The Story of the Red Devil  - Izh Planetta 5 Motorcycle

Thirsty Horse mongolia

 

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In 2005, Ewan McGregor, Charlie Boreman and Claudio von Planta made a round the world trip by motorcycle using beautiful big BMW GS1200s. Passing through Western Mongolia, they had a problem with one of the bikes, and temporarily replaced it with a locally purchased Izh Planetta – a bike which came to be affectionately known as the “Red Devil.” When they reached Ulaan Baatar the BMW was repaired and the humble Planetta was left leaning against a tree in the garden of the British Embassy. There it stayed for several months until it was purchased by Mike Rokich, an Australian engineer working there. When Mike’s work in Mongolia was finished he left the bike in the hands of THM LLC, a local adventure tourism company run by Anthony Sansom and his wife Urtaa. The bike is still with THM, and Mike Rokich is still the owner. The bike is running, today  - as you read this, has technical compliance certification, and is registered for road use.

Many plans have come and gone for the bike, notably the idea of riding it back to London for a reunion with the team from “The Long Way Round.” Now this is a Russian bike, and the plan has always been to ride through Russia, which at the moment requires careful thought, due to the well publicised political situation to the west of the country.

Yes, the ultimately goal is to take the bike all the way back to the UK, and hopefully have a heartfelt reunion with Ewan and Charlie in their hideout in Sheperd’s Bush, London. These are happy thoughts, but let’s be cautious and realistic, and maybe patient would be a good addition to our strategy too  - but we are not giving up on this idea.

Current intentions are to build up a fleet of bikes in Mongolia together with a support team, then take the whole circus on a round trip of Mongolia and see how the world, the bikes, and the team are feeling at the end of it. The tour will be organised and run by the aforementioned THM LLC. Now THM run motorcycle and jeep tours in Mongolia but also stage cultural events, particularly musical and art related, and so the tour of the country would be organized to include a number of such events. THM’s ultimate ambition is to set up a kind of rolling annual festival of travel adventure and cultural events that would be repeated each year, which THM, as a Mongolian company working in Mongolia, feel would be a welcome boost to the country’s economy. This is not to say that the economy is bad, in fact it is steadily improving. However, we have here a country half the size of India (604 thousand square miles cf. 1.3 million square miles for India, so 46%) with the population on a single county town in the latter country. Take for instance Lucknow, the country seat of Uttar Pradesh, which has 4 million, compared to 3.28 million for the whole of Mongolia. Of this 1.7 million live in the capital Ulaan Baatar, leaving the interior of the country very sparsely inhabited (nigh on deserted?). So let’s just say that any economic stimulus in the country outside of Ulan Baatar is desirable and this project would certainly help.

Ok, so let’s get back to when the bike was leaning against the tree in the garden of the British embassy. What exactly happened next and how does the story progress to the current plan?

(Mike Rokish): “It was destiny and a good story to weave somehow into the narrative. I was working in UB and on Fridays the British Embassy hosted drinks behind the embassy in an old transportable building.  Called the 'Steppe Inne', it was a tradition long before embassies upgraded security, and the UB embassy refused to get rid of it.  

“Behind the Steppe Inn, under a tree and with a bin lid over the instruments, was the Devil.  (I have a photo).  I enquired and got the story about Ewan, Charlie, and that they had left the bike at the embassy before travelling into Russia - the Road of Bones.  I wanted to buy it but they needed permission from Ewan and Charlie, got it, and I bought it for $400 in a blind auction. 

Also destiny, I bought a book at the UB State Department store, called 'The Thirsty Horse of Mongolia'.  Author Tony Sansom.  Having lunch one day, I stepped onto the dusty road outside and was almost run over by a guy on a Ural.  We started chatting and it turned out to be Tony!!!!! Somehow the book came up and the connection was made.  Short story, we kept in touch and when I left Mongolia we moved the Devil to Tony's workshop.  He's cared for it ever since.  Travel plans have been made, and un-made, since then.  That's another story.”

(Anthony Sansom): Tony started work as Contract Manager on the Seoul to Pusan High Speed Train Project in 1998 and was living in Seoul, South Korea. In the winter of 1999 he travelled to Mongolia, being fascinated by the idea of the country. There he quickly teamed up with his future wife to be, Urtnasan Jambaa. A writer in his spare time, Tony had just finished his first book – the epic “Leila and Majnoon”, a story of human endurance and eventual spiritual triumph set in the Lebanon. Inspired by Mongolia, Tony then wrote “The Thirsty Horse of Mongolia” and together with Urtaa, they formed their company “Thirsty Horse Mongolia LLC, and completed the project of the book. The book was in 2 parts and illustrated. the first part, via a national children’s competition, the second part by 6 professional artists in Ulaan Baatar. The book included an introduction by Mr. Damdingen Demberel, the MP for Hovd in Western Mongolia, it was serialized and broadcast nationally on Mongolian Radio, and it won the Junior Adult Fiction First Prize in the Writer’s Notes Book Awards in the USA.

The THM company had been established with the gambit of running adventure tourism and cultural events. It has achieved mixed success, and basically ground to a tick over during covid. But past efforts to grow it have sown many seeds for the future that are now ripening into a rather pleasant harvest, as follows below.

(Jesse Thomas and William Knight): In 2005, THM invested in 15 Chinese trail bikes and invited Jesse Thomas and William Knight for a 3 month stay in Mongolia to set up the bikes and the business. Jesse and William put their backs to the work and also had a lot of fun in the process. A shakedown trip to Dalantzadgad in the Gobi Desert was undertaken. But unfortunately the bikes proved too fragile for the conditions, with 2 of them breaking gearboxes within the first 100 miles or so. A couple of them are actually still running, but the bike trekking venture with these bikes didn’t take off. Nevertheless, the trip was great and will never be forgotten; and so the world turns and Jesse and William, now significantly older, return to their dreams of adventure that they had begun. While Tony and the Thirsty Horse of Mongolia still remain much the same – and then along comes a lonely little red Izh Planetta looking to achieve its rightful place and its redemption: So the dust stirs upon the scene and the old, cobwebbed lights flicker on again, dimly at first; but our hopes begin once more to rise within our hearts.

(Paul Codling): Another episode from the history of the Thirsty Horse occurred when Tony and Urtaa, intrigued by the novelty of the Ural sidecars running around Mongolia in those days, decided to invest in a few, rebuild them, and do some sidecar trekking. For this project the services of Dave Ramsden and Paul Codling were enlisted, and they were invited to spend their 3 months in Mongolia. The idea was to rebuild the Urals as well as possible and to get the THM workshop set up in the process. Another aspect of the deal was to fit BMW engines in a couple of the bikes. Part of the motivation was that this business was doing quite well for several shops in China at the time. To cut to the chase, the work was mostly completed but proved to be a bigger challenge than anticipated, and the problems of working in Mongolia in those days also become apparent. For instance, the national electricity supply was not stable enough to run welding equipment, and without adequate electricity workshop heating was difficult to achieve too. While equipment availability in Mongolia back then was either non-existent or extremely expensive. Paul Codling submitted a final report on workshop requirements which included a host of metal working equipment, including a universal mill, and to be honest the project then ran into financial difficulties while never quite getting into a position to be able to realise a return. I would note that the Ural factory in Russia was not functioning in those recently post-soviet days and no factory spares were available.

These issues, though, have now all been addressed. THM boasts a 25kV generator, a host of metal working equipment including a universal mill, and we have 3 phase electric heaters in our workshop. The condition of our buildings, however, 2 houses, a garage, workshop and an office, have seen no further improvements since those days, when we did in fact do quite a substantial amount of building work.

But back to Paul. Paul’s great love in life, technically, is his very own Izh Planetta, which he has nicknamed Serenity (apparently with no reference to the film of the same name and pretty much the same motivation, which I find amazing, but there you go.); and so Paul is the UK’s greatest living expert on Izh Planettas, and a very nice man too.  (As for Dave Ramsden. Yes, another really great guy. We’ll talk again when we get back to the sidecars.)

And the pageantry of the team is this: the “Seven Stars” banner of the Thirsty Horse of Mongolia flies for THM and for the whole project; the Spirit of Australia stands proudly for Mike, the spirit of Serenity glitters brilliantly in the pennants of Paul and the glorious flags of youth blaze forth for Jesse and William. While before them all the proud emblem of the Red Devil Izh Planetta holds forth and proclaims: “Redemption, say I.”