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

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

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

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.

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

Good plan.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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).

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

Let me know when/if you get to Finland. If you plan to take a tour in Finland you are welcome to stay at my place about 130km northeast of Helsinki.

Really appreciated!! Will let you know if\when.

Thanks

Dibs

Really? They have a two-day transit visa that should be fairly simple to get.

You might be thinking of the world's shortest toll road just outside the Koidula crossing in South Estonia.

There is a bridge over the river right from downtown Narva, it's congested, so you have to book a time in advance and wait in a staging area outside of town until you are called to go to the queue. Motorcycles have a priority window of 10 minutes in every hour, but still worth booking in advance through https://www.estonianborder.eu/yphis/...uest_locale=en.

PM me when you figure out your schedule for Estonia. ;)

The Belarus website goes on about medical insurance and verified hotel bookings etc. :(

It does mention that you can get one abroad - so might think about trying in Moscow once I'm there. London and back twice is a bit of a pain in the rear.

It's definitely the Narva-Ivangorod crossing that I've read about folks crossing over, coming to a stop sign and being asked for a ticket and when they didn't have one being asked for "fine". Someone on a (forum somewhere) stated that once you cross over you need to look out for a petrol station and there's a hut where you get one for peanuts and saves the hassle.

I read about the crossing procedure on the Estonian side - booking it online etc., holding area and then going over.

I'll certainly PM you once I've got my schedule sorted.

At the moment - after realising that my current riding gear isn't really going to cut it, i.e. the leather jacket is going to be roasting in a European summer along with my 3 seasons (or I thought so) gloves, which the manufacturers catalogue shows as Winter gloves, LOL - I'm one with finding a textile jacket and some more gloves.

Thankfully found some Ixon summer gloves. Same protection, etc as my current Ixon gloves for 30GBP as opposed to 80-100GBP that I paid for my existing ones.

I think I'll take both pairs along.

Going to check out some mesh textile jackets on tomorrow, so see how that goes.

Medical insurance is part of your travel insurance, and you should have that anyway. In Europe you can get away with just a European Health Insurance Card, but proper travel insurance is reasonably inexpensive and can be VERY useful.

For hotel bookings, just use booking.com and look for options with free cancellation. :)

I currently live in Berlin but lived in Moscow for 13 years, and had a bike there for about 7 years.

I would definitely recommend visiting Moscow, it is an amazing city, although traffic is intense and you can expect lots of traffic coming into/out of the city. Moscow is not nearly as expensive as it used to be, because the ruble has fallen by 50% against the euro/dollar, while ruble prices have hardly budged.

I would highly recommend staying staying in the center of Moscow, in particular somewhere like Kitai Gorod, which is in old Moscow and within walking distance or at least easy metro access of many of the tourist sites. Staying outside the center will save you a few $$ but in my view it is a false economy--you just won't have the experience staying in some drab neighborhood halfway to the suburbs.

I've ridden all over Russia on my GS and xChallenge and have never had a problem, and have never used a lock. I try to use secure parking to the maximum extent possible, but sometimes have left it on a small lot or on the street in front of the hotel. I also generally use a cover to make the bike "invisible". Anything not in a hard case I take with me into the hotel.

I would not worry about your trip, I think you'll have a great time. Russians are awesome people and incredibly helpful if you show them basic respect...getting cross with them, or yelling at them doesn't get you far, but if you are having problems ask for help with a good attitude and you are almost guaranteed to get a good response.

The biggest thing to worry about is traffic, especially in Moscow, and especially if you are not accustomed to big city driving. While it is not that hard (actually rather fun) once you get the hang of it, it can be a little intimidating if you don't understand traffic flows. One of the tricks to riding in Moscow is to lane-split at every traffic light up to the front of the line, so that when the light turns green you have several hundred meters (or more) of totally open road.

Also, you don't need to be paranoid about the police. Generally you will only get pulled over for two offenses: (i) speeding; and (ii) crossing a solid white line (either passing illegally, making illegal turn, etc.). Avoid those two and you should be fine. Even though there are lots of no-passing zones on the highways, many Russian drivers will ease over to the right side of their lane to let you pass them without crossing the white line.

Whew, that's it for now, let me know if you have specific questions.

[EDIT] You didn't mention if you'll be using a GPS, but I highly recommend one for Russia, for a couple of reasons:
1) generally, having a GPS allows you to focus more on the road rather than looking around for street signs, etc., which is always a good thing;
2) many street signs in Russia are only in Russian; I think you said that you speak some Russian, so maybe not a big deal;
3) To the extent possible, when riding between cities stay off the main highways, which are full of trucks and police, and take smaller roads. Many of these are not well-signed, so this is much easier if you have a GPS; and
4) Moscow in particular has strange and brutal traffic flows (generally no left turns, U-turns difficult, etc.), so if you are riding in blind you may have a very difficult time getting where you are trying to go.
5) Even with a GPS sometimes you'll find that it is very difficult to get to a particular location (eg, a hotel) from where you are, so generally when I ride into a large and unfamiliar city I will put three-four hotels into my GPS in the morning but will not make a reservation (usually hotels on booking.com show how many rooms are left). I then put in my first preference for hotel into the GPS and off I go...when/if I find it I take a room, or if it is full go the next place or somewhere that the first place recommends.

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

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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

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

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).

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.

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.


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

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

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.

I've kind of less loosely worked out the outward run.

The image below should hopefully show a fairly good representation of the outward run.

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...p/outbound.jpg

Calais* - Antwerp - Arnhem - Bremen\Hamburg - Szczecin (or Swinoujscie) - Gdanansk* - Kaliningrad* - Kaunas* - Riga* - Tartu* - Narva - St Petersburg* - Valday - Moscow*.

The one's with * are more fixed in my mind, the other's have some flexibility and generally open to route advice.

The return run is almost a vague notion. LOL

I have 2 notional plans for the return leg -

1. Moscow to Latvia, i.e. going around Belarus over the north.

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...ip/return1.jpg

The 2nd is - I only looked it up today and looks maybe, well different if nothing else - is go south from Moscow to Kiev, i.e. go round Belarus the southern way.

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...ip/return2.jpg

With option 1 - I'd skirt a route back fairly close to the route out. Whereas with option 2 - a whole new country (Ukraine) and the possibility of other, like the Czech Republic. I'd have approx 10 days to leave Moscow and hit Calais.

Any thoughts\advice greatly appreciated.

Personally I would definitely take the second route back, the first one is practically a repeat of the way out.

On the trip out, it is a shame to miss Tallin, it is a pretty cool city.

I don't know if they've fixed it already, but a couple of years ago the Latvian section of the Moscow-Riga highway was, well, non-existent. On the Russian side it's actually a decent road, across the border it's terrible broken asphalt and two lanes through villages.

That's probably a better option. You get to see Kiev and Lviv, the better Polish cities in the south, Prague, etc. Plus if you schedule it in advance, you can do a tour of Chernobyl.

I was there for almost a week back in June 2015 - fantastic time, wonderful city and so easy to get round on foot.

Choice A - would be Tartu-Narva, stay the night in Narva and leave in the morning, cross and hopefully get to St Petersburg for around 12-1pm. Giving a feeling that the day isn't spent in transit and actually in a destination, if that makes any sense. But then again sometimes it's the journey that matters.

Choice B - Tartu-Tallin. Stay on the east side between the Old Town and Kadriorg, out on Narva maantee and out on the E20 some miles out of town. Leave Tallin say around 8am and (hope to) be in Narva for around 11am. Cross over and hopefully be in St Petersburg for 3pm. But with this option it's straight through Narva more or less.

Anyone any thoughts? Open to suggestions. I suppose it's the choice of a night in Tallinn and the Coastal road (sort of) or a night in Narva and the inland\lake Peipus road.

I did read somewhere, may on this site that the Riga-Tartu-Narva run is very picturesque, etc. that's what swung in in favour of that. Plus there might be someone to catch up with in Tartu. ;).

I think with the state of the roads plus as Motoreiter posted it would be practically a repeat of the way out. I probably wouldn't get a tour of Chernobyl - just not enough time.

Yep the plan is (loosely speaking LOL) to stop at least 1 night in Kiev and then stop in Lviv. Just looking at Google maps - that shows the journey to be around 340 miles. Ticking "Avoid Highways" doesn't change the mileage LOL but the page still shows the journey to be along the E40.

Maybe then onto Krakow and somehow to Prague. Google maps seems to want to shove you thru Brno and then up to Prague. Krakow - Brno, somewhere in the region of 200 miles and then Brno - Prague somewhere in the region of 140 miles.

Or would it be better going further in Southern Poland maybe to Wroclaw and then SW to Czech?

Many Thanks

The coastal road is only very intermittently coastal. It's possible to hug the coast for much of the way, and that can be both pretty and fun, but much, much slower. The main road is... fine. Good conditions, separated multi-lane highway for a lot of the distance.

The last stretch, between Jõhvi and Narva, can be dangerous - it's just good enough to fool you into thinking you have visibility, but curvy enough that you really don't. Plenty of accidents there.

I mean, it's not bad I guess. For me, I do the Riga-Valmiera-Tartu stretch a few times a year anyway, so it's old hat now. :) Other than just outside Riga, you're on single-lane roads all the way, but there isn't as much HGV traffic.

Believe it. At that point you're in territory where avoiding highways does not get you much. Broken communist-era roads full of traffic, frequent villages, meh. I took the local road from Linz into Prague last year, because I didn't want to retrace the Vienna-Brno leg I'd done by car previously, and that was the wrong choice.

Just spoken to the Insurance company as they don't give the ability to download the insurance certificate from the system and to confirm what countries are covered.

They've emailed me a pdf of the certificate and also a Green card (at no cost) so that's cool.

I wasn't expecting Russia to be covered but did ask about Ukraine - under the policy there's no cover for that.

Does anyone know if you can purchase that at the border, similar to what you can at a Russian border?

Just a visit to Manchester next week for the Visa, in terms of paperwork. That and the local post office for an international driving licence\permit. And the EU health card thingie which I think can be done online.

Got the TomTom fully updated with the latest Europe & Russia maps - now to just bodge some kind of mount. LOL

Thought it might be a good idea to get some headlamp protectors and a radiator grille protector.

Well - finally got my arse to Manchester and handed the Russian visa form and LOI (from the above site - dead easy and instant), they took fingerprints and after 160 odd GBP for a double entry tourist visa, I left. Chap said I should have it around next Tuesday, giving me a week in hand.

After Saturday's little ride - the bike's dash said service due. So rang the local dealer - they're only 1.5 miles from home. No chance of a service till middle of July. :doh

So rang around and there's one around Doncaster who can do it next Thursday afternoon.

Probably get tyres next Friday.

That gives me a week and a half to sort out the pannier racks. It means taking the short tail tidy off and putting the original one back on. As with all things - makes you wonder why on earth the previous owner shortened the wires to the indicators. Bloody moron. So that means another 43 pounds to get a new loom section.

Ordinarily I'd just get the soldering iron out - but it's a bit of a rat's nest in there and would rather not have soldered joints go during the trip.

Day 1 is getting closer. LOL

Absolutely. There will be kiosks around the border station selling it.

Well - good news on a few fronts and some neutral. Passport has come back from the Russian embassy - got the visa. Double entry tourist visa 37 days (with a max stay of 30).

Ordered some headlamp protectors and a radiator guard - reasoning that the if either of them took a hit whilst out and about, it wouldn't half cause issues. Just need to fit them today\tomorrow.

Got a new battery for the phone (main one) and will carry a spare phone. Got some extra sd cards to get for the helmet cams and the SLR to get, but that's local.

Neutral - chopped off the extra bits off the pannier frames and now need to seriously pull my thumbs out of my arse and weld on the extra bits to fit the bike. That's the neutral bit - any more delays on this front and it'll be annoying.