I was browsing through motorcycling videos on YouTube this afternoon, and I stumbled across this pretty epic bit of footage from Red Bull. The video is of Russian rider Daniil Ivanov racing over Lake Baikal while it was frozen over in the winter. It’s only a short video, but to be quite honest, it left me sat at my desk with my mouth wide open, wanting to give a massive wooop! However, I refrained myself as this is frowned upon in office environments.
Located in Siberia, Russia, Lake Baikal is the largest fresh water lake by volume in the entire world, in fact, it contains over 20% of the world’s fresh surface water – damn. When the water freezes over in winter, you can walk, ice skate, drive and in this case, tear s*** up on a motorbike like a total bad ass.
Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Firstly, Daniil comes absolutely bombing out of an ice cave, with some pretty big icicles hanging down over the entrance. Then, there’s just some other cool Russain guy stood next to a fire on the ice (I didn’t even know you could do that!), just banging a drum, I’m not sure why, but I dig it. Then before you know it, bam, Daniil pulls a sick wheelie and proceeds to lean right over and make some serious ice doughnuts.
Before you can catch your breath, the other guy is back at it with the drum and Daniil opens the bike up, giving it some serious braaaaap across the ice. At this point, my excitement was through the roof. Just when you think the video has peaked on awesomeness, Deniil is hurtling towards said guy with drum and, at the very last moment, just swings some doughnuts around him while he continues to casually bang on his drum. Nice.
Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
I really had no idea what was going on here, but all I know, is that I enjoyed every darn second of it. Some of the comments in the YouTube thread made me laugh too, here’s just a few.
Fabien White: “Why am I not surprised that normal physics don’t apply in Russia? That lean angle!
Fly Shi Chin: “I can’t even wheelie on dry concrete, how is this fool doing it on ice?
Bizb: “If I had one of those on an ice lake, I would just make penises out of the spike tread marks.”
Lukey2650: “And I get scared of washing out every time I ride on mud lol.”
Anyway, enough of me waffling on about it, I’m sure you’d like me to stop. Check out the video for yourself below, and let me know what you think of it in the comments section below.
Header photo: Red Bull Content Pool
