day 75 - Saint Petersburg

Day 75
September 15th

Rise and shine in St P. After successfully completing the Ride of our lives, we had some closing to do. We had the morning off, which was only fair, and got up to spend the day in official matters. We met Prof Ehmann, from Campus Europae, who congratulated us our accomplishments, and had a nice lunch before the afternoon session.

We came to the Saint Petersburg Higher School of Economics for the closing ceremony. Greeted by the Director Advisor and introduced to our fellow students, we set up the GoCycle and began the session.

We had an extensive workshop, which addressed the question of active participation of students in civil society and Higher Education. The discussions were based on participation of students in the university life and decision-making processes (presentation by Professor C. Ehmann, Secretary General of EUF-CE), project management of extra-curricular activities (presentation by Yelena Belokurova, Deputy Director of the German and European studies centre from St. Petersburg State University), opportunities that the EVS programme provides for Young Europeans (presentation by Aigulle Sembaeva, coordinator at the “Deutsche-Russischer Austausch”), examples of student projects (by Tatiana Tsueva, Director Advisor of Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg) and as well an example of student self-organisation in Russia (by Viktor Vorobrov, Head of the Independent Student Union of the Philology Faculty).

In the end, we had one last signing of the Bike of Honour, by the hand of the Director Advisor, and declared the Ride officially over.

As is usual, the closing ceremony is followed by a nice dinner, and ours was delicious. At the top floor of the hotel, with a magnificent view over the city, we gathered everyone around the table for one great meal, to thank all of the people who helped us come this far.

However, there was still one very important official visit to be conducted. After dinner, we went to visit our fixie friends at their Taiga space. There was no one who we'd rather spend this evening with, than with our Russian friends, who supported us, joined us, led us and welcomed us to St P.

day 74 - Zelenogorsk to Saint Petersburg

Day 74
September 14th

The morning of our final riding day, we packed up for riding one last time. The fixies - Gosha, Sasha, Masha and Pasha - came to pick us up, and we set off for the short stretch to St P. Escorted by Boris, causing chaos on the small road and stopping because of the unavoidable flats, we entered the city, stocked up on "celebration fuel" and headed to Dvortsovaya square.

We came to the front of the Winter Palace where we met the rest of the fixies who had come to welcome us. We popped open the bottles and we celebrated our unbelievable arrival.
After 11 weeks, having covered over 4800 km through 12 countries, and we made it to Saint Petersburg!

With heads held high and a huge weight off our shoulders, we went to our hostel, met our friend Svetlana who came all the way from Novi Sad by plane (not by bike, pity), sparked a small international diplomatic crisis and settled in. We could sleep a bit more tonight.

Stage O completed. Ride completed.

day 73 - Vyborg to Zelenogorsk

Day 73
September 13th

T'was a glorious Russian morning when we found out there was no electricity in the morning at the hotel. Of course we could still have showers, just as long as we had showers with very cold water and in the dark. So we gathered happily for breakfast and met our fixie guides, who would lead us to our next stop.

We took the main roads on advice from our guides, which meant Boris escort all the way. Oddly enough, Russian drivers are mostly crazy, but they actually care about cyclists, try to keep a safe distance (without ever slowing down) and were generally friendly towards the group.

We had a lunch break at a service station, trying all the specialties we could vaguely understand in Cyrillic, and it began to rain. Then we took a lesson in simplicity from the fixies. For just a couple of rainy days, there was really no need for fancy waterproof equipment...

Solving a couple of tire-related problems, we resumed riding. There were quite a few stops along the way, which only drew greater attention to our unusual group, but the fixies kept the rhythm and we made it to Zelenogorsk quite fast.

There, we found our dacha. We managed to fit everyone and their bikes, took up some cleaning and went out for dinner in town. Interacting with the locals was easier than we imagined, but even with the help of a dictionary, we have "eskalop" for every meal.

day 72 - Imatra to Vyborg

Day 72
September 12th

The last morning in Finland was spent with careful preparations. Our unusual travel group would surely get some attention at the border and things are much easier when carrying the right documents. After breakfast and filing, we said goodbye to our hosts and moved on, scheduled to meet Boris just before the border.

Coming to the border crossing, we all stood in line, a pack of bikes jamming up the traffic. We were barely controlled exiting Finland, then proceeded to no man's land, quick stop for nature calls and then on to the Russian side.

Separated from Boris at the border control, we all took care of our paperwork, while Boris got checked at customs. We'd heard some horror stories about the checkpoints, but nothing scary came to be. Customs check included, we made it across in less than 2 hours.

Before resuming our journey, we got some rubles on our hands and realized communication would be much more interesting, since the phones weren't working properly, and when they did, they left us bankrupt. Having established contact with our local guides, we headed to Vyborg.

We met our guides from the Fixed Gear community from St P, who took us to the hotel in Vyborg. Again faced with language barriers, we made our point anyway and got installed in time for a next pizza and push-up dinner in town.

We've crossed the border and we're so close to our goal...

Privet St. Petersburg

With one month to go till all Ride for your Rights! bikers meet in Novi Sad for the opening ceremony, local teams are working eagerly to consolidate the programmes and events in their tour towns.

Next to the opening ceremony down south, the closing ceremony in Pburg will also be one of a kind. In order to make sure that all riders will arrive in St. Petersburg safely, George and his crew from St. Petersburg Fixed Gear decided to give us their great support by picking us up from the Finnish border. Cycling on Russian streets and especially cycling in St. Petersburg takes skills, guts and the knowledge which route to take to avoid a visit to the bike clinic.

So what could be better than teaming up with St. Petersburg riders to support them in return and ride for our rights as cyclists on car and traffic dominated streets in Russia together?

Check out the video message and meet the crew



More news on Pburg and all other stops coming soon...