Cycling the Baltic

Six old aussies (well maybe Charlie is not that old) cycle from Stockholm to St Petersburg and show you how its done. Meet the characters and get some insider secrets to fun cycle touring.

This is a story about six outstanding riders who undertook an adventurous thousand kilometer journey into the northeastern corner of Europe in order to experience the wonders of the Baltic so let’s meet these fearless riders there is the tough riding but always cheerful Julia the fun-loving crash loving Charlie powering along on only

One lung wander the powerhouse of stamina John the world-famous cycling museum curator and marine and this knowledge who shaved his head just to reduce wind drag we join our friends in a little-known group of islands halfway between Sweden and Finland water is the taste of things around here if you want

To get anywhere you need to take a ferry the crew took every kind of ferry from small to very big ferries make some people happy ferries make some people very happy John likes to stroll under theories at a relaxed pace but anne-marie likes to rush on at the last

Minute as if pursued by a herd of wildebeest what’s that that’s not a bicycle and speaking of bicycles let’s get the lowdown from our technical expert rod we like to Holmes we ride them we’ve done a lot of work with them the best part about them is that they’re a step

Through which is really important as you get older like I am they’re 21 speed and they keep up with most other bikes are on the road their folders they fold in here and here to make a parcel just a bit bigger than a normal sized suitcase

We can take them on the bus and take them on the train the plane and sometimes in the car but maybe not this come now cycling can be a hungry business let’s hear from sporting Food Technologists Julia about what you should eat to have a good day’s cycling

The most important thing to do when you’re buying food is to remember that you have to have food when you stop so you need to you need biscuits and cake so that when you stop sit down and you fill up with all the energy food then you’ve got energy to keep coming and

With the menu like that you can cycle all day long like this happy cyclist or these happy cyclists down a hill or up hill but there is always one hill that is just too steep I wonder what sort of load they’re carrying I carry the least amount is possible but currently it’s

About 15 kilos and how do they carry all this weight well to a typical touring bike you had one bar bag one water bottle one fuel bottle left pea a food bag right penny and of course a kangaroo flag and you’re set to ride we have a

Few other things in there besides that really we don’t need like spare tubes like 127 inch and 126s 420 inch bike and 27 into 20 don’t go speaking of tubes let’s see how quick this team can fix a punch-up pull out the old tube put in a

New tube pump bird up band put the wheel back on tighten the brakes and you’re away and racing but there’s always time to stop and enjoy in nature blueberries you’re gonna eat them sure little Isha’s mmm after their island-hopping experience our two-wheeled tourists took one last ferry across the Baltic their destination was

That quaint country of forests and wheat fields Estonia well this looks like a whole lot of fun but how do you cook when you don’t have a kitchen let’s hear from Michelin star camping chef Charlie I use the Trangia stove it’s really small and everything fits in this container let me show you

How it works this is the burner and it contains methylated spirits easy ankling this is the windbreaker so you can cook anywhere you like and these are pop and this is pastor but sometimes you don’t need a stove sometimes you can just eat by the side of the road where

The dairy can you do and so with full stomachs and happy hearts the team take their leave from Estonia and cross the border into that eastern most of European countries and what a strange place Russia is with its monuments and its industry and it’s old-fashioned way

But Russia is a big place and you could easily get lost here’s John the human GPS to tell us how to keep on the right track when you cycle touring it’s very important that you have maps particularly when you’re on secondary roads and in foreign countries where you

Can’t read the signs in Russia here we’ve got some maps with Russian writing on them so that we could actually read the signs on the roads and we came in across the the border here along this main road and then we went up all these secondary roads all the way to

Petersburg bothered about my mother the scale of maps we’ve been using one to two hundred thousand which seems to have all the rural roads on it but in urban areas you must have much larger scale maps now Russia is not always the most luxurious of places this is a

Russian factory some quality Russian housing a Russian corner store a Russian supermarket an organic food merchant the local drinking water supply a modern playground facility so what are the amenities like when you’re camping here’s hygiene specialist Ann Marie to tell us how she rates a quality bathroom

Well it’s been very interesting I have this whole list of tip sheet T whether it’s clean whether there’s a cubicle whether there’s a lock on the door and is there an indicator to show that somebody’s in there is there a person in there is there a barrier to make sure

That your things don’t get wet if they’re hot water if the temperature variable is the pressure very good is there a social is there a stool and a hook is there non-slip floor there’s a drain very well and after they provide a mop so you can clean up afterwards and

How did this particular shower right oh this one got a six out of ten oh yeah mostly because the water is very good it has hot water which is the most important and it has a door on it luckily for our cycling team they carried with them all in to make any

Campsite you’re a couple just like this one the Charlie’s join that although their 20-inch wheels the gears make it very effective so that it’s a good touring bike and not a racing bike but certainly a good Torah and you’re going to need a good touring bike if you’re going to take on riding

Conditions such as these even the toughest of bikes sometimes come to grief what seems to be the problem here not workers getting better but mechanical issues never held the team up for long before they knew it they had made their way to the easternmost point of the Baltic and we’re knocking on the

Power stores using some exercise Oh You