fox, who will be riding a BMW F 800 GS. The plan is to meet up with quite a few riders at various stages along the route in eastern Europe and Russia. Quite apart from the main Siberian stages that Walter will encounter in several months time, the fascinating journeys to and from Siberia are incredible adventure motorcycling rides in themselves, and will also be documented. These routes include the beautiful but dangerous North Caucasus mountains in Russia; crossing the legendary Taklimakan desert in western China en route through Tibet to Lhasa; crossing the Khunjerab Pass, one of only two border crossings in the entire Himalayas - and the highest border crossing in the world at 4,693 metres - and riding the spectacular Karakoram highway down into Pakistan, passing several of the highest mountains in the world.

Walter and Jonathan will set off on their 'Sibirsky Extreme Project' from Ystradgynlais in Wales, where a special Touratech Travel Event is taking place for adventure motorcycling fans. The key stages of the trip will take place in Siberia, Mongolia and China from June to September 2009 and everything will be documented on the http://www.sibirskyextreme.com/ website, where a detailed 'Blog of the trip will be updated regularly.