I was just returned from my Corsetour Europa trip. I was already working and it was the first weekend… I didn’t feel like riding with BMW, so I called few friends and we took a ride with Endurobikes. This time it was not about hard and wet parts -but mainly about nice and easy gravelroads.
The route was more than 200 km’s and we had some lunch in the Räyskälä airfield.
I had my helmetcamera with me and I did shoot all the “nice parts”:
And about 8km’s after the last video in the paved road it happened!
Green is me, red is the car.
(I don’t have any memory of the accident so I’m telling what my friends have told me!)
I was about to ride forward of the mainroad. I was riding below the speed limit (about 70-75km/h). There was old guy driving a mercedes and he was about to turn left to the small road. He told he didn’t see us coming so he just turned left…
I had about 1-2 seconds to break before I crashed to the right-front corner of the Mercedes. My bike was making fast rotation on the ground after the crash while I was flying over the frontend of the car. After the car there were some mailboxes standing beside the road -I hit those before I crashed to the ground (head first) and stayed there in the bottom of the dike.
Very soon there was people who actually could help! And the ambulance was there after 20 minutes. They took me to the hospital in Espoo and from the x-rays they could see that 2 of my cervical vertebrae (neckbone) was broken.
But very luckily 2 days after the accident I was talking with the doctor and he said that even the bones are fractured, they are all in perfect order and position!!! So nothing is changed in my nerves and I was very much able to walk and do everything else as I was doing before the accident…
Now it’s little bit over 1 month from the accident and my life is almost normal already. I’m very careful with my neck and I am using the headrest almost all the time! But besides the stiffness of the neck I feel pretty normal and I can only wonder that it has been a miracle how lucky I was!
Recovering has been very fast!
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All posts for the month August, 2017
This was my last day in the foreign country! But I was still enjoying the riding as much as in the beginning of this trip! We startded riding the nice roads on the north side of Örebrö like this and this.
These were very nice and small countryside roads! But we also had to take some gravelroad -for me it was ok but not for all of us.
We had one short break in a small city of Kolsva… This I remember well because I felt happy and relaxed. Sun was shining, the chat with fellowriders was nice and we were laughing, the nature around us was nice and everyhting was well and perfect!
At the end of the day I remembered to put the video on! It was very nice road… even there was some gravel on the road.
This road is in Rånäs and there are other roads nearby which are kind of same.
We had accommodation very near to Kapellskär harbour.
And next morning I took the boat from this harbour to Naantali -Finland.
And in the evening I took one more ride from Naantali to my home. The tour was over!
This was the route for day 18:
Again we had to skip the breakfast to catch the boat! Just after 7 a’clock we were already in the line to the ferry to Gothenburg. Even this was a scandinavian ship it wasn’t much better comparing to the ones in the Mediterranean!
I haven’t been in Gothenburg before so it was a bit pitty we were only riding fast through to catch the nice curvy roads in Swedish countryside!
We took this, this, this, this and this -had so much fun in all of those because it was nice and sunny day!
Here’s the short video from Vassbacken:
We had a BnB accommodation near Örebro:
But the restaurant close to this place was closed so we had to ride to the city to have something to eat. We found quite nice chinese place from the heart of Örebro.
The route of the day was like this:
Motorcycling in Denmark? Yes -we are going to do it!! There are no hills or corners here… Or at least we think this is how it will be. First in morning it was raining a bit. We had the rainsuits on until the halfway… After 2 hours we reached “Tørskind Grusgrav” -it’s a sculpture park with massive pieces of art made of iron, concrete and wood.
I was here before 19 years ago and still I think these are amazing works!
Quite soon after this we started climbing to the 3rd highest mountain of Denmark! There are no steep uphills, no hairpin corners, no views to the mountains… Maybe you just noticed that there was a low uphill while you were riding… and there it was! Quite nice place to climb to the tower and see the countryside all around you (The tower of “Ejer Bavnehøj” is only 13 meters high)
Then later in the afternoon we had one ferry (again!). This it was over the fjord that goes through all Northern Denmark and makes the northern part of this country kind of island!
We arrived to our hotel in Fredrikshavn quite early so we had some time to walk around the beautiful city and eat the dinner.
The route for the day 16 was like this:
In the morning 2 of our group started their own tour to Travemunde (and from there the boat to Helsinki).
3 of us are still riding many days before we are back in Finland! This day we had again 1 ferry… over the Elbe river this time:
Soon we were in Denmark and it was raining (but not too long!) and we reached our destination in Tønder…
We didn’t have too many kilometers to Rømø -so we visited this amazing island! I’ve been there 19 years ago and nowadays the area where you can actually drive (or ride) in the beach is a lot smaller than it was back then!
When we came back to the city of Tønder we went to the centrum to eat and after that it was free for us to visit the swimming hall. It was very relaxing to go to sauna and take a few swim-strokes!
The route for the day 15 was like this:
And for the 2 riders who try to spend a long day in the road before going to the harbour…
They were riding beside the Elbe river in the eastside of Hamburg like this:
Again all night it was raining but in the morning the roads were getting dry.
We choose the route through the Germany countryside. Here it has some nice hills and the roads are not at all boring!
The best road we did ride was the short climb over the hill in Bad Essen (the road is called Bergstraße -Hillstreet or Hillroad!)
In the afternoon Ducati Streetfighter (and Triumph Streettriple) left the group! They decided to try to have new chains and sprockets in Melle -and they actually succeeded! It was only about 1 hour after arriving the Ducati dealer the bike had new parts in it. Supergood and fast service in Ducati Melle!
We had a nice small hotel in Bremen and next morning 2 bikes (Ducati Monster & Yamaha MT-09 Tracer) will leave the group!
Here’s the route for the day 14:
After rainy night the streets started to dry slowly. Year ago we were riding the Schwarzwald in very wet conditions -I really hoped it would not be the same again!
Just before we turned to this famous B500 -road we stopped in very nice gas station with service!
Then we were riding the Schwarzwald -and the road was dry!! There’s one BIG problem with this road… They have added the 70km/h speed limit signs! So it is not possible to enjoy the fast sweepers as you like…. But we almost did because we didn’t accept the speed limit!
From Badenbaden we continued to Rastatt and the ferry over Rhein river in Neuburg am Rhein. This was a nice short break to watch this ferry “fighting” in a river!
On the westside of Rhein we choose more bigger roads and Autobahn to reach our next destination and hotel in a small city of Eibelshausen. We did make a short visit to the Castle of Braunfels but you had to pay to actually visit inside so we didn’t go. But it was easy to find and enter with bikes… only 200 meters walking distance from the parking area!
My parking in the castle was like this:
The route of the day was like this:
We will leave the alps today… Kind of makes me sad but actually we’ve had so much nice alpineroads that I’m waiting for everything that is about to come…
We started riding from our hotel in Davos and filled the tank in Davos Wolfgang (it’s a kind of mountain pass near Davos).
Then we took the road 28 to west and finally arrived to Maienfeld. From there we took the nice road (St. Lutzisteigpass) to Lichtenstein.
We took a short break there in a gas-station and then we continued back to Switzerland.
The route we took is not possible to put in the google map, but it was a nice ride! A very narrow road through mountain-countryside in the westside of Grabs (if you just look the map you’ll get the idea!).
Then after some more riding to west it was time for our last mountainpass: Schwägalppass -This road doesn’t have too tight hairpin corners and for the locals it really was the route to check the limits of the bike and the rider!
But not us, we were ridig easy and smooth…
After Schwägalp it was about riding the countryside roads first in Switzerland then in Germany. And just about 50km’s left we got some heavy rain too… But even before we found the place to stay for the nigh (In Hotel Gut Lauterbad near Freudenstadt) the roads were already dry.
This hotel and restaurant is very much recommended for those who are very hungry!! The portions were huge!! This is for 2…
The route for the day was about like this (Google maps will not show the route on the westside of Grabs)
This means we had to leave Lago di Garda! What a pitty! But ok there was some dam good roads ride. First to Lago di Valvestino…
You couldn’t much see the lake because it’s so far away below… and the walls are steep! We also stopped for awhile in the beach of Lago d’Idro. This is smaller than Garda but it looked very beautiful!! We also saw the small boat taking passengers from the pier so we only hoped there was time to go onboard! But we had to go on riding! First here’s a Finnish language joke: (Kuvassa on Kauko -niminen kaveri rannalla eli se on Kaukoranta!)
In Lago d’Idro: From the north corner of this lake started the first mountain pass: Croce Domini. This is one of the best mountain passes for me ever! I really liked it!
After this 40 km’s of mountain road we took the SS42 in the valley to get us to Bormio but there was one more mountain road to ride before this “famous city”. Passo del Mortirolo.
The hairpins in the southside of this road are very steep and tight, you can see it in the video from 06:00! We had a short break enjoying the mountainviews and atmosphere in the cafeteria up in the summit of Mortirolo. This was like wisiting someone’s home! Very nice cafeteria!
I also enjoyed the road down from Mortirolo… there was some pretty nice views!
After Mortirolo it was time for Stelvio!
Up in the Summit of Stelvio it was still like +20… So we’re lucky to have this very nice weather today!! But we were not the first Finns here this summer!! Here is “Prätkällä Töihin 2017” Sticker in Stelvio!
Then down with “Umbrail Pass” to Val Mustair and Ofenpass.
And finally for the end of the day the beautiful and fast Flüela Pass.
There’s not too many hairpincorners when you ride up to Fluela… It’s more about having fun and enjoying riding!
Our hotel was in Davos. We had the dinner in one of the most fine hotel-restaurants in the centrum of Davos: Hotel Seehof Davos. The service (and food) was excellent! This was one of the best days in our trip…. Thank You Kauko, Salla, Marko and Maria for sharing it with me!! Here’s the route for day 11:
This was about to come one of the hottest days in our tour so it was definately right decision to ride north via Autostrada! And after 2 hours of riding we’re already northside of Milano and riding the shores of Lago di Garda!
In Autostrada we only took short breaks to fill the tanks and riders…
In Garda we had 1 route to ride… The very special “Caveroad of Tremosine” in the westside of the lake. This was amazing short route where the road was sweeping inside the mountain. Here you can see the video of the ride:
And one photo too:
We needed to ride few more miles before our destination…
The Hotel is very much recommended by me and the whole group! (Hotel Residence Panorama di Forca)
The weather was so hot that you couldn’t see the Garda Lake… only some blurry/ foggy view.
But in the night the situation was better!
Also the restaurant in this hotel is very good!
Route for day 10 was like his:
