Lake Baikal, in Russia, is home of some weird motorcycle events, and here’s one more you can add: the Baikal Mile land speed event. And, Indian Motorcycles is attending this year with a cool streamliner dubbed the Appaloose V2.0.
The Baikal Mile runs over the frozen lake, mid-winter, with 1/8-mile and full mile courses. The main reason for the event is land speed attempts, but there’s also stunt riding, flat track racing, all sorts of cool moto-stuff going on, making for a full mid-winter bike festival. It sounds like a good time, long as you don’t mind the Siberian winter. It runs next week.
Indian’s entering a modified Scout Bobber, with custom work by Brice Hennebert and Workhorse Speed Shop. It doesn’t look much like a bobber anymore, with Akrapovic exhaust, Ohlins suspension, a streamliner fairing, upgraded Beringer brakes, and studded Dunlop tires (not visible in the summertime shot above, obviously).
The extreme cold and the unpredictability of the surface will no doubt make this a challenging event, and the air density will no doubt slow the bike down. However, we’d be surprised if there wasn’t some cool YouTube promo footage out of this adventure—we’ll keep our eyes open, because we always love to see people actually getting out on their bikes mid-winter!
