Amsterdam to Vladivostok

  Today a last ride with the PEDAL cycling club. During the year, I normally do many weekend rides with PEDAL. Since I was going to be gone for the regular cycling season (May to October), I suggested one last ride for PEDAL this weekend. It was cold and windy though fortunately the forecast of snow didn’t come to pass. Seven of us arrived including Ed and Joe and myself who set up for the ride. It was nice to see everyone and have a bit of a send-off from the cycling club. Thanks!

We cycled five miles round trip to the “triangle” statue in Loveland. This statue has gotten notoriety because some in Loveland raised a fuss since the statue had nude figures. Heaven forbid!, I hope these Loveland folks don’t travel to Europe.

I’ve been slowly getting everything wrapped up at work as well as getting my equipment lists finalized. I’ve also been getting airline tickets for some segments and discovering the joy of having limits on my debit cards.

My Russian visa application was sent by mail this morning. The last pieces came together as I got the invitation last Thursday and the HIV certificate from Larimer County this morning. In my cover letter, I wrote of my intent to cycle across Russia and that I didn’t expect to stay in any city other than St. Petersburg for long. Hopefully this all goes in and gets approved.

I did some more looking at my medical insurance online to understand coverage procedures overseas. I didn’t find much and the only contact number as a 1-877 number. So, I called the provider to at least learn what number to use with international access. Six voicemail prompts and two entries of my account later, I finally got to a live person who put me on hold to let me know ten minutes later of a 1-866 number to dial from overseas. Perhaps that might work, though I am skeptical of being able to properly register a claim from wilds of Russia let alone on a 1-800 number. I’ve since browsed online and found some companies offering travel insurance policies including medical overseas and will likely to get such a policy just in case – and because it covers some things like trip interruption or medical evacuation as well. I was interested to find that their extreme sport exclusion adds things like hang gliding and motorcycle racing but doesn’t have bicycling across Russia as an extreme sport.

It is going to be nice to get some of this stuff behind me and finally be on the road. My three largest worries at this point are (1) visa and registration (2) mechanical issues in wilds of Siberia and (3) getting by with enough language. It will be nice to just get some riding behind me and work with these sorts of things as they come up.

Last Friday word went out to my groups at work on my pending leave. So now trying to see what I can do to get everything transitioned as best as possible.

My visa invitation arrived today. Now time to get other paperwork together and submit the visa application.

One area of potential confusion is that Russia adopted a new set of new Visa Registration Rules that took effect on January 15th. In principle, some parts become easier because registration itself is paperwork that is submitted by the organization you are visiting, rather than a stamp in your passport/migration card. Where the confusion seems to come in, is exactly which company does what and what are their new obligations. For example:

• In St. Petersburg, I am signed up for three weeks of language classes. Do I get my visa registered with the language school or at the company that issued the visa?
• While bicycling across Russia, when and where should I register the visa? I will not likely have a continuous registration because I’ll be traveling by bicycle.

Something tells me this paperwork is going to get fun to make sure I stay legal through my trip.

This past week, my invitation was officially submitted. I’ve gotten a notice to expect processing to be complete on February 8th. After that I can submit the official visa request. One thing required for the visa is an “HIV certificate”. After calling around, it seems the Larimer County Health Department was place to get such a test. I dropped in at start of the week and was pleasantly surprised to find the Health Department also does travel medicine. So, I sat down for a consultation of what I might need and left with two shots. One was hepatitus B and I’ll stop in for a second in the series in a month. Better safe than sorry.

This evening I gave a talk at the Fort Collins cycle club. I showed my slides from the 2006 trip. It was fun and nice to present. I’ve scheduled a “last weekend in February” ride from the Loveland Public Library at 10am and used the talk as an opportunity to invite others to join me in a short ride on February 24th.