Riding a Motorcycle on High Altitude - Live Stream 28.05.23

So, I have been to Anzob Pass, Tajikistan, 3300m, Zojila Pass, India, 3500m, Magnetic Hill, India, 3600m, Namik La, India, 3700m, Rotang Pass, India, 3980m, Fotula Pass, India, 4100m, Babusar Top, Pakistan, 4500m, Agbaital Pass, Tajikistan, 4655m, Khunjerab Pass, Pakistan, 4700m, Naki La, India, 4738m, Tanglang La, India, 5328m, and Khardum La, India, 5600m. Richard, nice to see you again. Ah, good luck, good luck for the next week. Chris, hi Pavlin, I've made a time for change, I was in, but never leave for her. Ah, you're welcome Chris, I hope that you'll find some useful information here in the stream. Ah, you're in London, yeah, sorry, I forgot. We've got here like almost second week rain. It's not exactly rain, it's a couple of drops per day, and then sunny, and then drops, and sunny, and then like, whatever. It's still alright to ride here and there, but you cannot really spend the whole day out. Anyway, so we have a new member, Chris. Nice to see you here, Chris. As I said, I hope that you'll find useful information on this stream. Spring rain, yeah, exactly. The topic is interesting, at least for me. I don't know how many of you ever been riding motorcycles on high altitude, or do you have any plans to ride on high altitude? But the information that I'm going to share will definitely help you to make it easy. I will wait a few more minutes. Something wrong with the counter again, it shows one person, but I have at least one, two, three people at the moment here. I don't know, just will give the rest of the watchers a few minutes. So, Richard, where are you going? What is your destination next week? Passport and self-luggage packed. Wonderful. I still got like one month, almost one month before I start my trip. Normandy, oh, lucky you. D-Day Normandy. Yeah, D-Day was interesting. I was there in 2018. Really enjoyed, enjoyed this part of the history. Even that it's a sad history, I enjoyed to see this place. So, oh, oh, lucky you. I wish you all the best. I wish you all the best. So, when we see each other after a week or more, please tell us how it was. I guess it will be wonderful like any motorcycle trip. All right, guys, let's start and we'll see if someone else come. If not, we're going to do it just with you. The title, riding a motorcycle on high altitude. I told you many times that the preparation is the key to success. For everything you do on your trips, the preparation is the key to success. But with riding on high altitude, it is so, so important that this is probably the best phrase that I can tell you now. Prepare yourself, otherwise it's going to be disaster. And now, why should you listen to me? What is my experience with high altitude? Why you have to listen to me? So, let me tell you what are the places that I have been and I will only pick over 3,000 meters, even though some people feel the altitude even after 2,000 meters. I personally start to feel it after 3,000 meters. Nothing so bad or significant, but I start to feel that I breathe a little bit more often, if you understand what I mean. So, I have been to Anzob Pass, Tajikistan, 3,300 meters. Zojila Pass, India, 3,500 meters. Magnetic Hill, India, 3,600 meters. Namik La, India, 3,700 meters. Rohtang Pass, India, 3,980 meters. Fotula Pass, India, 4,100 meters. Babusar Top, Pakistan, 4,500 meters. Akh-Baital Pass, Tajikistan, 4,655 meters. Khunjerab Pass, Pakistan, 4,700 meters. Naki La, India, 4,738 meters. Tanglang La, India, 5,328 meters. And Kardum La, India, 5,600 meters. These are the peaks that I found very, very fast on my old trips and pictures that I've got with these peaks. I've been to a few more, but basically the higher elevation peak that I have been ever is 5,600 meters on a motorcycle. As you can see, I have some experience with high altitude and I believe that I can give you some important or useful information that you can use in your trips. So the first thing that I would like to tell you is that if you've never been on a high altitude, you will have a problem, especially if you don't prepare yourself. And the bigger you are, the worse it's going to be because you need more oxygen. So things like this, I have heard people saying, it's all right, I'm a tough guy. I can make 50 pushups or whatever. Every day I go into the fitness. These things don't work. The bigger you are, the stronger you are, or maybe the big body you have, the fat, big, whatever, your body needs more oxygen and it will be worse when you climb this altitude. You have to understand this at the beginning. Without preparation, it doesn't matter how good physical condition you've got, it's not going to be different. You will have a problem. Of course, a general physical condition or physical health will help you, but it is something completely different. You have to understand this right now. For the bigger you are, the worse it's going to be. In this stream, I'm going to talk about body preparation, motorcycle preparation, injection versus carburetors, going up or climbing on the top, what you do and what you shouldn't do on the top, what clothes, what food, what water, what to do when you're going downhill and what to do if you don't feel well. These are the things that I'm going to tell you on the stream, of course, with more details. So, let's start with the first one. Body preparation before the trip. Actually, you cannot do much. As I said, all of this, fitness, bicycle riding, walking or running or all of these physical activities, they might help you to have a better health in general, but none of this is going to help you when you climb on high altitude. So, yes, if you want to feel better, to feel good, to have a good health in general, yes, you can do all of these activities, but as I said, none of this is going to help you. Exercise won't help at all. And a few things that you can do before you start climbing the actual peak is to don't eat too much and drink plenty of water. These are the things that really help. Anything else is just pointless. I'll tell you how to do it slowly and better, we'll come to this, but the first question on body preparation, you cannot do much. The body actually has got some kind of memory. If you've ever been on high altitude, let's say 3000 meters, your body already knows how to deal with this situation. So next time when you go to 3000 meters, your body is going to be a little bit better prepared from the last time. But if you go to 4000, your body will know nothing. So you need to go once to 4000 and next time when you go to 4000, your body will react. It's like a muscle memory. If you're a lifter and today you lift 100 kilograms, next time when you are prepared to lift 100 kilograms, it's going to be much easier because your body will create the necessary muscles, the necessary connections, and will help you to lift this weight. It is exactly the same with a high altitude body. You've got some kind of memory and if you've ever been on high altitude, it will be much easier next time. That's why I said in the beginning, if you've never been to high altitude, it is almost impossible to be all right if you don't do one of the steps that I'm going to tell you after a few minutes. So body preparation, you can't do much. Whatever physical activities, they won't help you at all. So a few things that you can do is don't eat much and drink plenty of water. That's it. Let's go now to motorcycle preparation. And I will start with a carburetor or fuel injection. What is better? Of course, from my experience, I've been to high altitude with injection motorcycle and with carburetor motorcycle. And from my experience, it is much better to go with fuel injection motorcycle. It will feel it as well. Don't even think that just because you have a fuel injection motorcycle, it will be exactly the same like what you ride on the normal altitude. No, it is different. And even the fuel injection will feel the lack of oxygen and probably around 20 to 30 percent of the horsepower that you have are not going to be there. The motorcycle will react very slowly, but will still work, I would say, normally. With carburetors, it's not like that. With carburetors, once you reach like 3000 meters, you definitely need to stop and adjust the carburetor. Otherwise, it will first, the RPMs will drop significantly and then it will start to off all the time and you wouldn't be able to start it if you continue to climb like that. And you have no power at all, so it doesn't work at all. So in my opinion, injection is always better, also affected, but much better. If you plan to ride a carburetor on high altitude, I will advise to learn in advance when you're at home how to adjust the carburetor for high altitude. It is not that difficult, but you have to know which bolts you have to screw left or right to have more oxygen or more petrol. This is something important. As I said, absolutely not difficult, but you should know in advance. Otherwise, if you stop in last minutes and try to twist all of the bolts that you can see on the carburetors, you can make it even worse from what it was before you start climbing. That's why go to the local mechanics, spend with him 10 or 15 minutes to understand how the system works, how your carburetor works. Learn the necessary bolts, if necessary, mark it with red marker or something just to know what they are, on what direction you have to twist it when you have a lack of oxygen, and that will be fine. And don't forget that when you go down and when you reach the normal altitude again, you have to return everything to the position that it was before that. So that's everything about carburetor and fuel injection. And now, when you're going up, when you're climbing, this is a very important thing that you have to remember. You have to do it on different stages or levels, if I want to say. And let me tell you a personal story. The first time when I climbed to such a high altitude, over 4,000 meters, was when I went to Tajikistan to Pamir Highway. So one of the days I was on about 2,200 meters. Before that, I climbed once to 3,300 meters. It was on Anzob Pass, Tajikistan. It was 3,300 meters. My body was okay on this high altitude. Even though I was breathing a little bit more often, it was okay. It was nothing, just a little bit more different, a little bit more often breathe, but it was okay. So I've been to this altitude. And then I went down to the normal altitude. And as I said, in one of the days, I was on 2,200. And then after five hours, I was on 4,000 meters above the sea level for four hours. It was very fast climbing. And guess what? When I reached the top, it hits me like a punch, like a knockdown. I felt it so, so badly. And the first few hours, I was this constant headache. And I was not feeling even the problem with the oxygen. It was mostly the headache. It's like a big power was squeezing my head all the time like this. And I've got like a slight, slight dizziness in my eyes. And I don't want to eat, even that I'm hungry. I don't want to do anything. And the problem was that when I reached this 4,000 meters, if you don't feel well, you have to go down, and you'll be well. Even if you drop just 500 meters, you will feel much better. But when I reached this 4,000 meters, I understood that in the next week, I have to spend all of the time on this 4,000 meters. And then the descending will start. This was my rule. This was the rule that I had planned in advance, because I misunderstood or I underestimated this danger, the danger of high altitude riding. And when I'm telling you now, it doesn't mean that it was so bad that I was almost dying there. No, it was not like that. But it was like to have a hangover, a very bad headache, and everything is different. So even the simple things like to load my motorcycle and unload my motorcycle were difficult. Later in the evening, when I go to sleep, I couldn't sleep well. I wake up every few minutes or every 20 minutes or every 30 minutes, and I cannot really relax well. I'm very tired. I want to sleep. I have got this dizziness and sleepiness all the time. But when I go to sleep, I cannot really sleep well. I cannot really explain what it is, but it's not good at all. I'm not hungry, even that the whole day I haven't eat anything I don't want to eat. When I eat something, I cannot feel the taste properly. So this was my experience, my first experience with high altitude, maybe some kind of high altitude sickness, because I just went too fast to these 4,000 meters. So my advice, when you need to do something like that, make it slowly. So the next example that I can give you is two years after that, not three years after that, I went to India and I climbed to 5,600 meters, which is almost 1,000 meters more than I ever been. But I did it very slowly. I did it on different stages, exactly what I'm going to explain to you now. And when I finally reached this 5,600 meters, I was able to do anything, even push-ups without any problems. Yeah, of course, I feel the lack of oxygen. I was breathing a little bit more often, but for me it was like being on 3,000 meters, exactly the same, because I gave to my body one week to reach this altitude. So when I was making my plan to go to Khardung La, this is the highest motorable road in the world, in India, when I was making my plan, I spoke with the Indian guy over there, that met me, and he said, listen, you can have two routes to Khardung La. First is straight from Delhi to Leh, which is like 6-700 kilometers. And the next one, going through Srinagar. It's like 3-4,000 kilometers. It will take like a week to go there. But during this week, you're going to see so many interesting things. And you will climb very slowly. You go to 2,000, then 2,500, then a little bit drop 2,000, then you go to 3,000, then a little bit drops. So I spent almost like a week riding on this long road. Even though this road was terrible with a lot of traffic, it was just unbelievably hard to ride over there. One of the days I was riding something like 8-9 hours without even stopping in such a heavy traffic that for these 8 hours I was able to move only 120 kilometers. Keep in mind that I did not stop even for a minute. It was that busy, that many trucks, that many buses. It was just a terrible picture to show you. But anyway, during this week, I was climbing to 2,500, then 2,000, then go to 3,000, then to 2,500, then 3,500. Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. And finally, after one week, when I reached this dream destination Khardung La, 5,600 meters, it was absolutely not a problem at all. And this is the lesson that I want to teach you now. Do it slowly, give your body enough time to acclimatize, and you'll be all right. Without it, disaster. If you're one of the kinds of one of the one, maybe one per 100 people will feel nothing on the top, but the rest 99 people feel very, very bad. So, when you decided to climb, make it on stages. Once again, if you need to go to 3,500, you go to 3,500, then you drop 500 to 3,000 and spend the night on 3,000. On the next day, you go to 4,000 and then drop 500 and spend the night on 3,500. And this is how it's going. This is exactly what mountain climbers do. Teneri Traveler, apparently, Viagra helps. It might. I never tried, but it might. Yeah, there are some kind of medications that might help. The only one that I found that it helps, I'm going to tell you a little bit when we discuss food. But about Viagra, I don't know. It might help for many different things. For high altitude, it might. I don't know. Yeah, medicine sometimes creates strange things. Anyway, so this is very, very important. I hope you remember it. Make it on stages, otherwise you have a problem. And give your body enough time. At least two, three days. If you have one week, even better. But at least two, three days, on different altitudes. OK, what to do when you go on the top and what is not really good to do? So first of all, every time when you have the chance, let's say you go to 5,000, like me, I went to 5,600 meters, but I did not plan to spend the night on 5,600 meters. I actually spent the night on 4,000 meters. So the things that you shouldn't do on the top are don't spend the night there. First, because it's very cold. Secondly, the air is very thin. If you feel bad on some stage, if you start feeling bad after a few hours, because you might have another thing. You might go to the top, feel well, like me, but after a few hours, the lack of oxygen will really hit you and you might have a problem. And if you have a problem, you have to go down. But if the problem happens in the middle of the night, three o'clock in the night, and if there is no transport or your motorcycle does not start or something else, you have a big problem. And usually these places are not crowded. That's why my advice, don't spend the night on this high altitude. Go to see it, make pictures, videos, spend some time there and then drop a little bit. At least 500 meters, at least. Better is 1,000. So I went to 5,600, but I spent the night on 4,000 after that. Spend a few minutes, hours, and go back. This is the first that you shouldn't do on the top. The second is heavy exercises. Like me, I did these push-ups just to test myself. But it was something that I will not recommend to do. You can walk around. It is actually recommended to walk around, to breathe more, because when you walk, you actually breathe more oxygen. You will recharge your body with oxygen. But not heavy exercise. Don't smoke cigarettes. If you want to eat, but I can almost guarantee that you will not want to eat at that moment. Drink water. Water is very important. Drink as much water as possible when you go to the top. So these are the things that it's good to do and some of the things that you shouldn't do on the top. As I said, walk around. Avoid heavy exercises. And also another reason to stay as less as possible on these peaks is because the weather over there is unpredictable. So it might be nice and in the next 15 minutes it might completely change and you don't know what is going to happen. Let me tell you another story. It's a little bit long, but it's a nice story. It happens again in India on the top of Rohtang Pass. Rohtang Pass actually means the pass with the corpses or the dangerous pass or something like that. Directly translated from India. It was 3,900 meters. It's not that high, but because of constant problems there, landslides and unpredictable weather, it was named this way. And everyone said that once you can go over this pass, everything is all right. And in my situation, it was on the way back from all of these high elevation peaks that I already visited, like five, six different peaks over 5,000 meters. And this was my road back to India, back to the normal civilizations. This was the last peak that I had to cross before I actually start my descending to Delhi. And I arrived the night before and I was ready to spend the night over there on 3,500 meters. And on the next morning, I was planning early morning to start and be one of the first people that will cross this Rohtang Pass. And on the next, the same night, the night when I arrived in this village, the village name was Keelung. When I arrived in this village, it was without power for three days. And the weather was all right. And I spoke with the local Indian guys with a few bikes, Indian Royal Enfield motorcycles. And I asked them, what do you plan for tomorrow? They said, well, tomorrow we plan to go to Rohtang Pass and go to Delhi. And they say, if you want, come with us. I said, yeah, we can go together. Because it is not really good to go on these places alone. Even though I did the whole India alone, all of these passes alone, it is something that I will not recommend to anyone. So we agreed with these guys next morning, seven o'clock, to be ready and go to move to Rohtang Pass. And of course, I woke up very early. Seven o'clock, I was there on the meeting point. And these guys were not there. So I found them on the local coffee and asked them, what are you doing here? We agreed seven o'clock, go to ride Rohtang Pass. And they said, ah, have a look at the weather. And I look over there, and I saw the clouds over the peak. And I said, clouds, what is the problem? Let's go. And they said, well, it rains here, in the village will start raining, which means that if you watch the clouds over there, on the top of Rohtang Pass, it will snow. And I said, well, what do you want to tell me? You don't want to go? And they said, no, no, no, we don't want to go. They will probably close the pass. I said, if they close the pass now, when are they going to open it? And the guy said, who knows, it may be after day, it may be after week or month. It's the weather, it's unpredictable. I said, yeah, but yesterday was fine. It was for yesterday. And I said, fucking hell, I'm going to do it. So I start alone. And as soon as I start climbing the normal asphalt roads, I understood that it was not really the right decision. It was raining, then the rain, the rain convert to something between the rain and snow, and then start snowing. And finally, I reach a big queue, many people, many cars, many buses, and the barrier were closed like this. So I overtook each and everyone and stopped right in front of everyone. And it was a policeman there. I said, what is happening? Is the pass closed? And he said, yeah, the pass is closed because of landsliding. But after a few minutes, we're going to open it. So move your motorcycle there. We're going to let you go after a few minutes. So I moved the motorcycle on the side, and I was waiting. I was one of the first people over there. And after a few minutes, yes, the policeman came after a few minutes, opened the barrier, and I start running full gas, full throttle, right to the top. And it was asphalt road, was raining, but the road was just clean. And I said, okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And I start climbing more and more and more. And the road was clean, asphalt road, wet from the rain, but good. A lot of snow on the side, but the road was clean. And when I was so happy, in the best moment, I said, okay, I'm going to do it. Then I saw another car on the road, stopped like this. And guy with electric vest, and he said, pull over, pull over. Another landslide in here. You have to go to the old pass, here on the right, old. And he showed me something, old pass. And I checked this old pass, and it was a dirt road, going like this, very, very sharp corners, like hairpins, like this. A lot, and a lot of mud. And until I understand what I have to do, three different cars went next to me and start climbing this pass. And these were Indian Tata cars, like 4x4 cars. And I start riding after all of these cars. But because they were in front of me, and they were slowing down on the potholes, and they were very, very slow. And I was with Royal Enfield Himalayan, and the rear tire that I've got was just a normal street tire. And when they slow down, I need to slow down as well, because the road was very narrow. I cannot overtake them that easy. And because there were big potholes, a lot of water and mud, I cannot really see the road to overtake them. And after a few more turns, and a few more stops, when I stop, I cannot start. My rear was spinning, it was very, very difficult. And when their wheels are spinning, they're sending all of this mud over me. It was just a catastrophic situation. On some stage, I just pissed off. I said, if I continue doing like this, I will totally continue, totally exhaust myself of pushing, so I have to overtake them. And I did like three, four very, very risky maneuvers, went left into the corners with big potholes, a lot of mud. Somehow, I was able to overtake these three vehicles and twist the throttle to the top. A lot of U-turns, a lot of mud, but somehow this Royal Enfield survived. All the time, I was thinking and saying to please don't brake, don't brake, don't brake, I was hitting the bottom all the time. So finally, I reached the top. And on the top, I've got the asphalt road again. Snow was cut like this from both sides. It was clean, just asphalt and snow. And I parked the motorcycle on the right and went to the sign Rotang Pass to make a picture. And then I saw these three cars stopped over there. And the guys from the cars jumped and ran ahead of me. I said, okay, now we're going to fight. They are very angry. They are screaming and yelling something. I said they are very angry, probably now we're going to fight each other. So I put my helmet on the hat and I was ready to fight, believe it or not. And then the first guy reached to me, he hugged me like this. I said, oh man, you're a real hero. We are worried so much about you. But you're fine, you're fine. I said, eh? I said, you block my road. If I stop, I cannot. No, no, no. Can we make a selfie with you? So we made some kind of selfies over there. And I was able to cross this peak. And after I crossed the peak, after one hour after me, they closed the path. And the path was closed for three days after me. So this is what I want to tell you, that the weather there is unpredictable. If you have the chance to reach this level, make it as quick as possible. Make your pictures, videos, spend some time over there and run away. Because you don't know what will happen in the next few minutes. Another example, very short I'm going to tell you. It's from my trip to Turkey two years ago. I wanted to go to D-915 road, which is a famous road going over the mountain. They said this is the most dangerous road on the world. I don't know how it's possible to have at least 20 most dangerous roads around the world. But anyway, so when I planned to go to this road, the Turkish guys said that, okay, now if you plan to go there in June and July, it will be probably rain. And I said, well, I'm going to try. Usually I have my famous look, I'm going to try it. And I was riding to this hill. And then I saw the weather was perfect, sunny. And then I saw in the distance, again, the clouds on the mountain. When I come closer, it will start fogging. When I come closer, it start rain and fog at the same time. So finally, when I reached the peak, it was rain, fog and heavy wind. And I was able to go, to go over the mountain and cross this, the most dangerous road, D-915. But I was not able to film anything on the top. I have my camera, I have everything on videos. You probably watch it, but I was not able to grab this fantastic views from the top because the weather is just unpredictable. And then Turkish guys told me, if you plan to go there, you will definitely need to go at least a few times to get a good weather. One of the guys said, I've been there 10 times and eight of the times it was raining. So don't spend much time, make it as quick as possible. In which pass you have tyre puncture. It was the tyre puncture I've got in India. It was the day before I reached Rotang pass. It was there. I've got a tyre puncture on 5,100 meters. And when I finally reached this village Keelung, that I told you just for 10 minutes, in this village Keelung, I changed my completely worn rear tyre with the new street tyre, the only one that they've got. And with the new street tyre, I was able to go through Rotang pass. Anyway, so on the top, don't spend much time because the weather is unpredictable. Now let's talk about clothes. The advice is that I can give you now is dress in layers and only use synthetic materials. Because if you are dressed in layers, you'll be able to add a layer or remove a layer if the weather changes. And when you're climbing high altitudes, the weather always changes. So you can start, let's say from the bottom on 30 degrees. And when you reach the top, it's going to be five degrees. And then after one hour, you'll go again to 30 degrees. This is exactly what's happening with me in India. This is exactly what's happening with me in Turkey. Last year, I start from 30 degrees, went to the top five degrees, wind and rain, and then go back again to 30 degrees. If you have a layers, you can remove something or add something and travel in much better comfort. If you have only one big, let's say, winter jacket without any ventilation and maybe all of your warm linings inside, you'll be fine when you go on the top. But how are you going to feel before that and after that? If you have different layers, you'll be able to control the body temperature, if you understand what I mean. I said only synthetic materials because on high altitude, on cold weather, many people will tell you that synthetic materials are better because they don't absorb the water. If you have cotton clothes, they absorb the water. So for example, if you're riding on 30 degrees, you will sweat a lot. And then when you climb to five degrees on the top, all of these wet clothes are going to be on your back and you might get sick very, very easily. That's why synthetic materials dress on layers. Now let's go to the food. What kind of food you have to eat when you reach high altitude? As I said, don't eat much. Just eat enough to survive. Don't make your trip like a culinary journey. Just eat enough to spend the day and try some light meals like fish or maybe you can eat some other meats, but don't eat that much. And maybe it's a good idea. I cannot tell you this for sure, but many people try to eat a little bit more carbohydrates because of the energy that they're going to give you. So maybe more pasta or stuff like that. I'm not really a big fan of this food, but they said that it will help you to have more energy even though you're not going to climbing on your food. That's why I always said eat as light as possible. Omelette, it's a perfect solution for breakfast and it will hold you all day. Something like that. And one very important hint that I can give you now is to eat a lot of dried apricots. This is how I on dried apricots, I actually spent almost like two, three days, especially on the day when I've got a puncture with the tire that Nikolai Kosev asked just a few minutes ago. The whole day I spent only on dried apricots. So they've got only sugar on it, only carbohydrates, but they've got a lot of potassium and this potassium really helps with the high altitude. So I've got a big bag like that. It was staying on my tank bag. And even while I was riding, I was just opening the tank bag and eat them all the time, all day. And then I chewed them like a chewing gum all the time and I felt very, very good. They gave me enough energy and enough potassium and magnesium and everything that you need on high altitude. And of course I drank a lot of water. So light meals, more carbohydrates and dried apricots. This will definitely help you on high altitude. Don't eat very fatty and very fried and then just this fast food, forget about it. Just eat a normal food, fish or meat or eggs, but not so much, just normal. Water, a lot of water. You need to drink a lot of water when you're climbing on high altitude. It's like you're riding on very hot days. You need to drink a lot of water. But when you drink a lot of water, keep in mind that with the water, does mean you have to go many times to the toilet. And when you go to the toilet, you will actually piss all of your minerals. So with a lot of water, you need to have a pinch of salt sometimes or some mineral drops if you buy it at home to balance the minerals in your body. Otherwise, you're going to have a problem. And definitely buy a hydration pack. Don't go on any motorcycle trip, especially on a high altitude, without a hydration pack. I spoke about it in a few streams already, but when you have your hydration pack with a nozzle here, you can drink all the time, even while you ride. You ride your motorcycle and you can just drink the water that you need. If you have a bottle of water in your tank bag or in your saddle bag or in your top box, it is fine, but you can drink only when you stop the motorcycle. And sometimes when you're stopping once per hour or once per two hours, it might be not enough, especially if the weather is very hot or if you're on high altitude. So hydration pack will definitely help you. They are not that expensive. And I highly recommend it to each and every one of you. Buy a hydration pack and use it, especially when you go on high altitude. And now when you go to downhill, when you downhill from high altitude, you actually don't need anything, anything, because every meter that you drop, you will feel better. You have to know one very simple formula that every 100 meters will give you one degrees down or one degrees more. Depends on that, on what direction you're going. So if you have on 5,000 meters, five degrees, that means that on 4,000 meters you're going to have nine degrees, four degrees more. And this is how the calculation usually works, more or less. And also in every 100 meters, the oxygen is going to be much better and much better and much better. So if you don't feel well, go down. And that's why when you go downhill, you don't need to make any preparations or any steps. You just go down as quick as possible. And every 100 meters, every 1,000 meters, you'll feel better and better and better. And it will be the same for your motorcycle. It will work better, better and better. So you don't need to do anything. Downhill, just go like roller coaster. It's fine. Now what you have to do if you don't feel well. Going down is the only solution. If you don't feel well, you have to go down. There are some specific medications and pills that you can have or some even some injections that you can receive if you don't feel well. But the only solution or the best solution is just to go down. If you go down, you'll feel better. When I went to India once again, it was one area. I forgot the name. Now I have to search for it. But this area was famous for some kind of phenomenon. In some situations, the wind was so strong and it created something like a funnel and actually sucked the whole air from the whole area. And one of the Indian guys advised me, if you have a problem in this area, if you cannot breathe, don't wait too much. Immediately run to the army. Because in India and this North India, Ladakh area, they've got many, many army bases. And in all of these army bases, they've got many people trained to work and serve in this high altitude. And they've got medics. And every medic on this altitude knows what to do with you. So if you have any problems, try to go down. If you cannot go down, run to the first medic that you can find in this area. They will give you some injections. They will give you some pills. Maybe they will give you some oxygen if they have. And they will have probably. And then you have to go down. But if you don't have any people around, if you don't have anything around, the only solution is to go down. Start your motorcycle and ride back. If you have many kilometers ahead, don't try to spend it like I did in Central Asia. I did it, but it was not good at all. I did not enjoy the ride. That's why if you don't feel good, go down. The only solution. Yeah, basically, that is everything, the most important things that I plan to tell you on this stream, guys. So now, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will try to answer it. But once again, altitude, it's not a joke. And don't try to be a hero, because you're not. If you've never been to high altitude, you have to prepare your body for it. Otherwise, you'll feel very, very bad. Go ahead with the questions. Does it affect your ability to be at high altitude? No, it won't affect your ability. But what I said before, if you've never been to high altitude, you will have a problem. If you're 30 years old, but you've never been to high altitude before, you'll have a problem. If you're six years old, but you have been to high altitude before, you'll feel much better. First, because of this body memory that I told you. And secondly, because you will know what to do and how to react. No, the age does not affect the ability of high altitude, unless you're very, very old. If you have a problem, some medical problems, some health problems or some problem with breathing, asthma or something like that, it will get worse during the years. And it might be a problem because of your age, but not if you're in good health, if you understand what I mean. Good question. Thank you very much for asking, Richard. Nikolai Kosev, air-cooled bike or high altitude? The high altitude won't affect the cooling of the bike in any way. But I don't know. I always prefer to have a water-cooled bike. It might affect on what temperature the water will start boiling, but it's not going to be a problem with your motorcycle because you've got a thermostat. How does it affect bike economy? The bike will definitely, thank you very much, Richard, the bike will definitely start to use more petrol because it does not work efficiently. Even if you have fuel injection, you feel it, the bike is just like choking, choking. So when you choke the motorcycle, it will start to use more petrol. Chris, I am off to Poland and back to the Alps and a few other countries in five weeks. Even to the Alps, I'm not exactly humanized. I find that I still notice the difference. Yes, as I told you, some people feel it even after 2,000 meters. And in the Alps, you can have 2,700, maybe 3,000 a few times. So yeah, definitely, you can feel it even in the Alps. If you have a motorcycle with a carburetor, it will be fine until probably 2,500. You will definitely feel the lack of power, but it will work well. But for your body, yes, you can feel it. As I said, some people feel it even on 2,000 meters. Chris, first trip for my Tenere 700, by the way. Can't wait. Oh, enjoy it. You will love it. Tenere is a wonderful motorcycle to go on the trips. Nikolai Kosev, is your old Tenere sold now? No, no, no. It is still for sale. Three, four people asked me about it. Two people even rang me on the telephone. We spoke about it, but still for sale. Chris, may I ask you an unrelated question about travel documentation, please? I meant to ask the other week, but forgot. Go ahead, I'm listening. For the bike ownership document, will you take the original with you or do you carry only a copy? Tenere travel is a very interesting topic for me. I know very little. You can scout me for dinner, ride safe, I'll head it over and enjoy it. Thank you very much for visiting the stream, as usual, Richard. I wish you all the best and will waiting for you after a few weeks to explain your journey. Anyway, back to the question of Chris. For the bike ownership document, will you take original with you or do you carry only a copy? No, you will definitely need original. You cannot cross any border with a copy. It is good to have copies with you in the case you lose your documents or they've been stolen or you forget it somewhere, whatever. It is good to have copies, but you will definitely need to have the original documents with you. Also, don't forget that your motorcycle need to be on your name when you cross borders. If the motorcycle is not on your name, for example, it is a leasing motorcycle or it's belonged to someone else, you need a power of attorney to cross the border. And now recently in Turkish border, they even changed the regulations. Now in Turkey, you cannot enter the country with a motorcycle that is not on your name or a car. Even if you have a power of attorney, they won't let you cross the country. So motorcycle definitely original documents and they need to be on your name. Chris, OK, no problem. That makes sense. I shall take back both the copy and original. Thank you very much. Anytime, Chris, anytime. It is important. Bike on your name and all the documents with you. Nikolai, my man, you usually ask questions. Where are you now? Do you have any? By the way, how is the audio? Last week, I've got a little problem with the microphone. I hope it is all right now. It's perfect. Very good. Chris, where are you from? Isle of Man. A few years ago when I went to Ireland on the way back from Ireland, I actually planned to stop on Isle of Man. And this was in my plans. And then on the day before I left Ireland, I checked the ferry. I realized that there is only two ferries per week going to Isle of Man. And I said, if I go now to Isle of Man, I have to spend four days on the island before I got the next ferry. And four days on that island, it was something that I don't want to do because there's not so much to see. And I canceled it. And now I regret so much. I should have waited these four days, but it is what it is. Nikolai, I'm off to San Francisco next week. And with the time difference, I'm not sure if I will be able to watch. So I will wish you a fantastic trip to Russia. I'd like to give you an idea for a stream in hot or cold. Yeah, definitely. I'll write it down here. Hot or cold. So next week stream is going to be about hot and cold weather. I've been riding many times in hot and cold weather. So definitely we can discuss. Yeah, I can include even the rain. Thank you very much, Nikolai. This will be the stream for next week. Hot, cold and rain. Any weather conditions. Chris, I remember your trip to Ireland. It's a shame you didn't make it to Isle of Man. Yes, it's a shame, but I can be difficult to make it. The ferry work with your timings. Yeah, absolutely. But as I told you, I regret now because this was the right moment to go there. Now to go all of this road again, just because of Isle of Man, just it won't work. Especially now I don't want to ride around Europe anymore, especially after last year when I crossed the last thing that I haven't seen in Europe. I don't think that I will do a journey in this direction anytime soon, but you never know. All right. Thank you very much for you guys. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you very much for questions, for your patience and everything. And see you next time. Next week stream is going to be hot, cold or rain. How to ride in all of these different weather conditions. All right. See you next time. Ciao.