The yellow De Dion has a hole in the gear box, the Contal has a broken spring and the Itala has a broken tail shaft. The crews are just managing to limp into Irkutsk and straight into the arms of Russian Hell's Angels. And what a lucky break it turns out to be even though it means extra time in Irkutsk, time to let loose and mix it on the dance floor with some locals.
By 6am next morning John Matheson is a bit cranky. As the oldest driver in the slowest car, John wants to hit the road early and when the missing co-driver Andrew Snelling, does emerge, he's not exactly popular. Thanks to the Russian bikers, most are back on the road in two days except for Lang and Warren. It will be days before they leave Irkutsk, and they'll drive day and night to catch up with the rest of the expedition.
With the expedition now spread out, everyone's dealing with the challenges of the road by themselves. Chris and Mick's luck changes when they stop for repairs to the Contal. The work is done and the boys are invited inside for hospitality Russian style: copious quantities of food, even greater quantities of vodka, and a good thrashing with a bunch of birch leaves in an overheated sauna called a banya.
Over the next few days the team comes back together again. It's been nerve-wrecking though. Driving 10-12 hours each day every day on Russia's roads isn't for the faint-hearted. They are the most dangerous on earth with more than 35,000 people dying on them every year. Our adventurers yearn for seat belts. Or doors. Or a roof on the car for that matter!
At day's end, the never-ending stream of squalid Russian hotels is also taking its toll. Camping is very much the preferred option, especially when locals arrive laden with home-cooked food and home-brewed vodka.
Car problems are brewing too. Both the Spyker and Itala have magneto problems, just as happened - in the same spot - 100 years earlier. The expedition is stranded in Tomsk while a solution is sought. The Spyker can be repaired, but it will be days before the Itala moves on again.
Keith and Louise Brodie in the yellow De Dion have arrived in the village of Dubrovo where they're invited to lunch by some ladies who run a psychiatric home that looked after traumatised kids in the Second World War. The place still runs on the smell of an oily rag - but they're really proud of what they've achieved and they've never had foreigners to show it to before. While they have lunch,Warren and Lang arrive in town on a hunt for the blacksmith's shop that repaired the Itala wheel in 1907. It's a search that finds Warren take an unexpected dunking in a freezing river.
It's Day 28 - and just down the road is the city of Yekaterinburg. Stijnus has been worried all the way about whether his family heirloom would survive the expedition, but today he's on top of the world. His good humour though is short-lived...
The expedition arrives in Yekaterinburg on the day Russians mark the end of Communism. The group is given a personal guide of the city by a young Russian couple who'd taken pity on the expeditioners the night before as they struggled to order food in a Czech restaurant from Russian menus.
The expeditioners leave their new friends and head for the very place where the Ural mountains divide Asia from Europe. It also marks the halfway point between Beijing and Paris. Getting there was a real triumph for the first drivers and our modern day adventurers are soaking up their sense of achievement too.
In their hundred-year-old cars they've stayed together for 7,000 kilometres and paid tribute to one of the world's great adventures.
But the hard part isn't over yet - not by a country mile! They make it through Moscow and into Europe but there's mutiny in the wind.
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