6 day bicycle race Trans-Baikal

Actually, the most important thing about which dozens of people asked our team for the past few months is rendered in the title. There will be no "Trans-Baikal" Race in 2012. Within three years you could observe how our project was developing. And even now I think sometimes that the first year was so risky (no one organized similar competitions in Russia before us), that had I known all this beforehand, I may not have undertaken this project at all. I remember how bewildered local officials look when we told them about the "Trans-Baikal" Race for the first time, and then respect of the mayor when he shacked hands with us after the third race. Well, and I also remember how our car sank almost to the roof when we explored the road for the future race.

Perhaps, only the most reckless bikers ventured to come to the Baikal Lake in 2009. The next year number of participants nearly doubled, and we tried to improve every detail. In the third year we used all the experience gained from previous years, and participants could see notable improvement of the organization. Also, in 2011 we tried to involve the regional authorities – we won the support of the mayor and members of the Olkhon district legislative assembly of the Irkutsk region. But the ideal is still pretty far. The backbone of the organizational team has remained almost unchanged. Year by year our team became stronger and stronger, but one of the key goals – bringing the project to commercial success – has failed. Working over the race after old scheme, i.e. from November to July in our spare time or on nights, would mean to continue to scramble and accumulate more problems. Sometimes, in order to make something truly great, you must stop and look around, and, maybe, get some experience in other projects.