Ukraine maps, which ones?

What steed of awesomeness ,were you thinking to take on this superb sounding jaunt ?
In view of the fact that the road qualities are likely to be “ mixed “

I only have my 1600. I am counting on it flattening things out. There are lots of videos and pictures about, showing bods on all sorts of bikes; anything from HD’s, thro’ R1’s, thro’ GSA’s.
 
Good man yourself ! When one reads the current crop of ADV magazines , one could be forgiven for thinking that asphalt is only used in “ the developed world “ and that a super duper yamabmhondacatiuki is absolutely required for a wander anywhere south of the M25 !
 
I only have my 1600. I am counting on it flattening things out. There are lots of videos and pictures about, showing bods on all sorts of bikes; anything from HD’s, thro’ R1’s, thro’ GSA’s.

There’s an optimum speed....... Ten years ago a mate and I were on a motorway in Bulgaria. Stoopid big potholes. We came up with this game of dare to suss out how fast to float over them; proper slow and you ride into them and back out. A bit faster and you crashed into and out of them. Proper fast and you floated over them (perfect) but you had to have your wits about you to spot the odd super deep ones.

We reckoned on around 80 klicks was about right :D

Andres
 
Ahhhh , it’s a dilemma ( much easier for the non mechanically minded )

Did a Summer hol in Iceland ,, - - WHAT to do on the ( roads at nearly all gravelly stuff ) washboarded sections ,,,,,,, go slow ,and lump over EVERY bump ,,, OR ,, light it up and fly over them “ float style”
Hire Jeep = NO brainer :D
 
Call “The Map Shop” Upton upon Severn. They are brilliant!
 
Always happy to support a business like Stanfords especially when you can walk in and browse. There used to be one called The Travel Bookshop (as far as I remember) which was also good. They had some second hand books and I once spent about an hour looking at a first edition Seven Pillars but eventually walked away.

‘The bookshop for travellers’, is the excellent, Daunt Books. A really good, privately run, old fashioned, book seller. I used to live just around the corner from their main shop on Marylebone High Street. If anyone is ever in London W1 and doesn’t fancy Oxford Street, then I’d recommend a 10 minute walk up to their front door.

https://dauntbooks.co.uk/shops/marylebone/
 
What steed of awesomeness ,were you thinking to take on this superb sounding jaunt ?
In view of the fact that the road qualities are likely to be “ mixed “

I went there on a bonneville and survived.
 
The March edition of National Geographic magazine has a article about the Ukraine railway women. Not read it yet but interesting because it has a legacy going back to the Soviet era.
 
Thank you.

I have met a number of Russian ‘Railway women’ when I went on the Trans-Siberian Railway, Moscow to Khabarovsk. When I went, you were not allowed to Vladivostok, as it was a closed city. The train officials even denied the train went there.
 
You’ll love the Carpathian mountain area, a couple of us went there climbing in the early ‘90s and it was mad but dirt cheap. We struggled to find camp sites with anything resembling ‘facilities’ but we did get to put our tents up close to hill farms where the farmers wanted to feed us and get us drunk on home distilled vodka which was very entertaining because we introduced them to snorting vodka out of tablespoons.

We chose it as a follow on a year after a trip to the Tatras using trains to get to Lviv then caught buses into what was best described as an area that hadn’t gone far forward from medieval times. Because I can be a bit left wing I pulled a few strings, flashed my Union and Labour Party membership cards and whistled the Red Flag wherever I thought it would help then winged it the rest of the time :D
 
My mapping out of a route there and back, along with things to see along the way is coming along. Google and a couple of guide books have been a big help in the process, along with some quite good suggestions from Dutch bod I tripped over on the internet and sent an email to.

There are hundreds of ideas out there, this is just one: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/u...-and-villages-to-experience-the-real-ukraine/
 
Easter Sunday is traditionally ‘get the maps out, dust and sort them’ day here.

Box one of three.............

Andres
 

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Easter Sunday is traditionally ‘get the maps out, dust and sort them’ day here.

Box one of three.............

Andres

That would turn into a long day for me, I'd start looking at them and remembering/ plotting.................
 
I’m planning on going next year, not least because foreign travel is not (at the moment at least) on the cards.
 
Ukraine is fun. I've been there 4 times on different bikes and about a dozen times by lovely Wizzair :D It helps when you marry a local. We're off there again shortly, as soon as we're allowed to fly/ride.

It's a great place to go to and there's always something interesting to see and do. A motorcycling couple started to make an app and YT video series a while back but it seems to have fallen by the wayside, it had some interesting places to see. It is called "Ukraine Inside Out" if you want to have a look https://www.ukraineinsideout.com/ and there's a link to the app there too, I have no connection with them apart from stumbling across it a while back.
 
Has gone quiet here..understandably !

So I will stick my neck out and say that I intend to travel down through Western Ukraine from Poland to Romania in August, but only a couple of days transit and hoping to spend one night in the Sloviski Beskydy National Park area..time restraints mean that I can't stay much longer as I'll be on my way to meet with my partner at Motocamp Idilevo.
I Spoke to Doug there last year ( owner of MotoSapiens ) and he had just travelled to Kiev to see someone, once the authorities were happy that he was a complete tourist he was allowed through..and the people were genuinely delighted that someone still wanted to visit their country.
What I forgot to ask was, how easy was it to buy insurance at the border , as that's what I'm looking into now ?

I contacted Dooby from ' Logabola' in Zagreb but they buy their insurance by demand...so , nobody want's to go to Ukraine now so they don't bother purchasing any Green Card cover to sell to clients anymore.
I know that it's probably available at main border entry points but my plan was to use a smaller crossing south of Lviv.

I'll likely just turn up and ask but, if anyone has any up to date information to this effect it would be appreciated ?

And some great map info here. I have that Berndt Freytag Poland map but it only covers to just South of Lviv so a great reason to pick up another.

:beerjug:
 


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