Now we’re getting in the business! We’re in the middle of the mountains and at least half of the days route is mountain passes! Videocamera was on many times.
First time was already from the yard of our guesthouse… this was very narrow and twisty road down to Tristach village like this:
After few kilometers there was also police checking the speed before we were in Italy and one of us got the ticket (35€ for speeding 94@80)!
Then after the country changed to Italy we had nothing but mountains ahaed!
Lake Misurina, Passo Tri Croci, Passo Giau… Here’s compilation of these rides:
Ducati Monster rearbrakes are getting quite hot… in 02:30 -Check it!
Finally in the top of Passo Giau we had some time to enjoy the views:
…to be continued!
BMW
Mostly they’re selling too short chains!! If anyone of you is thinking about buying new chains? And looking anything but the originals. Here’s a warning!
It seems that there is wrong information about the length of the XR’s chains! Quite many marketplace is selling 118-links chains and the XR has 128-links!! I was very lucky to find D.I.D. 525 chains that has 128 links but they are maybe too weak (X-ring).
As far as I know there’s not too many aftermarket chains that are long- and strong enough -I would prefer XW-rings not the X-ring.
And it starts in 7 days. I’ll try to add the text about each day soon after it’s done… But there can be some delays.
This year we’ll visit the Corse island!
With motorcycle
This was a dream come true finally for me! I’ve been to Åland few times with a car (last time was 17 years ago!) but now I got there with my motorcycle. This is the 4 days trip to Åland (Swedish)/ Aland (English)/ Ahvenanmaa (Finnish).
Åland is here and to get there with a motorcycle you need to take a ferry from Stockholm, Helsinki or Turku… Or a small ferry from Korppoo (Galtby) or from Kustavi (Vuosnainen). If you use these ferries the idea is to spend the night in some small islands before you go to the main island -and that’s what we did.
But before we took the boat from Korppoo we spent the night there in Faffas. They had a very nice cabin near the sea!
And then 10am it was time for a boat (ferry). This trip (to Föglö island) takes 4 hours!
In Föglö we had lot of time to get to know the island. It’s not very big! There’s actually only 1 road that goes through the island, and because of beautiful scenery and some nice curves it is also in motocaching.net: (Road in Föglö).
But there is also a very beautiful church and quite interesting hiking path in this island. Our accomodation in Föglö was Degerby Mat & Cafe.
Next morning the ferry to the main island left the Föglö at 9am. This was 30min trip.
And the first route was a detour from the mainroad to some villages in Högskär.
Then we rode to the southside of the “capitol of Åland” (Mariehamn), this was a beautiful road through islands.
After this road we rode to the eastside of the main island. First we had this very nice road with some nice bends and then we visited the fire station museum (but it was closed).
Then sun was shining so brightly and weather was too hot (about +13 celsius) so I had to go swimming! Did it here. Water was maybe +8… We took a short break in Käringsund.
Then we visited Sålis Batteri, this is some fortifications that Russians built even they should not do it. Åland was a demilitarized already 50-60 years before!
From the east parts of the main island we moved to north with this road.
In the north we visited the Getaberget (and the tower), Havsvidden (with some nice views too) -this place had a great road!
And finally visited the Stallhagen Brewery and I bought 2 bottles of beer.
This was the first day on the main island of Åland, we spent the night is Strandnäs Hotel.
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Next morning I took a short tour in Mariehamn (This city has about 11500 inhabitants).
Then we started the ride of the day. First we rode to north (again) because there was still few places to visit. First there was Road of Tjudö -this is maybe the best road (for motorcycling) in Åland! It’s definately worth riding!
Then we rode to one small harbour again. This was Hamnsundet with small cafeteria (not yet open).
After this we took the most famous cafeteria in the island (Uffe På Berget). The altitude in the top of the tower is more than 50 meters above sealevel!
And then we went to the castle! There is only 1 middleage castle in Åland, it’s called Kastelholma.
This took about 1 hour to walk through the museum and there was some very interesting stories about the people who lived here (or were prisoners). After castle we rode this road: Road of Sund. This was with 2km’s of gravel.
And for the last place we visited Bomarsund fortress. This has very interesting story which ends with Ålands demilitarization in 1856 (In Treaty of Paris).
Then we took the ferry to Kumlinge island at 5pm and we stay the night in Kumlinge Stugor. Next morning we visited Kumlinge church, Kumlinge mountain (Vårholmsböte) and rode the best motorcycle road in Kumlinge…
The ferry took us to Brändö islands (4-5 islands in group) and there you have to ride through these beautiful landscapes of the archipelago sea. What a road this is!
Our trip in Åland ended about 3pm when the ferry arrived in Vuosnainen in the north side of Turku. (But there is still 1 more ferry after this!).
You can ride the most beautiful places in the main island of Åland in 1 day. But I really recommend that you take your time at least in Kastelholma castle and in Bomarsund fortress. So it should be at least 2 days. And if you have the possibility to visit the small islands too… Then you’ll really know what is it all about! ********* (Gotta go there again some day!)
Thursday the 4th of May was finally the first actual spring-day here in southern Finland. I took some lining off from the jacket and pants ant took a short ride in very beautiful weather!
This is a small beach in Vihti (Otalampi). And because of very nice weather I took a swim also… The ice melted maybe 1 week ago so the water was freezing cold!
Little bit later I just stop the bike to take some photos. I am few meters away from the road and the sun is behind me… I love the photos that my new mobilephone (OnePlus 3T) is taking. The colours are very nice! This is also in Vihti (Tervalammentie).
I have this new red screen in my XR, I ordered it from powerbronze and it makes the bike look lighter and faster (I think). If I try to lean down behind that screen the road looks like this:
Soon I will be in my first tour for this year… We will take 5 days journey to Åland!!
I did a post in august 2013 about the best motorcycleroads in Finland -now it’s time to make the same in English.
I have chosen only the routes that are longer than 10 km. You can also find the best roads from motocaching.net but there the most of the introductions and comments are in Finnish. And my list is not the same!
- Porkkalantie
Pros: Nice corners and landscapes Cons: Few parts only 40km/h speedlimit - Fagervikintie – Vanha Rannikkotie
Pros: Some parts are challenging some parts are with nice landscapes, nice corners Cons: The pavement is in bad shape - Trollshovda
Pros: Maybe the tightest corners in Finland Cons: Ends in gravel, blind corners - Vihti – Road 280
Pros: Nice speed, lots of other good roads near Cons: – - Hämeen Härkätie (Somero – Porras)
Pros: Nice speed, nice pavement Cons: Low speedlimit near Somero - Marjoniementie
Pros: Nice corners and hills (!) Cons: Ends in gravel - Puumala – Sulkava
Pros: Nice speed and quiet road Cons: – - Hamina – Virolahti museumroad
Pros: Nice corners and challenge Cons: at weekends lots of traffic - Kuninkaantie ABC – Sarvisalo
Pros: Nice variable corners, nice landscapes Cons: – - Niska-Pietiläntie – Miettiläntie
Pros: Challenging Cons: The pavement is in bad shape
Somebody might think that there are other roads in top 10, but this is my list. Please leave a comment or if you have any questions!
Day 21
We rode from the northern parts of Poland through Lithuania to Latvia, like this. It was the longest ride in this trip but it didn’t feel like it at all. First of all it was a great weather!
We made a short visit to the hill of crosses and that made a nice break in the boring ride in those endless straights in Lithuania (and the road A12).
And in the beginning of the day we had some nice small roads of Poland and Lithuania!
We also stopped for awhile in the tripoint of Poland, Russia (Kaliningrad) and Lithuania. Here’s a short video:
And then about 150km’s later it was time for the “Hill of Crosses” (which I think is a junkyard!)
Here is the link to all the pictures I took in this strange place in the middle of Lithuanian countryside.
Here’s one excample:
In Latvia we stopped in Riga dam, it’s a huge reservoir & dam with powerplant and there’s a road going on the top of the dam. The views over the reservoir are quite nice!
We had a room from the nice Hotel Sigulda (my fourth time here!)
Day 22
This was 300km’s from Sigulda to Tallinn (and ofcourse the ferry Tallinn – Helsinki and the final ride from Helsinki harbour to home!)
First break was ofcourse in the border between Latvia-Estonia and the legendary Hesburger!
After this break it started raining! And we waited about 1 hour for it to stop (in Pärnu). Soon after Pärnu the road was dry again and we had time to visit the sandpit-lake near Saku. And I made some SocialMedia updates there (again!)
The final trouble we got in the harbour while waiting the ferry. We noticed that Ducati’s rear tyre is almost empty! But luckily there were many american cars trying to get to the ferry and some of them had the tyreweld-stuff. So Maria could ride her red Monster in to the ferry and then From Helsinki harbour to home!
Thank you for ALL the readers who have been following this trip!! There will be more!
