Timo Valo: ten years of independent cycling races in St. Petersburg

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Useful from the issue

1. Explore the track before the race

   Timo showed a strong time in the time trial largely because he knew the course by heart. In a race with terrain, knowing key locations makes a big difference.

2. On the eve of the mass start — with locals

   Before the race for thousands of people, Timo rode with a strong local group found through the forum. For an amateur, this may be more interesting than the crowd itself.

3. The depreciation fork is an expense

   Fork service, according to Timo, costs almost as much as a second bike. If complex terrain isn't needed, cross or road is simpler and cheaper.

4. On rough gravel — without a camera

   On a grader with large stones on the Edge, it is easy to pierce the wheel. Timo advises to ride on tubeless rubber and not to drive on rocks.

5. Water for cyclists — at the start

   Running logic with water at the finish line does not work for a bike race: a cyclist needs water at the start and on the track, not after the finish.

6. Road course — one lap or from A to B

   So laps don't interfere with leaders finishing. If the race is in the city on a short circuit, it's better to separate the race and the leisure ride by time.

7. A large organizer expands the niche

   With the advent of mass starts on narrow individual time trials, new people came to Timo. Small organizers benefit when large ones bring the discipline to the masses.

8. See the general calendar

   Ilya chooses the dates of his races according to the sotka.one calendar so as not to overlap with other starts in the region. This is useful for both organizers and riders.

Who is Timo and how did he come to the bike

The release begins with a disclaimer: the recording had to be finished earlier, and communication problems started at the end. Timo says that his family is from Velikiye Luki on the same line, in his youth he was engaged in classical skiing, and after a long break, already in his thirties, he wanted to do something - and did not return to skiing, but got on a bicycle.

In 2018, he drove a time trial for himself for 25 km for a time that meets the standard of the master of sports — unofficially, without competition. He himself admits that the terrain with a predominance of descent and perfect knowledge of the track helped: he held races on it several times. Hence his advice: in a race with a relief, it is very important to know the key places of the track in advance.

Now there is almost no time for your training — the peak season. Of the bicycles, he has two road riders, he is thinking about a crossover, but he doesn't want a mountain bike: servicing the shock-absorbing fork, according to him, costs almost like a second bike.

Race for 11 thousand people

From the group races, Timo recalls the mass start in Finland: about 11 thousand participants, the start in waves lasted half an hour. The day before, he found a group at a local forum and went with it to warm up — the locals turned out to be very strong, 120 km with a decent set and high speed.

On Sunday, at the race itself, he actually got a recovery ride, and he has no regrets: it was more pleasant to ride in a group of 25 strong amateurs than in a crowd of thousands. He even recommends this format — on the eve of a big mass start, get together and drive with the locals.

How did the SOTKA races begin

Timo's first race in Russia happened almost by accident in 2014: with the guys from the amateur club, they went to Vyborg and back by train and decided to make a start — two or three dozen people gathered. Timo took out the race results of all races since 2014 from the archives and posted them on the website this year, and next year the project will be ten years old.

He had experience organizing international races before, and he saw road races from the inside — at the time, only they were somewhat organized. In 2014, there was no culture of conducting races, no equipment, no trained people; timekeepers initially could only handle MTB. Now Tim has 80 square meters of warehouse space filled with equipment and road signs, and timekeepers have learned to work on the road.

Why do some starts grow and others don't

Timo calls the Cycling Marathon Cup in the Leningrad region a powerful system that rests on the ceiling: the organizers make a high-quality chamber product for their own and do not invest in popularization. Massive projects like La Strada, on the contrary, are growing fast because they earn and invest in growth.

The main observation: a large organizer expands the niche for everyone. When La Strada appeared, many new people came to Timo's highly specialized time trial. Now he is persuading major organizers to take up cyclocross — in Belgium and the Netherlands it is a great spectacle for fans, and if a big player picks it up, everyone who deals with this topic will grow up.

Duck, hundred, and calendar

The name is associated with the Seaside weaving, but it has a second meaning: in the folk Finnish language, "weaving" is a duck, among the Finno—Ugric peoples it is a symbol of wisdom, so there is a duck on the logo. And one hundred kilometers is the reference distance in cycling. There is a "sub—hundred" around the main hundred - Saturday additional starts like training time trial.

Another part of the project is the sotka.one calendar with an emphasis on the Baltic Sea, which Timo wants to develop as a media platform for athletes. Ilya thanks him for it: he chooses the dates of his races by looking at this calendar. Timo's more long-standing project, the World Cycling Race, conceived in 2016 with an office in Tallinn and programmers in Kiev, actually stopped in 2022.

Applications for the memorial race in memory of Olympic champion Dmitry Nelyubin, the twentieth in a row, at the Igor Drive circuit, with free participation, also come on the air.

Oredezh Festival

At the end of June, Timo holds a festival in a clearing near the river near Vyritsa in the Gatchina district. He found the place on a tip from the locals and was amazed: fields, forest roads, singles, fords, villages — and at the same time near the station and the store. Gatchina cyclists help to prepare the tracks.

On Saturday there is a special cyclocross: an obstacle course in the afternoon, a classic race in the evening, you can participate in one stage or both. The format is being made together with the Sports tourism Federation, and in the future it will be possible to perform discharges according to regulatory obstacles. On Sunday — gravel distances of 15, 30, 60 and 100 km; the longest goes in one circle, with marshes and areas on foot. At long distances there is a grader with large stones, which is easy to break through, so Timo advises a camera-less.

The festival, according to Timo, is not when one organizer stuffs the program, but when different organizers make their starts under their own brands in the same clearing, as he saw in Sweden and Germany. The marathon part, for example, is done by another organizer.

Orienteers, Ironman and Organizer's mistakes

Timo calls orienteers the largest and wealthiest sports party in the region: they have long-standing traditions, the largest start gathers, according to his estimates, about 15 thousand people, and even a training one — from five hundred. Cycling culture with generations of traditions, as in Belgium, we still have nowhere to go.

The Ironman in St. Petersburg, according to Timo's story, happened due to an accident: at a sports business forum in 2018, over coffee, he talked with a representative of the Kazakh delegation, who, as it turned out, was choosing between Moscow and St. Petersburg the city for the first race in Russia. A year later, the news came out that the start would be in St. Petersburg.

The most memorable failure was at a triathlon, where participants sat in the transition area for about two hours because the traffic police wouldn't let them onto the course due to a coordination issue. When analyzing other races, Timo says that running event organizers apply running rules to cycling events: laps interfere with the finish, and the water station is placed at the finish, even though cyclists need water at the start. The ideal road course, in his opinion, is one big loop or point-to-point, like the Primorskaya Sotka; in the city, a short loop is better, with the race first and then a leisurely ride.

Timestamps

1. 0:00Disclaimer
2. 0:55How are you
3. 4:10Timo Valo
4. 5:54How did you come to the bike
5. 9:58Participation in races
6. 15:53Achievements in cycling
7. 16:51Workouts
8. 20:18Organization of cycling races
9. 30:06Why duck
10. 34:05Timo projects
11. 38:49Oredezh Fest
12. 50:52SOTKA.ONE calendar
13. 54:10Orienteers
14. 58:39Ironman in St. Petersburg
15. 1:02:02About shoals

Mentioned in this episode

SOTKA · sotka.one · Primorskaya sotka · Oredezh Fest · La Strada · Ironman · Igor Drive · World Cycling Race