Books: Epic bike ride round Russia

Riders to the Midnight Sun

By Marc Llewellyn

New Holland, $24.95

It's funny the ideas that you think of in the bath.

Welsh journalist Marc Llewellyn was having a good old soak when the genesis of a grand scheme bubbled to the surface.

Fed up with humdrum routine, he daydreamed of adventure. The milestone of his 30th birthday was looming, he was in a reflective mood and badly wanted to do something extraordinary.

Listening to the radio, he heard the word "Russia" ... and so began the strangest journey.

His plan was to cycle through the former Soviet Union, from the Black Sea to the Russian Arctic, from one navy base, Sevastopol, to another, Murmansk. A 4500km journey past all those old nuclear reactors.

This from a man for whom the word exercise is anathema and whose "body had spread like a maturing brie." And even when he sobered up he still thought it was a good idea.

He and his Australian girlfriend, Rohan, dumped their jobs, climbed on their DIY-assembled bikes (bought the week before and barely road-tested) and pedalled into the shadows of the past - Stalin, the Nazis and Chernobyl.

Rohan was along for more than the ride - she was the one with a smattering of phrasebook Russian.

It's hard going as they try to clock-up 90km a day. Often there are more potholes than road, no hot water in some towns because of the economic collapse of the former superpower, and grim offerings of restaurant food. They begin to dream of food.

Decrepit nuclear plants line the way and the first-hand accounts of birth defects and sickness are chilling.

They ride through small towns with huge cemeteries, towns where Russians can no longer get jobs, and find villages where visitors are rare.

Curious locals in one Ukrainian village flock to meet them, stuffing their panniers to bursting with vegetables.An old man offers fresh eggs and looks crestfallen when rejected. He scurries off and minutes later returns beaming. He'd gone home and boiled the eggs - now they would not break.

Have two less well-equipped people ever struck out on such an epic undertaking? I doubt it.

But it is a remarkable journey told well. And it comes with a salutary ending.