Sevastopol

I leave my campspot with only my tire tracks as proof that I was there and head out for the most western point of Crimea.

It is a rather touristy place. Lots of tents and campers parked alongside a very small stretch of beach. But no appartments or anything. It is still rather primitive looking, which is not bad of course.

A bit further south of the point is a radar base and I see military personnel on scooters rolling by once in a while.

There are also some nice cliffs to be seen.

As I pull over I notice my bike behaving strangely, more specific, the rear end. The problem is easily spotted, a flat tire. I try pumping it up again but after 5 minutes it is flat again.
Two motorbikers that happen to be there as well make a stop and ask me if I need help. They came from Kiev and are on a short holiday. I don’t want to burden them with helping me as they are on their holiday. Nope, I have got the tire changing covered. I look for a spot in the shade as temperatures are creeping higher and higher. Not ideal conditions to change a flat, but the views are pretty nice.

Again an army officer on a scooter passes. He must have more top classified stuff to do so offers just glances instead of help.
The tire is changed quite fast, a new record for me, only 45 minutes. I grab some breakfast from a little shop and head back to the town where I got pulled over by the cops as this is the nearest place to top up my fuel tank.
The next ‘major’ town I pass I start looking for a tire repair place. First shop I enter only deals with selling car tires and redirects me to a bicycle/motorbike store. The man tries to find a new inner tube that fits my rim after he gave up trying to find the leak in my flat inner tube. I just prefer to fix up the one I have instead of buying a new one, but he apparently dissagrees.
He offers me a cheap chinese made inner tube, or he can get me a proper russian made one by calling one of his suppliers. However they are both not the exact sizes for my rim, but they should work. I decide to leave the shop and rather have my tube fixed than replaced.
I pass several Kazantip signs (a techno festival that is pretty popular and attracts plenty of people from all over the world). So this town is the event location. They are still preparing for the festival which starts on 30th July. I am contemplating of going. Will have to decide pretty soon though.
I continue to Sevastopol. My rear tire lasts the entire way (running with my spare front tire sized inner tube) so that is good to know. I did over 200km with it at normal speeds without any issues.
The first hostel I stop at looks closed. I try calling the number on the front door but no cigar, nobody answers. Alright then, let me find another one. After scoring some wifi I quickly find another hostel and a cheap motel. Since hostels are cheaper I will try to find this place. The do,’t specify a street number but it can’t be that hard to find right? After about an hour of looking I gave up. This place is impossible to find, or so I thought as I read a review from another guest who actually found it and complained in her review that it was hard to find. Please lady, next time put in your review how you found it to safe other travelers know how to get there. The motel then. On the way I find a tire fixing shop so I stop there first to get business taken care of before taking care of pleasure. As my Ukrainian / Russian language skills are close to nothing I use a kind of combination of words I know and in this case sounds. I know the word for motorcycle…motosikel. And then I just point at my inner tube and make the noise a tube makes when it goes flat… Pssssst.
The guys in the shop laugh at me but they understand and the tube is fixed in 10 minutes for 2euros worth of Ukranian currency. Sweet.
The motel is actually next door but they inform me that they have no vacancy. Bummer.

I fill up with petrol and ask the gas stop boy if he knows cheap acommodation. He points me back to the hostel that I visited first when arriving the city. I head back to this place hoping someone is actually there this time around. I call the number on the door and this time I am lucky. The owner shows up 5 minutes later as he lives in a building nearby.

After a very necessary shower I head out towards the beachfront with one of the other hostel guests where I try to have a good bite to eat. Since I don’t know any good places to eat we end up in this tourist trap where the food is of subpar quality but the prices are at an upperclass level. Funny how that works in tourist places.

The next day I got in contact with Sasha, a friend of the hostel owner who is a motorbike rider who knows a little motorbike shop where I can get my oil changed and my repaired flat tire installed again on my rear wheel. Appartently a lot of mechanics in Sevastopol use bad quality engine oil and my hostel owner does not want me to end up in one of these shady places. So he called his friend Sasha cause he knows a good place.

I end up in a large area of storage units of which one is actually a motorcycle garage. The guy has been servicing Harleys and other bikes for years and he is a cool cat that has no problem doing the work I need done.

Sasha shows me his storage unit where he has his own little workshop. He is a photographer and makes photoframes out of scrap metal by welding bits and pieces together as a rectangle. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I can’t say anything bad about his workmanship.

In the mean time my bike is already on the bike lift and it is getting an oil change. After that we install the rear tube again.
I get a lot of respect from the mechanic because he knows what a pain it must be to ride long distances on a 250cc bike. A very nice guy. After this pit stop I am ready to head back to the hostel and do some pc work (backup pictures etc) after which I can explore town again.

I visit the waterfront and the big communist statue overlooking the bay.