UK - N Europe - E Europe - Baltics - Russia Route

[Dibs]

Hi Folks,

I've been an avid reader of the HUBB and have enjoyed reading many a thread, of folks adventures.

I'm from the UK, passed at the end of 2015, been riding a Street Triple since but have been driving for over 20yrs.

A trip (non bike) a few years ago around the Baltics got me bitten by the travelling bug and I felt touring on a bike was as about as raw an experience as you can get.

A break between jobs gives me the opportunity to travel and I want to go Europe.

The planned (loosely speaking) route is

Home to Dover - Calais - Belgium - Holland - Germany - Poland - Kaliningrad - Lithuania - Latvia - Estonia - Russia (St Petersburg & ideally Moscow). Then back (this bit's fluid at the moment).

July of this year - for 30-35 days is the rough time frame.

Now, I know the Street Triple isn't maybe the most suited bike for long tours, but it's the only one I've got and I do enjoy riding it. It's lack of luggage is annoying but I'm on with modifying a set of Givi PLX pannier frames to fit it and have a pair of Givi V35 panniers to go on it.

It's a solo trip.

I've never ridden in Europe, but drove there for a bit, years ago (not sure if that even counts - LOL).

I can read Russian and speak some too - so I'm not too worried about road signs etc in Cyrillic.

I'm looking at hostels\airbnb\etc for the overnights but only ones where there is secure parking for the bike.

Most places will be a one night stop with a few having 2. The plan is to stay 4-5 days in St Petersburg & Moscow - parking the bike and exploring using taxi\foot\metro\etc.

If I'm honest - there is a little apprehension about going. The usual - security, safety. Not so much about personal safety, but about riding out there and coming back minus bike. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. And doing the best I can making it hard to steal the bike - almax and squire padlock - is far better than doing nothing.

I would greatly appreciate any advice\tips\help\etc.

Thanks

Dibs

[aditya raj kapoor]

Well, maybe we will cross each other. I will start from Vladivostok in three weeks and ride to London on a Bonneville. The route is good and just be alert as usual. Cheers!

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[AnTyx]

Originally Posted by Dibs

Home to Dover - Calais - Belgium - Holland - Germany - Poland - Kaliningrad - Lithuania - Latvia - Estonia - Russia (St Petersburg & ideally Moscow). Then back (this bit's fluid at the moment).

Sweet! Let me know when you are nearing Estonia. Basically your only difficulty here would be the Russian visa.

I've never ridden in Europe, but drove there for a bit, years ago (not sure if that even counts - LOL).

Between Calais and the Russian border, the only stretch of road you need to be even remotely worried about is Poland, just because their freeways don't extend quite to their borders, and you end up jostling for road space with lorries. Unless you are planning to see some of the better Polish cities (Krakow etc), consider taking an overnight ferry from northeast Germany to Latvia or Lithuania. Poland as a transit country is mostly just big and annoying.

I'm looking at hostels\airbnb\etc for the overnights but only ones where there is secure parking for the bike.

You can set a Parking Available flag when searching for hostels on booking.com. Most Polish transit motels have secure parking.

The plan is to stay 4-5 days in St Petersburg & Moscow - parking the bike and exploring using taxi\foot\metro\etc.

Good plan.

I would greatly appreciate any advice\tips\help\etc.

I would say, skip Moscow. Go up via the Baltics into SPb. Then aim for Norway, which you can do in a couple of ways. Either ride across the southern coast of Finland and take a ferry from Helsinki/Turku to Stockholm (well worth a stopover, unlike Helsinki), or up to Vaasa and the ferry to Umea, or just ride north through Russia and cross over near Kirkenes (more adventure, crappier roads). Then head over to the Norwegian coast and follow more or less Route 67 down. Different options to cross over from Oslo/Gothenburg/Malmo.

Luggage wise: the panniers will be fine, I suggest a topbox as well - keep it empty and put your helmet and gloves in there while you're walking off the bike. If this solution is insufficient, you will know this by the time you hit Germany, at which point you can always find a Louis Megastore and get a cheap drybag for the pillion.

[maria41]

Hi,


Your itinerary is on tarmac, so your bike is fine.


Bike security in big towns: try to find a hotel with parking.
Last year in St Pete we spent few days at Guyot Boutique Hotel. Reasonably priced (for St Pete), and they have parking space in the inside courtyard. We left our bikes in front of the reception desk. It was very secured. Bring a lock though, we always do.


Moscow, when we visited, was very expensive. Make sure to book a hotel with parking in advance.


If you ride northern Russia to Scandinavia, stop at Petrozavodsk (lovely town, very popular with the Fins) and make sure to do a day trip to the Island of Kizhi. Well worth the visit.


In the Baltic states there are lots of guesthouses with large houses and gardens or garages. Easy enough to find a place with secured parking.

[Dibs]

Hi Folks

Thanks for the replies. The original plan was to get to Estonia by the route mentioned and then cross from Tallinn to Helsinki, along to Turku, up to Vaasa, cross to Umea, down to Stockholm, across to Oslo via Karlstad, down to Gothenburg, down to Copenhagen, down to Hamburg and find the way back to Calais.

But with needing a Russian visa to visit Kaliningrad as you can't get the 72hr visas anymore, i.e. requiring a full Russian visa - the thought was what the hell, get a double one and do Russia.

I kinda really do want to visit Moscow - in my (odd) mind it's like visiting the UK and skipping London. Not sure if that makes sense. Plus the more time spent in Russia - my Russian will hopefully improve.

Plus, next year I want to go further east to Ekaterinburg on a longer trip.

Poland - the plan is to enter around Szczecin and visit Gdansk and then into Kaliningrad, so hopefully not transiting through Poland a great deal.

With the slight (LOL) change of plan due to the Russian visa - I'm not sure 30-35 days is going to be enough to do Finland - Sweden - Norway - Denmark - Germany as the return loop back, with spending 4-5 nights in both Moscow & St Petersburg.

Thanks

Dibs

[AnTyx]

Originally Posted by Dibs

Tallinn to Helsinki, along to Turku, up to Vaasa, cross to Umea, down to Stockholm, across to Oslo via Karlstad,

Meh. Umea is very pleasant, but not worth the big detour. I've only taken the inland route via Tampere, and between that and Vaasa it is an annoying slog through villages. Once you get to Umea you might as well head across via Arjeplog to the Norwegian coast, which is going to be much more scenic than the Swedish plains. TBH, I'd say either go Tallinn to Stockholm directly (protip: if you get a Louis.de customer card and quote the number in an email to Tallink sales, you only pay for the overnight berth - your bike travels for free; for me the total cost was under 30 euros); or if you want to check off Finland, there are ferries from Turku to Stockholm.

Both Helsinki and Oslo are skippable as tourist destinations, especially on a bike-oriented trip. Helsinki particularly. Instead consider the coastal route via Kalmar down to Malmö, where you can take a selfie with the twisty skyscraper and consider whether you want to overpay for the bragging rights of riding through the Öresund tunnel, or save some cash and go from Helsingborg to Helsingör and visit the castle. (Nothing to do with the historical Hamlet but very nice as castles go.)

Copenhagen is awesome.

I kinda really do want to visit Moscow - in my (odd) mind it's like visiting the UK and skipping London. Not sure if that makes sense.

It's certainly necessary to get the full Russian experience, yeah.

Poland - the plan is to enter around Szczecin and visit Gdansk and then into Kaliningrad, so hopefully not transiting through Poland a great deal.

That sounds like a good plan. On the way out of Kaliningrad, try to go via the Curonian Spit - there's a border crossing so you can get into Lithuania that way, and take a ferry to Klaipeda (not worth a stopover itself but has a decent cheap hostel).

[Dibs]

I was in Stockholm and Helsinki (none bike trip) in June 2015 and explored quite a bit, so not too fussed about missing them this time. It wasn't cheap but hey ho.

In all fairness as time passes the likelihood of "chopping" off the Scandinavian leg is getting quite high - i.e. Tallinn to Narva and then St Petersburg, rather than going over to Helsinki.

I'd love to come back via Belarus but the visa for that makes a Russian visa look tame.

I've had a fair bit of luck finding places tao stay with secure parking - not booked anything yet but at least comfortable in the knowledge that some/many do exist with secure parking.

I'm currently on with working out where I want to be on certain days and doing the "schedule" and working out rough routes\roads. The plan is to go sort out the Russian visa next week and get some sport touring tyres on the bike, then get the bike serviced and pull my thumbs out of my proverbial and sort out the pannier frames.

I remember reading on some posts about the Narva-Ivangorod crossing and their being mentions of stopping by some "hut" on the Russian side and getting some kind of ticket, otherwise a little ways down the road you get hassled for not having one. Anyone recall that? [I have tried searching the forums but can't find the posts.]

Thanks

Dibs

[aditya raj kapoor]

Thanks Moto. That's a lot of help. I will be on the transib in two weeks..

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[Dibs]

Thanks very much for the info Moto.

I do have a GPS - it's a TomTom 7 something and has the complete maps for N & E Europe and Russia.

I've driven\ridden in large cities in the Uk and also driven in SE Asia - so hopefully shouldn't be too daunted by Moscow standards. LOL

The plan is to stay within the 3rd ring ring in Moscow, probably within or near the 2nd ring - maybe around/in the Tverskoy district, which I think is close enough to the centre\main attractions even on foot but certainly by metro.

Although, I'll have a look at Kitai Gorod.

The longest run between cities will be between St Petersburg & Moscow - Google maps shows the E105 between the 2. So will need to work out whether to take that to find something else.

That's a 450 run - initial thoughts are to stop in Tver overnight, then continue to Moscow the following day. Or probably stop at somewhere like Valday which is more halfway.

Lane-splitting - LOL, I do that all the time in the Uk at traffic lights, so hopefully that habit will serve me well in Russia.

Thanks

Dibs

[motoreiter]

Originally Posted by Dibs

I've driven\ridden in large cities in the Uk and also driven in SE Asia - so hopefully shouldn't be too daunted by Moscow standards. LOL

Nah, I'm sure you'll be fine if you've driven in those places.

Originally Posted by Dibs

The plan is to stay within the 3rd ring ring in Moscow, probably within or near the 2nd ring - maybe around/in the Tverskoy district, which I think is close enough to the centre\main attractions even on foot but certainly by metro.

Although, I'll have a look at Kitai Gorod.

Tverskoi is just another part of the big, dirty city; it is (barely) within walking distance of the center, but not nearly as close, or as nice, as Kitai Gorod, which as I mentioned is old Moscow and very cool. I think there are lots of small inexpensive hotels there as well, although I can't say I've stayed in any of them (I have an apartment in Moscow).

Originally Posted by Dibs

The longest run between cities will be between St Petersburg & Moscow - Google maps shows the E105 between the 2. So will need to work out whether to take that to find something else.

That's a 450 run - initial thoughts are to stop in Tver overnight, then continue to Moscow the following day. Or probably stop at somewhere like Valday which is more halfway.

You can easily drive from St Pete to Moscow in one day on the main highway, but it will suck for the reasons described above. I would use your GPS to chart some routes along smaller roads to Tver, Valday, or wherever, spend the night there, then into Moscow the next day. I would try to avoid entering Moscow at rush hour.

Anyway, sounds like you've got this travel stuff figured out, just wanted to make sure you don't psyche yourself out for traveling in Russia.

[Dibs]

Originally Posted by motoreiter

Tverskoi is just another part of the big, dirty city; it is (barely) within walking distance of the center, but not nearly as close, or as nice, as Kitai Gorod, which as I mentioned is old Moscow and very cool. I think there are lots of small inexpensive hotels there as well, although I can't say I've stayed in any of them (I have an apartment in Moscow).

I just checked on Google maps Teverskoi District and LOL it goes out a fair way. I was initially looking at places somewhere no further than Tsvetnoy Boulevard and preferably closer to say Kuznetsky Most.

I'm a bit of an urban explorer - so walking around isn't really an issue as long as it isn't thru boring drab places. When I was in Helsinki in 2015, I was staying in Ruoholahti and was happy walking the 20-30 mins into the centre and taking different routes every day\time.

But point taken - closer I am to the centre the better.

Originally Posted by motoreiter

You can easily drive from St Pete to Moscow in one day on the main highway, but it will suck for the reasons described above. I would use your GPS to chart some routes along smaller roads to Tver, Valday, or wherever, spend the night there, then into Moscow the next day. I would try to avoid entering Moscow at rush hour.

I'll have a look on Google maps for less hectic routes between St Pete's and Moscow.

Originally Posted by motoreiter

Anyway, sounds like you've got this travel stuff figured out, just wanted to make sure you don't psyche yourself out for traveling in Russia.

There's always that mix of apprehension of the unknown and excitement, etc. but I think it will be like the 1st time I rode out on my Street Triple on my own, after a short period of time - it was like "normal". LOL

Thanks

[motoreiter]

Kuznetski Most is also very central, and very nice, although I'm not sure how many hotels are there...there's the Savoy, the Peter the Great (or something like that), probably others that I don't know.

Anyway, sounds like you've got the right attitude and experience, I'm sure you'll have a good trip. Let me know if you have any specific questions.