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html

LAKE LADOGA 2004

by Ivo Miesen

Table of Contents

1. St. Petersburg to Vidnitsa (Karelia)

2. Karelia
3. Losevo to St. Petersburg
4. Photos!
5. Related Links

New: Ivo's 2005 tour through Ukraine

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> Hi Adrian, in case you're not on the Audax list, here's the Lake Ladoga report.
> Feel free to forward it to any randonneur list you haven't seen this appearing.
>
> Ivo

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Day One - St. Petersburg to Vidnitsa (Karelia)

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"15 Minutes," a few Saturday-evening drinkers shout to us from a small pub as we pass the village of
Tuloksa. It's amazing to see and hear how the locals already know about the Lake Ladoga 800. OK, 16
cyclists passing these remote villages is already a traffic jam…

R ussia is one of the European countries with an active Audax/Randonneuring scene. One of the main
clubs is the Baltic Star Randonneurs of St. Petersburg. Their classic ride is Around Lake Ladoga, an 800k
with an option to quit at 600k. (Not that that would be an option for me!) Lake Ladoga is the largest lake in
Europe and one of the northernmost of the world's large lakes.

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So, on Saturday morning I cycled to the Lenin Monument in front of the Finland railway station, the place
where Lenin held his first speech after arriving back from exile. A small group is assembled here, some club
members will ride with us to the city limits. Only 16 wanted to do the entire ride. In a good group, we left
town. Everyone took a turn at front, a nice tailwind and a well maintained main road. Conversation was a bit
limited for me, my Russian is rather basic, and most riders didn't speak anything but Russian. It was a bit
strange to see some of the roadsigns, "Murmansk 1300km" is not a strange sign here! That opens
completely other perspectives for long Audax rides.

Aided by the tailwind, we arrived at the first control not so long after it opened. We managed to be in just
before the real rain started. Luckily, the rain was nearly over when we left the pub. During the first kilometers

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after the control the bunch took it easy, the slow starters had time to catch up. Again the ride was easy and
well organised. The only girl in the group did some good work in organising the bunch. Lana proved to be a
former national level racer. I managed to talk with her in a mixture of English and Russian. After a while it
started to rain again. I stopped to don my waterproofs, most others went on. Luckily I stopped since the rain
rapidly changed into a downpour. Alone I continued for a while. In a village I stopped to buy some supplies.
No Muesli bars available at village shops here, but a whole array of very tasty rolls. Most of them are open
on Sundays too, some even for 24-hours! Now that's a service for the one randonneur.

W hile leaving the village I caught up with a rider who had been resupplying at a fuel station. He quickly
dashed away, only to be overtaken by me again some 20k further on. He understood that a steady rhythm
is better for the long distances, so he stuck with me until we reached the second control in Lodejnoje Polje. I
was surprised to see only part of the group here. Most of the others arrived when I was sitting in the pub.
The group was completely split up by the rain. We decided to reformat the group. With 10 riders, we set out
to the control, which was located just outside of Lodejnoje Polje. A lone Lada was waiting by the roadside
with two controllers in it. Our cards were marked and off we went again, the speed being a bit slower as
during the first part of the ride.

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I t was a long haul to the next village. As soon as you leave the towns in Russia the area is really sparsely
inhabited. We're about 250km from St. Petersburg and hardly a soul is around. In the small village of
Megrega, I stop to buy an ice cream. The others continue, I'll surely catch them later on. When I eat my ice
cream in front of the shop, Michaïl, the organiser of the ride arrives. He stops for a moment. When I'm about
to leave it starts to rain again. On goes the rain jacket again and I continue my way to the next control. But
before I reach it I see the whole group assembled, sheltered in the bus station of Olonets. I rejoin the group,
but leaving Olonets I puncture. Lana and Andrej, both from the town of Vladimir, stop and help me.
Together we continue for the last bit to the control near Vidnitsa.

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T his is a typical Russian Audax control. A tent at the lakeside, several controllers, including some kids, and
a nice campfire. Hardly have I parked my bike, a mug of tea is offered and a plate of kasha. I try to warm up
by the campfire but a fierce wind from the lake is not of a great help. Some riders leave this control and go
for a night ride. I decide to take it easy and have a sleep. After all, I've 350k done and the control is still
open until the early morning, so time for a real nice long sleep. I manage to convince Lana that an 8-hour
sleep is a bit too much for an Audax ride and we decide to leave at 5:00am, an hour before the control
closes.

I t's a cold night on the shores of the Ladoga Lake. Either I'm constantly bitten by all sorts of insects when
I'm sheltered from the wind, or I'm freezing but the insects are blown away. So, I hardly sleep despite being
wrapped in two space-blankets. Luckily a space in the tent is liberated when one of the other riders decides
to continue. Now I can finally sleep.

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Day Two - Karelia

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After a few hours I'm woken up. It's Lana. She asks me if I want to continue the ride. No problems, I leave
the tent and scramble for the fire. Tea is still available, and some food. We leave at 4:30am, a bit earlier
than planned. Dima joins us. Slowly we restart our ride. It still is a lonely road. The few villages we pass are
still completely deserted, everyone sleeps after a Saturday night of drinking. Lana and Dima are not riding
that well, Andrej, in contrast, is still riding strongly. Whenever he pulls, we run the risk of loosing someone
from the back.

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A fter 75km we reach the village of Pjatkjaranta. Here's a 24-hour shop. We stop to buy our breakfast. The
sun is already out, the weather is a complete contrast from yesterday. We take it easy and enjoy our
breakfast. After an hour of so, I ask them if we should continue. But Lana tells me that she and Dima are
going to quit. She is ill. Dima never has been riding well during this ride. Andrej is still undecided. I stay a bit
longer. Andrej finally decides to quit also, so I wish them good luck with the train ride back to St. Petersburg
and set out, on to the next control.

That control should only be 22k away. But after 22k I see no village of Ljaskelja. I slow down - I don't want
to miss the control. After half an hour I see a sign for Impilachti. I stop and check my map. Impilachti is on
the map, some 10k south of Ljaskelja. Michaïl must have made an calculation error. I continue on normal
speed again, and indeed, not some 10k further on I see the sign for Ljaskelja. I cross the bridge and see a
nice scenery.

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S o, I stop for a picture. When I restart I see two policemen further on the road. They stop me for the
Karelian border control. I passed the Karelian border yesterday evening. I hand them my passport which the
control very thoroughly. Each and every stamp of any border control is checked. After a while they discover
that I'm not yet registered. I pull out my control card and show them that I left St. Petersburg on Saturday,
less than 3 days after arriving in town. Now they are more interested in my route. That's a way to steer away
the theme of conversation, so I show them the route-sheet in Russian. After they've read it I show them the
list of participants. just then two other riders appear - Vitali and Andrej from St. Petersburg. They confirm my
story. The policemen ask for a copy of the starters list. No problem with that. After that they show us the
control place. It's closed, but they tell us that there's a fuel station right around the corner.

No hot food there, but a control-stamp.Vitali proposes to continue to Sortavala and eat there. That's a

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good idea and we continue together. Conversation is very limited. Vitali speaks only a few words of German,
so we have to do with my limited Russian. Still, we reach Sortavala with no problems, except that I sense
that I'm climbing a lot slower than they do. The road on the northern edge of Lake Ladoga is stunning, I
take lots of photos here. In Sortavala, we easily find a café.

W e're deep into Karelia now, at least 10% of the signs are in Karelian, a parental language to Finnish.
Vitali orders the food before I can tell him that I'm a vegetarian. So, they both get my meat. After the meal
we continue to Lazdenpokhja. Again they are climbing lots faster so after a few kilometers I tell them that
they have to continue and stop waiting for me. They are a bit surprised to hear that I'll continue for the full
ride, and won't stop after 600k.

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Again I'm riding alone. I take it easy for a while. The route-sheet tells me that there will be 38km of
unpaved road ahead. This ordeal starts just before Kurkijoki. This is really unpaved road: washboard, soft
sand and various other sorts of nasty bits. In full descent, I have to slam the brakes when the unpaved road
begins. It takes me 5km to get used to it. Uphill I ride on the edge, not too soft sand here, but an occasional
wheel-eating pothole. Downhill I ride on the washboard. As long as I ride faster as 40kph that's not too
bumpy. The hard bits are the speeds in between. In both villages on this stretch, I stop to take a rest.
Somewhere near halfway I hear a speeding car ahead. It appears over the top of a hill, rounding the corner
in full rally still, fully sideways and with maximum counter-steer, but this guy knows what he's doing so it's a
welcome distraction.

Finally the unpaved road ends near the Karelian border. I immediately see Vitali and Andrej. Vitali broke his
rear mech, but a bit of metal and some rope did the trick for him. We try to continue but now they are very
slow on a potholed road. According to the route-sheet the control-time is not yet over, but the controllers will
have left the control at Molodezjnoje Lake. When I see the lake, I see Michaïl and some other riders. All of
them stopped at this control to wait for the last riders. Before I put my bike down Vitali and Andrej appear,
now everyone has passed this control. Tea is ready, food will be within a few minutes. Only two riders have
continued so far from this control. So, including me that will be only 3 finishers for the 800k! All others took
the train from here. To my further surprise I see Lana and Andrej from Vladimir. They got a train from

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Pjatkjaranta to Sortavala, and then to Kuznetsznoje. That's near the control, so they decided to see what's
happening here. While I'm eating my dinner they leave to catch the night-train to St. Petersburg.

After a good meal, I don my night gear, switch on my LED-lights and continue for the last 200k. My main
light is not needed, even although it's nearing midnight. We're in the area of white nights here, it never gets
really dark. After a few kilometers I reach the small town of Priozersk. Time to resupply, no more services until
I reach the shores of the Baltic Sea. But again, some 24-hour shops here so I have a good choice of food
and drinks. From Priozersk to the Losevo control is quite a lonely ride. Lots of forests, straight roads and no
villages - and of course a stiff headwind. My pace drops, but the generous time allowance permits me to
take it easy.

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Just before three in the morning I reach the village of Losevo. The route-sheet also has a small map about
how to reach the Losevo control. Again a tent by the side of a lake. I have to go left on an unpaved path
just after crossing the railway bridge, lift my bike over the railway tracks and continue. Indeed, a green tent is
there outfitted with LED lights. A controller emerges from the tent. To my surprise there is another tent with
two known bikes - the bikes from Lana and Andrej. They are asleep. I immediately go to sleep, the controller
has to leave as soon as the control-time ends, he still has to work today, in St. Petersburg. So, it will be a
rather short night.

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Day Three - Losevo to St. Petersburg

I n the early morning it starts to rain again. I need my space-blanket to warm up, sharing it with some other.
We eat our breakfast, drink some tea and set out again. Again it's a lonely road. The shortest road is very
bad, so the route takes us via a detour to the old Vyborg-St. Petersburg highway. On our way to the

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highway I puncture. When I'm about to change my tube I see that Andrej is very cold. He has hardly any
clothes with him, and all of them are soaked. So, I take a torn space-blanket, cut a hole for his head in it
and give it to him. Lana immediately understands the trick and helps him dressing in his new gear. In the
meantime I change my tube.

T he highway we reach without other delays. But it really is the old highway. Hardly any traffic, all shops are
closed and a very bad surface. Only in Peervomajskoje we manage to buy some food. The only café is
closed so we have to sit under the café's awning and eat our own food. Again the space-blanket is needed.
But from now on it's easy. Soon we reach the new highway and turn right to Zelenogrosk. This is a
completely different area. Loads of summerhouses, lots of tourist and lots of restaurants, bars and cafés -
quite a lot of posh ones.

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Z elenogrosk is easily passed and we continue on the sea-side road to St. Petersburg. Somewhere
halfway, in Repino we stop for tea and some food. There are occasional rain showers now. After Repino the
traffic gets quite dense. I suffer from a sleep attack. No place here to take a short kip. Lana keeps riding
close beside me to wake me up every time I nod off. Only when we're well into St. Petersburg the sleep
attack is over. All the time Andrej was hammering at front. He is a tremendously strong rider. Somewhere in
the outskirts of St. Petersburg I ask him if he knows how we have to go to the finish. 'No' is the simple
answer. So, I tell him that we have to stop at a nearby fuel-station and check the route-sheet. That's the
right time to do it.

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W hen we're stopped, we see the statue nearby where we have to turn right. It's very near now. At the end
of the side road is a stadium. Within a few minutes, we located the right room of the stadium and are
greeted by the finish controllers. Our bikes are stored inside, and the sauna is immediately heated. Within
ten minutes we're sitting in the sauna and drinking tea. That's a way to finish a cold and wet ride!

After thoroughly warming up, we raced to the other building to eat and drink tea for at least two hours. I
take a short nap before we all set out to our places. But that's not the end of the day yet - in the evening
Michaïl invites for a small party at his apartment. I'm even fit enough to cycle there. A nice end of a very
good brevet.

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-Ivo Miesen
July 2004

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Related Links:
Baltic Star Randonneurs Homepage - Around Lake Ladoga 2004
Randonneuring in Russia by Jim Trout - Seattle International Randonneurs - 2000
Bike marathon around Lake Ladoga from "PetersburgCity.com" (2001)
Ivo's Crackpot-1000, a Hill too Far (UK; 1998) PDF
Ivo's Dodging Potholes in Bulgaria (SVS-2002)
Ivo's 2005 tour through Ukraine (and Travel Tips!)
Ivo's 2006 tour through through the lands of Kalmuks and Circassians
Ivo's 2008 Vologda-Onega-Ladoga
More of Ivo's great Photos!

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Ivo leads brevets in Maastricht.

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