Day 2 Novaya Ladoga - Vologda

20800 - 21321  521km

After an ok breakfast I hitted the road. It was raining (surprise) and as I later found out the roads were quite slippery. I was slowing down in order to park alongside the road to fix my gear when the rear wheel locked. There was nothing I could do. I realized I was going to fall and then I was on the ground. The bike laid on the bus stop and I ran off the road as soon as I got up.

After a short while an old man stopped to help me to lift my bike. Alone I would have got to rip off all the gear on it and still I don’t know if I would have gotten it on its wheels. It seems nothing broke. I sat alongside the road for a while and contintued towards Vologda.

Travelling here in Russia is extremelly cheap for a Finn. Filling the gas tank of a motorcycle costs about 500RUB for 13 liters. Its less than 6€. I’d say that’s a reasonable price for gasoline. Also hotels are quite cheap. A bed, dinner and breakfast alltogether only 2100RUB. Less than 25€. I bought a piece of cheese and a loaf of bread from a shop for less than 100RUB i.e. they cost me about 1€.

So I was heading towards Vologda. Luckily it didn’t rain all the time – only 80% of it. All of a sudden there was a roundabout – with a MIG in the middle of it. The stones in the roundabauts of Kuusankoski are a bit lame compared to this. About 100km before Vologda there was a huge road construction. First we waited for about 15 minutes and then drove on a gravel for several kilometers. You can only imagine how dirty I was after that. Well… What gets on with water gets off with water.



The same boring road continued all the way to Vologda. Apparently I was here at rush hour. It took more than half an hour to get throught the city to a small hotel. A room and a garage for 1300RUB. Not bad. A warm shover, some bread and cheese after a littlle maintenance of the bike and gear.


Tomorrow I starting to head east. Today I mostly came south.

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