Katya Podgornaya: from a city bike to the Tsar Grader and the VELO1 project

Guest

Useful from the issue

1. Eat every 10-20 km

   At the first race, Katya did not eat and almost did not drink and almost got off. Now she takes bars and gels and eats something every 10-20 km, without waiting for hunger.

2. Jump on the wheel of a fellow rider

   At long starts, Katya chooses a rider about her own pace and keeps up with him. So it's easier to drive a beam or gravel race if you're not an athlete.

3. Streps are more dangerous than contacts

   Katya fell on a loaded bicycle, not having time to take her leg out of the strap. From the contact pedals, as it was later explained to her, it is easier to snap out the leg than to untangle it from the strap.

4. The machine is more fun together

   In order not to get bored in the winter, Katya drove with her friend along the same route in the machine application and corresponded along the way. Joint virtual races help not to quit.

5. The common camp makes the atmosphere

   Katya chooses the Tsar Grader for a single clearing where everyone is together. For a camp race, a compact camp is more important than it seems.

6. It is difficult for the organizer to race

   Both Ilya and Katya say from their own experience that it is almost impossible to combine organization and participation: you need to come to the start rested and without thoughts about business.

Bicycle as transport

It all started in 2018 in Copenhagen: public transport there is expensive, the city is compact, and the infrastructure is convenient, and Katya suddenly realized that a bicycle is a transport. In Moscow it is more difficult with a bicycle: the city is cut by roads and bridges. Her first city bike was given to her by friends, and she still rides it around VDNKh, with a basket.

Katya chose her future husband in the dating app partly because of the bike in the background of the photo, and the first date took place on a 42-kilometer walk through the park — he is on the highway, she is on the city. Then she, at that time a photographer, sold all the equipment and bought a gravel pit.

Women's races in Moscow

Katya is a member of the Moscow women's cycling club, which was gathered by one of the enthusiasts together with her friends. Girls with very different levels come there, they ride around the city all summer, and the season was closed with an overnight trip. At the end of April, the first big public trip was planned for a few days near Mozhaisk.

Katya envies St. Petersburg in a good way, where such a sisterhood has developed before: everyone is happy to see you there, regardless of how athletic you are and what you drive. In Moscow, according to her, there have been attempts to gather girls before, but there was no such format. In winter, she usually does not ride from the end of November to March — April.

Tsar Grader against the "Covers"

Katya confidently chooses the Tsar Grader for the blitz question. She liked the common camp in one large clearing, where there is a sense of community, and in the "Covers" the tents stretched along the field to the forest. She got off the Pokrov route in the middle and called it uninteresting, although it was shorter: 180 km was easier for her on the Tsar Grader. Everything was numb on the asphalt, and she was waiting for gravel and stones as a massager.

Ilya warns that there will be more asphalt in the new route, but a very beautiful place will appear. Katya remembers how long she could not find the entrance to the forest to the clearing, and complains about the narrow highway from Novgorod with trucks. Ilya agrees: this is the most unpleasant road in the area.

VELO1: bicycle road from Moscow to St. Petersburg

Katya got into the VELO1 team after riding a city bike for about a year and not knowing what a gravel pit and bike packing are. She was inspired by the idea itself: a bicycle road from Moscow to St. Petersburg through beautiful places and small towns, which will give them development. When she arrived, expeditions were already traveling along the route, but they hadn't started building yet. Katya led the social networks of the project and in less than a year increased the audience to 10 thousand subscribers — she now tells this case at interviews.

Many people in the bike party, she says, treat VELO1 disdainfully, but for her the project was about teaching people to love a bike and showing that it's not just a trip to the store in the country. Now she is not working in the project, but advises the built section from Yakhroma to Dubna — 56 km of road without cars. On this site, she drove her first women's hundred: on the opening day, she also worked, stopping every 20 km to take off and respond to messages. Now Katya works in the PR department of the Museum of Moscow.

Hikes, trips and falls

The longest trip is a week around Lake Ladoga with my husband, with overnight stays in a tent in pre—marked places. A friend, after seeing the photo, asked if they were resting so much from lack of money. On the third day in Karelia, on the slopes, Katya angrily threw her bike to the side of the road — but she still had to go. There won't be a big trip this year, but she dreams of traveling from St. Petersburg to Vyborg. The most beautiful places for a tent, in her opinion, are in the Leningrad region, in tall pines.

Katya rides even 200 km on toptals, because she is afraid of contacts, although she understands that it's time to retrain. Once, on a loaded bicycle, she did not have time to take her leg out of the strap and fell on her side. She treats the machine well, but one day she got bored and found a friend: together they drove along the same realistic route in the machine application and corresponded about what they saw.

Top tip: eat on the road

Katya's first race was at the festival in Nikola-Lenivets, where she first came to support her husband on the trail, caught fire when she saw the field of cyclists, and a year later she went herself. She drove about 46 km without eating or almost drinking at the food outlets — she didn't have any gels with her, she just didn't know that she needed it — and almost died. A familiar racer explained to her that this was nonsense, and she passed on this advice: throw something in yourself every 10-20 km.

Now she has protein bars and gels with her, and she drinks a lot. The second advice to girls is not to be afraid of long distances and not to complain that everything has gone numb for ten kilometers if you haven't traveled more over the summer. At long starts, she has her own tactics: choose a fellow traveler and get on his wheel. So she drove the first 200 km brevet, the Tour de Selishchi and almost the entire Tsar Grader.

Katya asks Ilya

In the end, Katya changes roles with Ilya. The most difficult thing in the organization, according to him, is preparation: he has been preparing for the Tour de Selishchi for months, looking for people for overlaps and escorts. The Tour de Selishchi on June 1 will gather more than 200 people, this time there will be an electronic timekeeping, and his main wish is that everyone stay alive. He wants at least a hundred participants for the Tsar Grader, while a little more than forty have registered, and in April the price will rise.

Ilya does not participate in his races, because you need to come to the start rested, and the organizer solves issues all week. But he rides his cyclocrosses, the Tsar Grader is going to ride in tandem with a friend from Novgorod and gets out to other people's races. Katya admits that she herself tried to combine work at the event with her own hundred and realized how hard it was.

Timestamps

1. 00:52Hello and the Tsar T-shirt
2. 01:43Who is Katya
3. 03:25Women's cycling club in Moscow
4. 05:35How it all started: Copenhagen
5. 06:40First date on a bike
6. 08:10Tsar Grader or "Protection"
7. 11:33Tour de Selishchi or 'La Strada'
8. 13:12Plans and a hike around Ladoga
9. 16:27The VELO1 project
10. 20:34Indoor training
11. 22:12Fellow travelers on long starts
12. 25:10Top 5 museums
13. 28:00Epic and unsuccessful trips
14. 31:30Tips for girls and nutrition
15. 36:22Katya asks Ilya

Mentioned in this episode

VELO1 · Tsar Grader · Pokrova · Tour de Selishchi · La Strada · Tacx · Zwift · Museum of Moscow