Soon We'll all be Gone...

But sitting on the verge of tears does not become my twenty-two years!

Hilarious.

Not updated this for a few days, so I thought I'd better knuckle down and get on top of it. At the moment I'm about 40kms from the centre of Moscow, the furthest east I will go (on this trip ;)).

The day after I left климова heading for осташков. The roads were a sandy, rutted mess for the first 20kms. Virtually impossible to ride at speed especially with panniers. Eventually I hit tarmac at a place called свапуша. Now I had a decision to make. On the 'designated route' I was trying to complete it showed a 40km detour, 20km there, 20km back, to the source of the river Volga and a monastry. Somebody had described the road as ridable, and it was ridable, if you were riding in maybe a four wheel drive vehicle or a tank.    

So 20kms of extremely loose dirt roads and two hours later;

I think the face says it all, just the thought of that road sends shivers down my spine. The Volga river is the longest river in Europe. Its very important in Russian culture and is often called Volga-Matushka (Mother Volga).
This is me at the source, c'mon chump crack a smile!

 By this point I'd realised it was going to be a long day.
I turned the bike around and headed back down the same road, I think I'd rather forget the journey back to tarmac. This picture gives you an idea of the road surface.

 Just loose, dry sand.
Half way down the road on the return trip I met a police car sliding sideways down the track! He'd taken a corner a bit too quick!
 When I got back to the main road it was still 50kms to осташков, and it was raining.

Trying to put on a brave face.
It was 8pm by the time I arrived. I decided to have a few beers at the hotel that night, naturally a few turned into six and a sore head in the morning.

I woke up in the morning feeling rough as sin. I think an 80 mile bike ride to торжок was the last thing I wanted to do but like a good boy I soldiered on, stopping halfway for a mammoth portion of chips and four sausage rolls.

I had to kick this little shit to get him to stop chasing me. For some reason dogs around here are obsessed with bicycles, probably because they don't see them very often. торжок was a pretty cool place, an ancient town where there was a big battle between the Mongols and the Russians many years ago.

Some cool old buildings and architecture. I went to a little cafe and had a bowel of Borsch (traditional Russian soup) and a potato meat cake thing for tea, very nice. After that it was time for bed. I don't think I've ever been so relieved to get to bed to be honest.

The next day I'd decided I was going to ride along the main road to тверь to get my bike fixed. I'd heard horror stories about the main road, how it was extremely dangerous for cyclists, tonnes of traffic, etc. etc. Personally I found it OK.

Only 209! As you can see the weather was appalling. 

Hahaha! I got to тверь at about 1'o'clock, found the bike shop thanks to a friendly local. The guy had the cassette changed, rear brake fixed and rear wheel re-trued within the hour. Can't grumble at that. I spent ages looking for a place to stay in тверь, everywhere was either too expensive, or fully booked. Eventually I found somewhere to stay, the only problem was the lady at reception said I didn't have enough paperwork with my passport! Apparently I needed to have it registered every night (Bullshit!).

Thankfully there was a guy in reception who spoke English, so he acted as a translator and helped sort it all out. The guys name was Nicolay and after the little incident at reception he asked me if I would like a tour of the town. Top man!

The banks of the river Volga in тверь. One is named after a writer and one is named after a soldier. There are statues of the men on either side of the river. After a bit of a history lesson we sat down for some food.

Ahh a pack of camels, bought in тверь for the pricey sum of £1.20. Cheers for the food pal and I hope you have many good adventures on your bike and take alot of fantastic photos!

Back at the hotel I hit the sack pretty sharpish, slept like a log again but up for half seven the next morning for what would be an 'interesting' day. The target was Kohakobo and it honestly didn't look too far on the map. 'Reckon I'll be there by 2pm' I thought, wishful thinking. I accidently met the group at this river crossing. When the going gets tough...

For the glory of Great Britain!

“If you're going through hell, keep going.” - Winston Churchill

It rained and rained and rained that day, I was soaked to the bone. Not a nice experience, when I got to the hotel I met with the group again. Someone asked me if I had ever tried Russian vodka, I said no. To be honest it would be plain rude to go to Russia and not try vodka...

 Look at that poor innocent boy, unaware of whats to come. Now I had maybe four shots of vodka and two shots of some Ukranian drink and I was a sniff of liquor away from spending the night rolling about in my own vomit, lethal stuff.

 Haha, look at the eyes! Again I slept incredibly well that night!

Yesterday was a long one, I rode from Kohakobo to the outskirts of Moscow, where I am now. The dirt roads had become mud roads after a night of heavy rain, not great for riding a fully loaded bike on slick tyres.

The worst thing about Russia? Mosquitos. I'd read about them back home but I never thought that it would be as bad as it is. Any patch of skin thats not covered by clothing or sprayed with repellent is fair game for them. When I came out of the river crossing in the video I took my sweater off cause It was soaking and within seconds there were half a dozen Mosquitos on my shoulder, it gets pretty annoying. Thankfully you are safe when you're riding, they don't seem to like moving targets...

This was yesterdays mad stunt. Crossing a bridge that looked like something out of Indiana Jones.

So last night I rode into Moscow. More torrential rain, thunder and lightning. Quite fun actually! Saw a few stray dogs playing by the side of the road. 

Unfortunatly I won't see the group again. I'm staying here today and tonight while the group rides into the centre for 'official business'. Feel a bit gutted to be leaving this lot, although we didn't ride together I met them quite a few times on the road and bumped into them at a few of the hotels. For the first few days I was 'Ralph the English spy' but by the end of the trip I was 'Ivan', just gotta wait for my Russian passport to come through!

There's a real sense of 'lifes to short' with these guys, as there is with most of the Russians I've met, and I like it. I think this comes from experiencing real hardship first hand and I think we Brits could learn a thing or two about our attitude towards others from this lot.

Anyway I'll be staying here today sorting kit out, washing clothes and generally chilling out so feel free to drop us an e-mail and I'll write back. Its cheaper than texting.

So long...

“It’s very difficult to follow our dreams, but it’s even more difficult to forget them.”