How to travel by bike across Russia and the world: how to get from Moscow to Crimea

Traveling brings a lot of new and interesting things into our lives. Remember the Age of Discovery? The voyages of Vasco da Gama, Fernand Magellan and others are still legendary.

Traveling is a great way to reboot, take a break from pressing problems and meet someone. Unfortunately, not everyone likes to wheel around the planet in search of new sensations. And only a few are ready to decide on extreme adventures for life.

Our story is about just that. In August 2021, two ordinary guys from Moscow – Artyom Demidov and Azamat Ermatov – went to the Crimea on bicycles.

Part 1. What happened before the start?

– How did you get the idea to go on bicycles to Crimea?

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This idea was born while serving in the army.

Artyom: I spent a lot of time on the Internet. By chance I came across the blogger Dima Smetkin and saw his video of how he rode from Moscow to the Crimea. It was his first multi-day bicycle trip. Everything was filmed in a funny way, the whole trip and all the details. I thought, “Man, I should do something like that sometime.” Eventually, after I served, a year passed, the second year started, and I thought, “We should do it already.

Initially I wanted to go alone, but I decided to offer this adventure to my friend Azamat. He and I met in the park, I remember it exactly, and at the most unexpected moment I told him: “Azamat, will you come with me? Let’s go on bikes from Moscow to the Crimea”. I was very surprised that he did not refuse and said that the idea was crazy. That’s what others said, but he just said: “Well, yes, that would be nice.”

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I work very hard in the office, I don’t even have time to meet my friends, not to mention going to the Crimea on a bicycle. I began to warn everyone at work, at home, that I would soon leave. True, everyone treated it as a joke.

Azamat: It was a funny story. Artem kept teasing me that I was going to leave, and for me it became a matter of principle. Because I answered “yes” and really wanted to do it, although I realized that it would be unrealistically difficult. And the closer we got to summer, the more Artyom fucked with me.

– So you had no experience like that at all? That’s interesting. How did you start your basic training?

Artyom: Since February of this year I started selecting everything I needed. I don’t know anything about bicycles at all and didn’t understand what kind of bike I needed, and there are really a lot of different ones. I started asking my friends from the gym, who are into it. They gave me options to choose from. With Azamat we agreed that the budget would be up to 50 thousand rubles. At first we had a plan to spend 30 thousand on a bicycle, but it became clear that this would not be enough. There were few options, literally 2-3 models. In the end we chose a bicycle for traveling Merida Speeder GT 90. Very cool.

When I was choosing, I sent everything to Azamat. He told me: “Yes, yes, okay. It fits.” So he didn’t really care about the choice. That was my task. The next problem was to find this model on sale. Because they were either out of stock or they were sold out immediately. It took about a month to find them.

– Tell me, why this particular model? What makes it so good?

Artyom: It is the most optimal in terms of price and the characteristics that we needed. The bike itself is a hybrid, something between a road bike and a city bike. That is to say, it offers comfort and convenience of traveling as fast as possible.

– No questions about the bike, but what about your physical training? Did you train somehow?

Artem: I have never practiced cycling. The only thing I did was fitness four times a week. On May 7, we bought bicycles and from that day we started our physical training. I started rolling a little bit every day. Just around town. Didn’t measure time or distance. I’d ride for 2-3 hours. Azam, what were you doing during this time?

Azamat: Roughly speaking, I’m an office plankton, and I’ve been working in the same place for 7-8 years. The last time I went to the gym was about five years ago. That is, I haven’t had any cardio exercises at all. I smoke. I tried to skate during training. I was also studying in parallel with work. During the whole training I got on a bike 10 times, no more. Of course, once we rode 50 kilometers together. After that time I felt tired and a little “what awaits us”. The fear was still present.

– And now your start is imminent. What were the final 12 hours like?

Artem: I had a good sleep. I went to a sports store to buy a couple of bags and spare cameras in case of punctures. Azamat asked me to buy him a raincoat. I came out of the store and I started to feel nervous, because I realized that it was the last night before departure. And then I was packing my bags and even more nervousness.

Azamat: I had a lot of work. I had to finish everything before the vacation, and I was free only at 4-5 pm. I stopped by to see my friends before the trip. A lot of people couldn’t believe it. One friend even registered on Instagram to follow us.

I packed my stuff at home, had a beer before bed, hoping it would help me sleep. Ended up sleeping for only three hours before the trip. I didn’t feel wrecked, but even if I hadn’t slept the night before, I still would have gone.

The fear was more of the unknown. If you never do anything like this in your life, what happens when you get outside the Moscow Ring Road? Everything, just a road ahead of you and nothing else.

Part 2. The road to the Crimea

Day 1. Cheerful start

Artyom: We agreed to meet at 6 am in Chertanovo. Pumped up the tires and drove out. In the end I didn’t sleep the whole night, as well as Azamat, it took a lot of time to pack. Despite the fact that we did not sleep, adrenaline helped us to keep on our feet. Emotions were unreal, we were driving towards Moscow Ring Road. There were still few cars on the road, so we could go as if next to each other and talk. The scariest thing was at the beginning – to drive beyond the Moscow Ring Road and cross it.

We traveled the first 50 km in two hours. We caught a good pace. At first, our friend Roland rode with us. He wanted to make sure that we would be OK at least for the first half a day. We stopped at a gas station in Chekhovsky district to have a snack and discuss the road. Fast carbohydrates were basically all our main food on the way.

At the 100 km mark the first breakdowns started. I developed a lot of small cuts at first and the tire was deflating. At some point the first spoke flew out, followed by the second spoke. It all started to weigh on me mentally. It seemed like we had just started, and already so many bad things had happened.

– Did you foresee that something like this could happen? Did you have spare spokes with you?

Artem: No, of course not. We didn’t take spokes with us. I had to call my girlfriend and ask her to find a service in Tula where I could get this force majeure fixed. Further for me the road was with an “eight” on the rear wheel, which was constantly deflated. The rest of the day was going to be like that. Another 100, and no – 170 kilometers to Tula.

Azamat: 70 kilometers to go…

Artem: Ah, yes. We drove 100 km, 70 km to Tula, and every 40 minutes we had to stop to pump the tire.

Azamat: Looking ahead, I didn’t have a single puncture during the whole trip, but I was just lucky.

For a few hours I just drove with a smile on my face, I was overflowing with emotion. And the first half of the day was probably great in that respect. On the way to Tula, the slides started, when I was already really fucked up. It was very hard. I mean, muscles usually hurt the next day, but I was already aching that evening. When we arrived in Tula, I fell down near the monument on the road and practically fell asleep. The first day was very hard. But the fear was gone.

Artyom: We got to the hotel by 9pm. I immediately went to the workshop to fix the wheel. The master replaced all the spokes on the rear wheel, gave us chain grease, which we did not have with us, and also glued the punctured tire. By the way, he came to pick me up in his pickup truck after hours, drove me to the shop, fixed everything and asked for a thousand rubles for all the work. He helped us out a lot. I arrived at the hotel only at midnight.

Azamat: We remember the morning after the first day well. You fall asleep in a minute and don’t even have time to realize it, your body is so exhausted. You wake up and everything hurts and you didn’t sleep well. It was “uncomfortable” to get on the bike. But here’s the thing: you still have to get over yourself. It’s hard, it hurts, but you know you have to go – and so be it.

Day 3. Downpour on the way

Azamat: We rode from Elets to Voronezh, which seems to be the shortest part of the distance. For the whole trip it was on this day that we got hit by a downpour. The clouds thickened, we changed into raincoats beforehand, I packed my bag in a bag so it wouldn’t get wet, and Artyom had waterproof bags on his bike. It felt interesting, you could say I enjoyed being caught in the rain for once. We rode for a long time in the first half of the day, then it started pouring, and somehow we wanted to get there quickly, change clothes, take a hot shower. We decided to pick up the pace and didn’t even notice the last 30-40 km.

Artyom: In the rain we stopped at gas stations. We didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the road, so we saved money. We didn’t even buy water at the gas stations, but poured it from the tap into bottles. We didn’t buy tea either, but asked them to pour boiling water, we had our own tea in bags. So, we warmed up at gas stations, ate kozinak, drank tea and drove on.

We reached Voronezh and checked in. Completely wet and dirty. The woman-administrator washed our sneakers for free, dried our socks and clothes. It was very nice of her.

Day 5. Survive at any cost

Artyom: The most difficult day of our trip. The day before, on the way to Millerovo, our GoPro camera was stolen, it recorded literally every little thing: where we ate, where we slept, what and how much it cost, all our emotions and feelings. Because of this theft, we had long proceedings with the police, and finally we fell asleep at 5 am. Woke up at noon. We left Millerov at two o’clock in the afternoon, very late. We always tried to leave before 10am. Our next checkpoint was Rostov-on-Don. We had 220 kilometers of road ahead of us.

I drove without mood, almost silently, because it was frustrating because of the camera. This day we passed the mark of 1000 kilometers from home. It was getting better. We stopped to take a few photos and then continued pedaling. The most interesting thing started at 9 pm, the road sign showed another 100 kilometers to Rostov.

Azamat: It was really scary. We changed into warm clothes and calculated that if we drove without stops, it would take at least 4 or even 5 hours.

On the descents it became cold because of the wind, and on the ascent – hot. And this contrast is constant: you are sweating, you went up the hill, then immediately downhill – and you are freezing. I didn’t have a high-necked sweatshirt, so I could feel how it was blowing. The solution was to bite the jersey with your teeth in the front and tuck it under your helmet in the back. And you ride like that. And on the approach to Rostov….

Artem: They started to get delirious and hallucinate. When you drive on the highway, it’s dark all around, you can’t see anything, the landscape doesn’t change – you start seeing things. At 20 kilometers before Rostov, lights began to appear, and it became easier on my soul. At such a moment you realize that no matter how tired you are, if you stop pedaling now, you will stay here until morning. And it’s cold outside, it’s scary and there is nothing around.

Azamat: There was a moment on the ride up when Artyom swung his hand past the handlebars. Either from hunger or fatigue. He almost fell. He held on to the saddle on the edge. And then, I remember, he said that soon there would be a shawarma shop on the way. It was the most delicious shawarma I’ve ever had in my life. We ate it like animals.

We got there at about 3 or 4 in the morning. We did not immediately enter the hotel, there was no hurry. We sat on a bench and sat there laughing for a while. We were just happy that we’d made it. We decided to rest the next day.

Day 7-8. Final

Azamat: After Rostov steppes started and there was more wind. With a tailwind we could calmly keep the speed of 40 km/h, not straining at all. But at the same time, if there was the slightest oncoming or even side wind, it slowed us down a lot, the speed dropped to 20 km/h. That’s how we got to Timashevsk.

From there we started for the last stage at 7 am. By the way, it was our last day of the journey, and it is noteworthy that it started the same way as the first day in Moscow – at 7am.

Artyom: We had about 210 kilometers to go. We were energized, because it was the last stretch and the last day, and the thought that it would all end today cheered us up.

It was 100km to the Crimean bridge, in addition to our 210. This frustrated us, to say the least. We contacted a friend and asked him to pick us up by car not in Kerch port, but to come to the mainland.

I remember that I immediately passed out in the car. Artyom somehow tried to keep the conversation going, but also with difficulty, he had no strength.

Artyom: I think there is some kind of fate or something else. We wanted to get to the sea very badly, and when we did and found out that the port wasn’t working, we were very upset. I remember standing on the shore that we had traveled nine days to get to and taking pictures without enthusiasm. The realization that we had made it came later. We even asked our friend to buy champagne so that we could sprinkle it on each other like in Formula 1. All expectations were shattered by the port, which doesn’t work. And that was it. That’s it.

We were followed on social networks and constantly supported us

Artyom: During the trip I started to develop “instagram”. Strangers signed up and wrote words of support – it added a lot of strength. And there were also messages from people we hadn’t talked to in years.

Azamat: “Moonsters,” they wrote to me. On the last day everyone was encouraging us: “Come on, come on, push on”, “We are rooting for you!”.

There were a few people before the trip who didn’t believe in us. When I told them our goal, they were like: “Pfft, wha, forget it, where are you going?”. “Out of spite” works well too. I remember a few times it was really hard, and I remember moments where someone was skeptical of my venture, and I was like, “Ookay…one-up, one-down. I can’t do it? Yeah, yeah? I can’t do it?” I remember a couple times that happened.