Ruska 2020 - few words about riding as a pair

Introduction

I wanted to say a little bit about what riding as a pair is in a cycling event of this length and what it can be at its best. Both of us have multiple years of background in randonneuring, in the light of this, idea of riding Ruska's 2,000-kilometer route did not seem overwhelming. The longest trips we had done together were 1,000-kilometers, so we had a hunch of what we are putting ourselves in to. We get along well with my pair, humor was involved throughout the trip and we had a blast all the way from Helsinki to Vardø. In retrospect, both of us still though that as a solo ride, this would have gone faster.

A thousand and one things that slow you down

When cycling as a pair on ride this long, you immediately might think about drafting and how much it speeds up the journey. Wrong!

There's a myriad of things that actually slow down and eat the small gains you can get from drafting. These things, when repeated over the course of a days, become a surprisingly big time sink and the distance you could have traveled during the day quite easily gets shorter than you planned.

Biological/circadian rhythm. One has to pee more often than the other and both have to stop. It eats up time. At times, when one stopped, the other continued forward at touring bike speed if it was cold and taking a three to five minutes stop on the side of the road would mean stiff legs and cold uppper body. It, in turn, ate up the mood when one had to catch up, even though the other one was going slowly forward. The subconscious mind is tricked into thinking that you need to go full gas to catch the other rider. Especially if your pair had already disappeared behind a bend or hill, even though your pair is just slowly going forward and bridging the distance shouldn't require any effort. The infamous matches are burning.

Time spent on the breaks gets really long when when you are having a nice dinner conversations and enjoying your time indoors with food and good company. In many places, there was only one toilet, which meant that the one who had already taken care of their needs had to wait for another. Leaving from the break, one of us always began to do some small adjustments with equipment or devices when the other was already on the bike, again, it takes time and the potential mileage of the day withers. There wasn't a single break when both would have been ready at the same time.

When one got tired the other was forced to slow down even if it would've been the most energetic moment of the day at hand. Usually, one had more energy at different stages of the day than the other. From time to time, both of us had to ask the other to slow down.

Climbing hills and finding proper pace. We managed to climb probably less than 10 percent of the hills for the entire trip together, as I usually liked to roll the hills up at my own pace because the slower cadence on uphill tires my legs more than alternately doing light high-cadence spinning and riding out of the saddle.

Mood. At times, the nonverbal communication of your pair instantly told you that now is not the time for a laid-back conversation. There were many moments during the trip when we didn't say a word for half an hour or an hour so the other one got a moment of peace to get the mood up again. This was probably the things that worked best for us on this trip, both of us lost temper only once during the entire trip to the other and these things were more related to behavior on the bike than anything other.

Things that made trip easier

Having someone to talk to. I count it as definitely the biggest positive factor in riding as a pair. At times, even in strong winds, instead of getting behind your pair for cover, we cycled side by side so could chat while moving forward. Even in tight headwind or crosswind the journey seemed to progress more easily when having a nice conversation, the kilometers were passing by without a notice, albeit a little slower than in close drafting.

Drafting. It actually showed its true power only once when we had to race against the clock due to the closing time of one gas station and we raced a 52 kilometer leg with well over thirty average doing quick changes in front and in very hilly terrain. Doing that alone would have been the end for me and my legs would have stopped halfway through, of course due to the hard effort that day and three hours of sleep the next night, yours truly hit the wall after the climb to Koli and the rest of the day was relentlessly cut short. The benefit of drafting here is at least questionable and the joy of rapid progress remained short.

Summa summarum

There are so many variables in ride like Ruska, that when you include yourself and your pair in the equation, there is not just twice the probability of scratching, it's more likely to be exponential. There are certainly a lot of things I forgot to list, but these came to mind immediately after the trip. In my opinion, the trip went as well as it just can go. Nevertheless, negative things and slowdowns were the dominant force on this trip. We reached the goal, on schedule and in a good mood, despite the very small setbacks on the way.

My advice to anyone considering riding as a pair, think twice before deciding. Is this exactly what you want to do in an event like this.

Ruska was a great experience as a pair, I wouldn't change a moment and I don't regret anything. There was so much great things that we experienced together. Still, in the future, I'm doing rides this long alone.