Bike problems in Estonia

We started the next morning with another refreshing swim in the river, and continued to the centre of Pärnu for beers and some shopping. The day was very hot so we had to stop to a beer terrace every couple hundred meters.

After seeing the centre and arranging Mark’s bus tickets we went to the local biker pub Alexandri to enjoy regular-sized (1 liter) beers. Bergie was trying to learn some Estonian, mainly focused on buying beer without appearing too poro, the name Estonians use for “drunken Finns” (whereas all Finns are considered drunken).

In the evening we went to Kuursaal, the self-titled largest pub in Estonia, located on the Pärnu beach. We met some friends of Skoll’s cousins and enjoyed more beers. After discussing differences between travelling in Russia with a truck and a motorcycle we returned to the Uueda inn for some sauna.

The next morning we packed up with all the intent to ride on to do some camping in the Saaremaa island. However, the battery of Bergie’s Triumph had emptied during the stay. We went to buy new battery fluids with Skoll’s little brother. After recharging Bergie gave rides on his Triumph to the large horde of motorcycling enthusiasts that quickly materialized.

After lunch we said goodbyes and rode on to the Lihula highway. After some kilometers of riding Bergie noticed Skoll getting left behind. The Ural had started sputtering and failed to accelerate past 40 kmh. As the front light had gotten very dim we attributed the problem to dead battery. The alternator had made very strange noises for the last week so we diagnozed it being broken.

Luckily we got the Ural limped back to Uueda and put the battery into charging. While waiting for the Ural problems Bergie took a look at the Triumph in more detail and noticed that the ignitor cord of the middle cylinder was hanging loose. When JL Bike had replaced the ignition box and coils they had apparently forgotten to plug the cylinder in. This explained the lack of power and high fuel consumption Bergie had been experiencing after the ignitor changes. With all three cylinders running the bike had a completely different character. It had real power!

Intent to still do some camping we set up the tent on the backyard of the inn and spent the rest of the day alternating between sauna, beer, barbequeing sausages and swimming in the river. While we missed Saaremaa, this still was a proper summer holiday.

We went to sleep listening to fireworks in a nearby wedding party.