Tiger 800 test ride

Posted by gozamite on 5.1.2019
Posted in: adventure bike, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycle, Triumph. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Took a test ride of this nice bike last september. The first feeling was only about how great bike it was!! I had my wife sitting behind me and even without adjustments to the suspension felt great!

After 20-30 kilometers I was already thinking that this bike feels so great that I should change my XR to this… But then we took the narrow, bumpy and curvy road (Immersby road) and I started to think something else

Östersundom Churc

BMW XR is definitely better to gain speed after corners – The suspension is much better for 2 passangers – And XR simply makes you smile in every different situation… Tiger (only) makes you feel comfortable. Tiger is very nice bike! Maybe I should have tried the adventure version (800 XCA) and I would have found more positive things compare to BMW S1000XR.

But this road-version of the Triumph 800 Tiger is very good bike with very reasonable price and I can totally recommend it!

Tiger XRT is also very nice looking bike!

Nice Trip (Day 4)

Posted by gozamite on 28.11.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Make life a ride!, Moottoripyöräily, Serpentine, Travel, Video. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Again they promised rain! But it didn’t look too bad when we started riding. Short stop to take a picture in Col de Eze:

500 meters above Mediterranean

We were riding around in Monaco and checked few places there. But didn’t take any nice pictures. And after Menton we continued to Italy… but there it was raining!

View from Sant’Antonio to Latte village and Mediterranean

So we didn’t stay there too long. We came back to La Turbie and decided to go and check the Trophy of Augustus. Just beside the entrance there is a nice viewing point and a perfect view to Monaco!

All those “poor” people down there…

Then with the fee of 6€ we checked this Trophy that was built 6BC!!!
Read more about the trophy here.

Trophy is just a “small” building with balcony for the Emperor Augustus

Then it was already quite nice weather and we continued riding to the mountains. Right from the La Turbie village starts nice road to Peille village and we chose this one!

Tha Balcony road to Peille village

After Peille it was time for Col de Braus.

Serpentine road to Col de Braus

And right after this Col de l’Ablé.

Road to Col de l’Ablé is very narrow (from south)

Pitty that it was already afternoon and we had to return the bike to MotorBikeTrip. But we had very nice time riding the roads near to City of Nice! We will be back!
In the evening we were walking in the city and we saw this beautiful Church -Notre-Dame de Nice:


Full name is Basilique Notre-Dame de l’Assomption

Next day it was only about breakfast, packing and flight back to cold Helsinki… And my wife made a nice video of this day:

Here is the route for this day:


Nice Trip (Day 3)

Posted by gozamite on 22.11.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, Mountain Road, Video. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

We woke up quite early and went to the breakfast. We saw from the News that it had been snowing in France (in northern parts) -There was hundreds of cars stuck in some highway. Weather forecast promised us a beautiful sunny day so I wasn’t worried…
F700GS started after 9am and we were heading west/ northwest. First stop was at Col de Vence. The views to the mediterranean sea were very nice when we were climbing up. But on the top we couldn’t see the sea any more. The nature was interesting -especially the rocks!

Col de Vence (962m)
Strange rocks

Col de Vence has own webpages. It’s because people have seen quite a lot of paranormal activity here. Stories has been collected in coldevence.com.

Soon after this mountain Pass it was time to stop again. This is the beautiful village of Coursegoules.

Even the sun was shining it didn’t feel too warm…
Short stop after Andon, temperature was about +4
Autumn colors and snow…

Few kilometers before our final destination it was about the time to stop again. There was a beautiful view to the village Trigance.

From here started maybe the most amazing 80km’s of my life!!

7 kilometers from this view was another view. This time the road was on the edge of Verdon Gorge! It was about 250 meters down to the river Verdon… At one spot there was a balcony (viewing place) to look down -There I almost fainted! Last time this happened to me in 2013 in Dalsnibba (Norway).

Verdon Gorge (southside)

The Canyon of Verdon is one of the most spectacular river canyons in Europe. On the northside it is 700 meters deep!
On the northside of the canyon there is a looproad starting from the Village La Palud-sur-Verdon. This is about 25km’s of spectacular views -not recommended for those who has the fear of heights!
In one viewing point we even had eagles flying over our heads!!

700 meters above river Verdon!

It took about 3 hours all together to ride both the south and the northside of Verdon Gorge. Then it was time to ride back to Nice!
On the way back we chose the big roads… But it didn’t mean that we didn’t see anything special… Just it wasn’t as good as that Canyon!
Here is the video my wife made about this day:


The route for this day was like this:

Nice Trip (Day 2)

Posted by gozamite on 20.11.2018
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, BMW motorrad, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, motorcycling, Mountain Road. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

After very good sleep and breakfast we took a morning walk in a little bit wet streets of Nice. Rue de Rivoli was the direction about 2km’s away. There was MotorBikeTrip store where I had reservation for bike (3 days) -This was the bike:
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BMW F700GS
I didn’t ride this bike too much before and I have to say that the suspension is not good enought for 2. But I tried to adjust the preload tighter so that it wouldn’t hit the bottom all the time… Then we changed the full riding gear and started riding!
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It was still little bit wet in 500 meters high Col d’Eze between Nice and Monaco.
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In Menton the beach Boulevard is called The Sunny Promenade -but we had a little bit of rain…

We were standing in the mediterranean beach for awhile and I made a video there.
From Menton we started to climb up to the Mountains. I have been riding here before but back in 2016 it was too hot! Now it was quite nice weather.
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This bridge is a part of an old tramline between Menton and Sospel. Tram was in use from 1912 to 1930. This bridge is called “Viaduc du Caramel”.
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We stopped at Sospel to take few pictures. This made me think how sad it is when every place is now closed. No open cafeterias or restaurants… These cities and villages live only in the summertime.
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Climbing up to Col de Turini… Beautiful nature everywhere!
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Up on the top of of Turini it was raining quite heavily and we were inside the cloud.
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The visibility wasn’t too good!
Luckily under the clouds we could some more… But the rain didn’t stop.
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The steep mountain walls of this area are amazing… even on a foggy weather! This is Col Saint-Roch.

Route for the day 1 was like this:


My wife made a nice video about this day:

Nice Trip (Day 1)

Posted by gozamite on 15.11.2018
Posted in: adventure, Kävely, Matkustus, Travel, Video. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I made reservation for this trip in August. I was thinking it would be nice to spend some time with my wife when we’ve been married about 1 year… And even in foreign countries! (In the summer we couldn’t go abroad because the residence permit wasn’t ready yet) -So the destination for this trip would be Nice (Nizza).
We took the plane from Helsinki to Nice very early on Sunday morning.
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We landed to this mediterranean city about 10.30 am. Then we took the bus to the city center. It was still raining when we arrived (But rain stopped right after we started walking from the bus stop to the hotel).
This day we dedicated for getting to know the city. And there is one place particularly that gives you very good idea about what is this beautiful city all about: The Castle Hill (Colline du Château). There used to be also a castle but King Louis XIV asked it to be destroyed in 1706. In 19th century they started to design the park and fountain on the top of the hill. Also some parts of the olf castle has been renovated.
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We walked up to the hill from the east side. This side is not so steep and there are a lot of trees so the park looks kind of wild from this side.
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Restored parts of the old castle. This was maybe the inner yard or patio.
But when you finally reach the to of the hill the views are simply amazing!
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View to the east. It’s the harbour of Nice.
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And here’s the “famous view” to the beach boulevard of Nice. The mediterranean sea and the waves are very beautiful!
Ofcourse we took a walk also there…
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We had small but very cozy hotel almost in the heart of the city (Vieille Ville). This area has very narrow alleys with many many restaurants and shops.
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And our hotel room was in the 7th floor with the view to the Tête carrée (Cubic head in the modern art museum)
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I was restlessly already waiting for the next day!
You can check the video my wife made about this first day:

 

1 night mototrip in September

Posted by gozamite on 10.11.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Make life a ride!, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycling, S1000XR. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Me and my wife did a 1 night trip in 7th – 8th of September. I chose a small cabin from Aurantola and then it was only about how to ride there and back.
The first day ride was like this:


Here’s some pictures from Hyvinkää, Pulkkilanharju, Kalkkisten kanava, Heinola and Aurantola resort.
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This is from Library Square
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Bike parked at Hyvinkää
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Beautiful Pulkkilanharju
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Amazing Canal of Kalkkinen
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Art in Heinola (ITE puisto)
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Bike in Heinola
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Aurantola Cabin
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Aurantola sunset

Enduro autumn 2018

Posted by gozamite on 17.10.2018
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, BMW, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, Extreme ride, gravel road, helmetcamera, kawasaki, KTM, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycle, motorcycling, Off-Road, videocamera. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

On august 17th I bought a new enduro bike! This time I chose BMW G650 XChallenge! It has the same 1-cylinder 650ccm Rotax-engine than in many many other bikes. It is known to be very trustful and you don’t have to make service all the time.
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I rode the bike from Lappeenranta to home and I really was enjoying enduroriding again!
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During this autumn I’ve been riding few times with friends also and I’ve had videocamera with me. Here are some nice videos:

This was 2nd of september. We were riding mostly quite big roads/ easy roads so everyone could join the ride!

The roads in Kiikala area are very nice!! You really can enjoy the speed and essence of Finnish nature and adventure motorcycling!

This one is from Vihti/ Karkkila/ Lohja area (Rausjärvi). It is also a part of Trans Euro Trail route that I planned last spring. In this video there is a scary moment in 06:45 when a car comes from the yard straight in front of me! Luckily I had enough time to ride aside!

In the end of september we had a little bit different ride. This time mostly OffRoad. This was already in the beginning of the day… The most difficult parts! I can say that I was sweating like a pig… or a horse!

This path is quite well known route in Vihti. Not too difficult, almost quite ok for ordinary roadbike too.

This is one sandpit near Lohja. There is also nice small pond and we are riding around it two times.
And the last route is an old railroad (without rails) in Pikkala. The railroad was built by Russians when the area was part of Russia after the WWII.

In this video there is short break to take pictures under the bridge and then riding over the log. This log is not that difficult anymore…