Bike tour with the Russian Cycling Club

From Dubna to Kostroma. There are eight participants: the Leader, the navigator-mechanic, the head, the navigator, the participant, the logistician, the medical timekeeper, the photographer-chronicler.
My first participation in a categorical sports bike ride, officially registered with the Route Qualification Commission. It took place as part of a training trip of the basic level cycling school of the Russian Cycling Club of the Moscow Sports Tourism Federation. The hike was educational and training 2 categories of difficulty, and the emphasis was placed on the passage of a categorical hike with obstacles of a certain complexity and the general organization of actions in the group.
I went hiking on a mountain off-road bike of the American company Univega. The trunk was fixed on clamps, contrary to the recommendations of the teaching staff of the school. It was important for me to check the bike in a sports hike - to assess the feasibility of using this type of bike in a hike, with a trunk on clamps.
In 10 days of our trip we have traveled more than 500 km. As a result, the bike tests for the 10-day hike were completed successfully. The bike went well both on sands, soils and graders, and on asphalt. Considering that the asphalt roads on our way were heavily broken, off-road heavy wheels with a wide and deep tread damped the roughness of the road well and it was comfortable to drive. Loose road surfaces, such as dry sand, swampy meadow, and small gravel, cease to be considered obstacles when driving on such 2.25-inch tires. Schwalbe tires turned out to be more than a good choice - they showed a good roll on asphalt and an excellent grip on sand and soft swampy soils. The anti-puncture plastic layer in the tires also seems to work, since I have not once remembered about it during the entire campaign. My homemade trunk with clamps also passed the tests successfully.

We started a hike from the science city of Dubna to Kostroma with the Russian Cycling Club. Go. After spending the night near Dubna, we got up early - half past six in the morning. Very warm morning, nice and dry weather. We got up for the night in the dark and didn't see what was going on here. A very beautiful place. We lit a fire and cooked breakfast. We had breakfast with buckwheat porridge with stewed meat, drank hot strawberry tea with breadcrumbs. Today we are waiting for a full running day. We were moving along a broken forest road flooded with cold water. After a while, in the area of the Strelchikha station, we left for the railway and were already moving along it. It turned out to be a full-fledged local obstacle! We are courageous sports cyclists who, despite the difficulties that arise on our way, have overcome all obstacles. The next day the roads were completely broken, in fact it was the construction of a new road. There was a lot of mud, sand and clay.

The next morning began with a puncture at zavpit. Sergey was able to train on his bike, replaced the camera with a tire. The camera was changed quickly enough, and we moved on to the city of Uglich. We did not limit ourselves to repairing the bike. There was a job for me as a medic. I had to wash the exec's eye, and the logistician had a knee joint. I applied elastic bandages. On the way to Uglich, we stopped at the village of Uleima and drove past the Nikolo-Uleima Monastery. They didn't let us into the monastery, which is understandable - the monastery is a female one.

During the running day, we were cold and tired. Plus Cyril's knee injury. Having stopped in Uglich, we decided to stay overnight in a hostel, recover a little, since tomorrow we were scheduled to go to the famous Uglich Bicycle Museum.

On the museum square, in the Kremlin of Uglich, there is a monument - tractor. He's behind the fence and you can't touch him. You can look at the tractor from behind the bars. We booked a guided tour at the bicycle museum. The first prototypes of bicycles were made in France and England. In 1817, German professor Baron Karl von Drez from Karlsruhe created, and in 1818 patented the first two-wheeled scooter, which he called a "running machine" (Laufmaschine). Drez's scooter was two-wheeled, equipped with a steering wheel and looked in general like a bicycle without pedals; the frame was wooden. The museum presents all kinds of bicycles: from children's toys to historical valuable exhibits. You can touch everything, you can ride right in the museum!

After the museum, we went further to the famous city of Myshkin. We didn't look at Myshkin, we drove past along the route. The Volga was crossed by ferry. The Volga is a very wide river, there are a lot of fish here. Gulls also nest. After crossing to the other side of the river, my colleagues noticed that the rear hub was loose on my bike. My sleeve is the simplest, with bulk bearings and rubber dusters. At a halt, near the river, Alexander, the bike leader, together with a mechanic, repaired my bushing. They tightened it up a bit with keys. In general, in field conditions, as I understand it, it is better to use bushings with bulk bearings. Unlike bushings on ppompodshipniki, such bushings are most maintainable. "In the right hands, the work is debatable."

On the sixth day we visited the city of Rybinsk, raced along the dam and stopped at the museum of Flooded cities, the museum of the city of Mologa. An interesting museum, I advise you to visit it. The dam that was built and the power plant provided St. Petersburg with electricity during the Great Patriotic War.  This place played a key role in the defense of the city.

We went further through the city of Tutaev. It's very cold, it's just some kind of center of Hell!  We were already moving through the Yaroslavl region and on our way we stopped in the village of Vyatskoye. Vyatskoye is a village on the Ukhtanka River in the left-bank part of the Nekrasovsky municipal district of the Yaroslavl region. It is located in the Kostroma lowland in the east of the Yaroslavl region near the Puchkovsky platform of the Northern Railway.

This village became the first member of the "Association of the most beautiful Villages of Russia", winning the tender among other participants. In 2019, it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List. The headquarters of the Association of the Most Beautiful Villages and Towns of Russia was opened in the village.
The next point of the route is the village of Krasny Profintern. My father worked in this village in the Yaroslavl region back in the USSR. There is a dairy there, and at the entrance there is a stamped plaque, which my father made.

We couldn't get on the ferry across the Volga - navigation was unavailable due to weather conditions. There was a strong gusty wind and a big wave on the river. The ferry was canceled. We got upset and spent the night nearby in a spruce forest next to a beautiful lake. We lit a fire, cooked dinner.  Early in the morning we crossed the Volga without breakfast. We moved to the finish line of our journey - the city of Kostroma.

 END.