Former Billings resident crosses Europe, Asia in unusual event

After driving 10,000 miles from England to Mongolia with two friends this summer in the Mongol Rally, Collin Kriner was still looking forward to road-tripping from his parents’ home in Billings to San Francisco on Thursday.

The two trips would be nothing alike.

In the U.S., he wouldn’t have to bribe corrupt officials, eat odd-looking unknown cafeteria foods at Russian truck stops or worry about visa checks at state borders. The highway would be smooth and paved.

Whirlwind tour

Along the way, the recent New York University film graduate can apply for jobs.

On his resume should be a description of his resourcefulness and his appetite for unusual adventures.

The time alone will also allow him the chance to try to make sense of his whirlwind two-month world tour.

“It’s hard to put into words yet,” he said Wednesday.

His brain may still have been jet-lagged from the lengthy flight back from China. He only arrived in Montana on Saturday.

Odd adventure

Kriner, 23, and two of his NYU buddies — Adam Raichelson and Alex Reizebeek — signed up for the Mongol Rally last year on a whim. The 8-year-old event may be one of the oddest charity adventures ever conceived. Participants must drive from England to Mongolia in a car no more than 9 years old but powered by an engine no larger than 1,000 cc. Motorcycles may be used, but none larger than 125 cc. The age limit is waived for bikes.

This year, 879 people from around the world took part in the rally, with team names like Canuck the Dots, Danes of Thunder and I Cannot Believe It’s Not Bataar.

There is no set route from the start line to the finish, and there is no support. Teams are on their own.

“It’s about getting out into the world and discovering it for yourself, so we resolutely refuse to give you a route or detailed information about what to expect,” the rally’s website states. “Think how rubbish it would be if we all followed the same route — like a traffic jam all the way to Mongolia or worse, like having a guide book to the Rally.”

“The great thing about it is that because we were in a different place every day, we were always making memories,” Kriner said. “Sarajevo was fascinating. Some places we really want to get back to.”

There was a party along the way, this year at a castle in the Czech Republic (the Czech Out party) which happened to coincide with Kriner’s birthday.

Participants are also required to raise money for charity — 1,000 pounds (about $1,600) total, half of which must go to the rally’s chosen charity. The vehicles the teams use to reach their destination are also donated at the end of the rally, if they make it that far. Many don’t, including the one the three NYU amigos purchased.

Lots of challenges

Kriner and his teammates were resourceful enough to garner sponsorship for much of the trip’s cost from the Converse shoe company. The trip would end up costing almost $22,000 – including the price of the $2,900 Piaggio Porter van they bought in the Netherlands, visas, passports, airline tickets, food and lodging. Film that the group shot along the route will be used in three social media movies for Converse, the first of which has already aired.

The rally started with several parties in mid-July in West Sussex, United Kingdom — in addition to the Czech Out — and ended with three finish-line parties over the first three weeks in August in Mongolia.

“It was pretty entertaining,” Kriner said.

In between the parties, the three young men were faced with a number of challenges — an inaccurate GPS that led them astray in Sarajevo, the expiration of Raichelson’s visa while in Kazakhstan that forced him to quickly flee the country or face jail time, the eventual breakdown of the van after it overheated and blew a head gasket and the remaining duo’s purchase of two 50cc scooters in a last-gasp attempt to finish the rally.

The scooters broke down on the Russian side of the Mongolian border after carrying Kriner and Reizebeek another 2,100 miles. They finished out the final distance in a bus.

“But I guess we made it, all the same,” Kriner said.

And maybe they were spared more disappointment.

“Everyone broke down in Mongolia,” he said. “One team’s car floated away in a river,” other vehicles snapped their axles or suspensions on the rough roads.

“We were bummed we didn’t get to do the western part of Mongolia, though, which looked the most beautiful,” Kriner said.

The mimes

Though they encountered many difficulties and challenges, Kriner said language was not one of them. To get what they wanted, they often just pointed, mimed and said “thank you” a lot. And for the most part, people of all nationalities treated them kindly.

Given a chance to do the trip over, Kriner said, he would have pushed to go through Iran, even though it would have required the American/Dutch team to hire a tour guide and pay all of his expenses.

He also wouldn’t take the bumpy road that led to the final breakdown of their van.

“I think we would have made it if we hadn’t taken that road,” Kriner said.

Barely revived from his arduous journey and sporting a beard, Kriner is already thinking about his next big trip. The same group — The Adventurists — who put on the Mongol Rally also hold three Rickshaw Runs in India. The idea is to drive from one side of the country to the other, roughly 2,100 miles, in what is essentially a pimped-out scooter.

The idea and route appeals to Kriner, who has always wanted to visit India. But then there’s the expectation that, now that he has graduated college, he should get a job. The answer may lie somewhere in between.

“Until now, my life has followed a path from the small town to the larger world,” Kriner wrote in his online profile for the Mongol Rally. “Now, I find myself at risk of halting, or reversing, that momentum. The rally is the antidote.”

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