Day 1 - Pete to Gostilitsy

Before even setting off I wanted to be sick to get the lump out of my throat. As a procrastinator the size of a task is a twinkle in the distance that suddenly looms in my face when I turn around. One step at a time - it was only 56 kilometres to Gostilitsy. Well, 57 if we include heading off the wrong way down the street.

Getting out of Saint Petersburg was always going to be the worst part. Leninsky Proskpekt is a nightmare, particularly due to its status as a pseudo motorway. One minute you'll be cycling along in the lane with all the parked cars and wide payments when all of a sudden you're thrust into a three lane highway with slip roads spraying off in all directions.

Luckily this is not an obituary, and the rhythm eventually settles down once it leads onto Petergofskoye Shosse. Once out of the city I started experimenting with Co-pilot, the back-chatting navigation app that spends most of the time telling me to turn around.

After some dubious advice I made it to the park at Petergof. Seeing as I was running a bit late I took a few photos, had the Russian equivalent of bakewell tarts and scampered. From there the love affair with R-35 - and the navigation arguments with Co-pilot that would make a married couple ashamed - started.

Russia, vast as it is, is mostly empty. Therefore any intercity route has an ominous sounding name and status that means any device set to avoiding major roads will immediately decline it. Riding R-35 made me realise that, in fact, there is nowhere for anyone to go except from Moscow to Pete and the Golden Ring. And the condition of the road was so bad that anyone wanting to take it would probably just shuffle off and find something better to do anyway.

Cars will suddenly swing onto the other side of the road to avoid a giant pothole and some make such slow progress it is not impossible to keep pace with them.

After a few nondescript villages R-35 came to Gostilitsy. The town has a school, a cafe and three produktys all next to each other. The woman in the shop laughed when I asked if there was anywhere to stay, but said I could camp down by the lake.

Cycling down the dirt track next to some buildings that made it seem the Germans had only just left I found the real reason cyclists where sunglasses: to keep flies out of their eyes.

As usual a few guys were fishing and drinking down by the water, but I pitched my tent and chilled out. Before driving back absolutely off his face one guy had a conversation with me that went round in circles as he insisted he was a bandit and someone would steal my bike in the middle of the night. Some youths he reckoned, though all the young people seemed to have evacuated the desolate countryside already.