Curiously enough, the topic generated some interest, so, despite the fatigue and a sore throat, I'll continue.
The Unity Ride is held every year. There are actually three rides - road, mountain, and public (also on the road), with distances of 102, 42, and 37 km, respectively.
You can find out detailed information about the event via the links https://velo.lv/?nwID=146 and https://velo.lv/?bsID=2&sacID=43&isGR=0. The official website, as usual in Latvia, is mediocre, and half the info isn't available in Russian, only in Latvian.
Participation doesn't cost much - 6 Ls in advance or 8, 10, 12 later. On the day of the competition itself, it costs 20. But this year upon registration they gave out a coupon for a 10 Ls discount on purchases at Trek (Veloserviss) stores. So, I paid 12, but saved 10 lats, since I was changing my hub at the Daugavpils "Trek" anyway.
Punk didn't register, reasoning that he's a cheapskate, a stingy bastard, and a pig against unity it's expensive. Just so you can form an accurate idea of his character:
I paid 12, got a discount for 10, i.e., I actually paid 2 Ls.
The organizers, on the other hand, provide
1. A race number with an electronic chip (readings are taken automatically). The number is single-use, you can keep it as a souvenir.
2. An envelope with a map and other papers.
3. A beautiful medal and a diploma with your time and place for finishers.
4. Porridge with jam after the finish, a small chocolate bar before the start, bananas along the route, as much water as you can drink at any time.
5. A crappy, but existent information website, plus the ability to find out everything by phone and on-site (e.g., at Trek stores).
6. Refereeing, toilets, track cordons and fences, police, doctors, and a lot of other things in that vein. LDz ran extra trains, by the way (but they were the main sponsor).
Based on the above, you can get an idea of the scale. For a better picture, I'll mention that 4454 participants took part in the ride this year. It's hard to imagine such a giant crowd of cyclists if you've never been to a cycling city like Berlin or Copenhagen (I haven't).
The impression it makes is excellent - the atmosphere is festive, everyone is very happy, cars in the city yield the right of way, because behind the wheel are the same cycling cultists, hehe. Nobody fights, everyone helps and advises each other, which in general makes sense - bicycles are used by people who are by definition not as egocentric as those in cars.
The number is supposed to be pinned right in the center of your back. There was a problem here, as it turned out I had forgotten my cycling jersey, and I had to pin the number to an expensive membrane jacket, using SAFETY PINS no less. This is a minus both for me (forgot the jersey) and the organizers - isn't there really a better way?
After chatting for a bit with a girl and a guy sitting nearby on the lawn, who were also there for the first time but were already making plans to overtake everyone and everything, we went to look at the MTB start. There were as many as a thousand of them, which surprised even the organizers. Bear in mind that there were only about 60 road athletes overall.
The remaining thousands took part in the public ride. Among them were corporate representatives - the Laima folks with balloons stood out especially. But in general, I think the real heroes are the ones who rode Latvijas Pasts (Latvian Post) bikes. Our eternally loss-making postal service was recently reorganized, as a result of which many branches were simply abolished, and the postmen were issued bicycles.
Such a bicycle looks and weighs roughly like a tank - a yellow steel frame of terrifying thickness contributes to that. How one can ride 37 km on a bike like that, even in two hours, is beyond my comprehension.
Since I'm running out of time before heading to sleep, I'll wrap it up for today. I'll just write about the starting corridors.
A corridor is the place where you start the ride. It looks like parts of the highway fenced with tapes in the front and back, and fences on the sides, with number ranges hanging at the entrances.
Your corridor is determined by how you performed the previous year, and by nothing else. Meaning even if you're the world champion, but it's your first time - you'll be in the corridor with numbers from 4000 and up, and there will be another 2000 people standing in front of you. Overtaking them, considering they crawl along barely moving and get in each other's way, will take you tens of minutes, no matter how hard you try. That's the situation I found myself in, but more on that - next time.
A few pics:
Those very Latvijas Pasts bikes
It didn't go without advertisements.
I probably looked like a fisherman, but I forgot my cycling jersey, and I was too lazy to take off my pants by then, they didn't get in the way much.
A chip with an antenna
Registration
A mega-bike tandem.
The MTB riders are starting. Some sly ones were riding on the sidewalk to overtake the mass.
