Most of our new friends who we learned to know during the journey speak English, so we decided to start an English section of our homepage, too. Because of lack of time during our travels (we don’t have a laptop with us and only visit the Internetcafes on the way) only some parts - especially the diary section - will be in English, but we promise that after the journey we will write additional information to help other biketravelers. If somebody has prior questions we are glad to receive your emails and will answer them as good and soon as possible.

But now a short summary of our travels so far:

We began our journey on the 13th of March 2005 from our hometown St. Valentin (near Linz) in Austria. We were lucky with the weather because this was the first sunny day without snow (or rain). Many of our friends and relatives came to say “Good Bye” which was quite nice.

Then we started our way to the Danube which is not far from the place where we live and the biggest river of Austria. Next to it is the most famous cycle path of our country. In summer many tourists use this path to cycle through Austria. But nobody was there at this time of the year. So all the people who were outside because of the nice weather, did some gardening and they greeted us very friendly and told us that we were the first messengers of spring.

After two days we were in Vienna, the capital of Austria, where we bought the last things missing in our equipment (which is quite big - we know ) and said Good Bye to our friends there.

From Vienna it is not far to the Slovakian border. After a day in the beautiful city Bratislava we continued cycling through the nice countryside. There was not much traffic and good streets - perfect for cycling. The highlight of the few days we were in this country were the Tatra Mountains but it was too early in the year for hiking and we also wanted to go on to the Ukraine.

We left the EU on March 28th and at the beginning it looked like entering another world.

Not only the roads got worse, but also we were kind of illiterate people in this country, so orientation was difficult. We neither spoke Russian nor could read Cyrillic script. In addition the banks were closed due to Easter Monday when we wanted to change money so we did not have much to eat on the first day in Ukraine - Martins Birthday. But the next day was fine again. We got money so we could buy food and we even found a shop where we bought a road atlas.

A German speaking truck driver gave us some more important informations. He told us not to cycle on the small roads because they are in very bad condition and that there is not too much traffic on the main roads, which are normally asphalted but still have some bumpy sections without asphalt and thus they are bad enough. Despite his advice we tried the small roads and liked them much more because there was not even little traffic - there was none. We only met some horse carts, children with bikes and pedestrians, but almost no cars. And the surface of the road was quite okay - often there was asphalt too.

During our ride through the hilly and sometimes windy country we passed many nice small villages and interesting countryside. There is pretty much agriculture because of the fertile land but most work is not done with tractors like in Austria but done with animals or just by hands. We felt like being on a journey into the past when we watched the simple - and certainly hard - life people live here.

Some people - especially the older ones - speak German so we could talk to them. Most of them speak Russian as well so we had the chance to learn some Russian words and also read them while travelling which made things much easier. Many people were interested in our way of travelling, all very friendly but also reserved in a way- much more than the Russians later

In the big cities we saw some bikes with good quality so it should be possible to get spare parts there. We didn’t need any because our equipment worked well.

We cycled through the south of the country - almost always on very small roads. Only on the Crimean Penisulsar we had to cycle on the main roads because there were no smaller ones but traffic was okay. This peninsular has mediterranean climate and therefore differerent vegetation. It was one of the highlights of our trip through Ukraine. The mountains are right next to the sea and the road wriggles scenically through them. We enjoyed fascinating landscape, good mountain vistas, many dips in the still cold ocean and also did some hiking and sightseeing (there are ancient cave cities for example, some fine palasts,…)

After a longer stay in Jalta (thanks to Paul and Lemon who invited us to their appartement) we continued our way and left the country with its delicious black bread, cream cakes, … at the beginning of May. At the boarder of Kertsch we took a ferry over the strait there.

After the border in our opinion there was not much difference to Ukraine: the same language is spoken, the same alphabet used also the shops, houses,… look similar. The only difference for us was that life is more expensive here. Most people seem wealthier. And there is more traffic on the main roads.

We cycled through the Kuban Steppe which is intensivly cultivated and was very green because of the first fruits growing in this season.

In Krasnodar we had a good time with Sergey and Tatjana who made a great trip to the Caucasus with us. Then we cycled on small less traveled ways through Salsk, Volgograd and Saratov and from there to Samara. Here we had the most strenous part of the journey so far because we decided not to go on the main road to Samara but through the National Forest Reserve Sanarskaya Luka which is a hilly peninsular right before Samara on the other side of the Volga.

We found out that the small dotted road through the reserve marked in our atlas, in reality did not exist anymore. An old woman told us this, when we asked her for the right way but we didn’t want to turn so we followed the gas pipeline through high grass, attacked from millions of moskitos who had probably never seen a human being before so they took their chance to suck our blood.

We could not ride most of the time, because our panniers touched the uneven ground and there were also many fallen trees in the grass. But to walk the bike was okay.

After some time we came to a quite new mudroad but there it began to rain heavily. After a few minutes the road dissapeared - instead of it, there was a swamp now. But becaue we have been out of money for a while and therefore had only few things left to eat we couldn’t wait here in the middle of the big forests until the weather got better. So we had to do hard work to move our bikes on the slippery soaky ground. Most of the time we had to push one bike together and after a hard afternoon of work, pains in the back and bladders in the soaked up feet we had only done 2 kilometres - only 13 more left (if we were on the right track which we didn’t know for sure).

Next day it was raining till the afternoon then the weather improved, so we made it to Samara - with some defects, because dirt came into the bearings of the bikes. But after a good meal in Samara - which is a very nice city - some cleaning and repairs of the bikes everything was fine again and a few days later we continued our travel.

On our way we liked Rep. Bashkortostan very much. Not only because we got many invitations from the friendly people here but also because of no traffic on the small good mudroads (which are good fun to cycle while it is dry) through wonderful nature. And also because of the many berries we could harvest as an additional food at this time of the year.

Until Omsk we always travelled on nice minor roads. Only to Novosibirsk we often used the highway because of some rain. Most of the time we were lucky with the weather.

In Omsk and Novosibirsk we got to know many helpful cyclists who normally meet for riding there bikes together. They organised a perfect stay for us in their cities. Not only we had a place to sleep for the night and to wash our things, also we did some bikeriding, sightseeing and had many interesting conversations and nice evenings (even with our personal translator ).

After Novosibirsk we went to the South to Rep. Altai where we cycled the Chuysky Trakt. The scenic nature here was one of the hightlights of the Russian trip: iceblue rivers, huge forests with the yellow autumn leaves, the beautiful snow topped mountain peaks, … But the road ends at the Mongolian boarder which we didn’t want to cross so we had to cycle a small but beautiful track which we were told from local people is only possible to go by horse.

It was not easy with our heavy loaded bikes - but we made the way to Tuva. With icecold river crossings in the snowy landscape (the track is over 2000 meter and it was end of September), steep mountainpasses, but the scenery was great. We saw our first jurts where we also were invited to. - One of the most interesting adventures of our trip so far.

Now we are in Abakan and we’ll soon go on our last stretch to Lake Baikal, which was our aim at the beginning. But our journey will not be finished there. More to our future destinations next time!