gravel road

Enduroride April 19th

Posted by gozamite on 20.4.2020
Posted in: actioncamera, adventure, adventure bike, BMW G650XChallenge, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycle. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

We don’t have a lockdown in Finland. We are allowed to go out but meetings with more than 10 people is not ok. There was only 4 of us in a beautiful sunny weather and almost +10 degrees celsius. This time I didn’t choose any difficult tracks… and I finally made a video of this interesting route:

Old railroad track

This was a narrow railroad in Finland and it stopped working in 1967. But the track has stayed and it’s kind of in use as a road. But for example now in spring it can be tricky if there is still snow (and there was!!)
Unluckily my riding ended with the flat front tyre in Karkkila (65 km’s from home).

I was lucky that there was one big bike (KTM 1090 Adventure) so I could take a ride with him back home and then I picked my bike with my big car…

2020 SeasonStart

Posted by gozamite on 30.3.2020
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, KTM, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycling, yamaha. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

This season I started later than in a long long time! But there’s quite obvious reason: Covid-19.
Last week there was already quite nice days but finally when I made the decision to go out on sunday it was quite cold! +3 (celsius) was the highest and -1 was the lowest. But at least we had sunshine!

Somewhere in Vantaa
I had to fill the tank!
With me was one KTM 1050 Adventure and yamaha XT660 Tenere
My XChallenge is running nicely!

The route for this day was something like this:

Testride Triumph Scrambler 1200

Posted by gozamite on 9.6.2019
Posted in: adventure bike, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, motorcycle, motorrad, Off-Road, test-ride. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Triumph brought totally new models with 1200 twin engine. It has nice 90 hp -which doesn’t sound much but in this kind of bike it’s more than enough.

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Even I didn’t have real knubble tires I felt the calling! “Go to the gravel! Go to the forest!” -It was shouting… And I did.

This is bike is definitely at home when riding in gravel!

It’s totally the best bike that I have ever been riding in the gravelroad! It is too heavy to take Off-Road but I don’t really miss that anymore.
The seat should be softer and it should have better design. I could feel my ass wouldn’t like this after 200km’s!

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…

Tour around Finland Day 13

Posted by gozamite on 6.9.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, gravel road, Matkustus, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, S1000XR, touringbike. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This was another very hot day. But I was thinking that the gravelroads here are not that bad so I took one in the beginning. This road was actually very nice ride because it was in very good condition.
The first stop we made at interesting cafeteria in Yli-Ii (Wife pronounced this as “ULI-LEE” and I was laughing about it!)
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This cafeteria was an old gas station but the gasbumps were already empty…
Then we checked two dams and powerplants. There was also a fireplace (laavu) near the Pahkakoski dam. But this fireplace was in very bad condition. At least there was quite nice place for swimming…
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Then finally after 12 days of riding around Finland I found a place to wash my bike! This was in Oulu! And now I had a clean and shiny bike again!
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Picture was taken somewhere southside of Oulu. I really don’t have any idea what is this “thing” behind my bike??
We found a place to stay the night from Pyhäjoki, but not from the “city”. It was a bed n breakfast place 7kms away from the village (Puttaan Kartano)
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Ok… Pyhäjoki village is not very big, we found only 1 pizzeria where we could have something to eat. And after eating we went to the beach to check how sea looks up here.
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Sea was quite ordinary but my wife is very special and beautiful!
And this is a video that she made of this day 13:

The route for the day 13 was like this:

Tour around Finland Day 11

Posted by gozamite on 30.8.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, gravel road, helmetcamera, Lapland, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, motorcycling, S1000XR, Video. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This was the day when we started our way “back home”. It was only “downhill” from here untile we will reach the Helsinki-area. But luckily there was still many nice places to see…
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This picture is from the beginning of this road (Road to Kalkkoaivi). I didn’t have the time to check the whole route and I also had the very unlucky experiences of having the flat tire few days ago… So I only checked how it looks from the beginning.
After quite many kilometers we finally made a stop to check Äkäsmylly. It’s still operational watermill in Lapland wilderness! We though it was very beautiful place.
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Pitty it was very HOT day (+32 celsius) and we didn’t want to sweat our clothes totally wet so we walked back to the bike quite soon and continued riding.
Next stop was after quite long gravelroad-ride!

In the Pakasaivo -lake the water doesn’t change! There are no rivers or creeks that comes or goes from it! There’s also a special Lappish mythology that says it’s a place for the dead… So even it was very hot day we didn’t want to go down there and swim because we thought the place was little bit scary! (And because we were 50 meters higher than the lake surface!)
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After this it wasn’t too long to our hotel. This time we were lucky! It wasn’t the best possible season for skiing so we got the room from very nice hotel (with spa) and it was quite cheap! Just when we were arriving at the hotel when we saw this:
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This was kind of shocking… when you have this beautiful image on your mind about cute reindeers who are helping the santa claus and walking around lapland wilderness… And here she was peeing almost in the middle of the road making the pavement wet!! Yaiks!
We spent the night in Lapland hotel Saaga with this view:
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And my wife made a video about this day:

The route for this day was like this:

Tour around Finland Day 4

Posted by gozamite on 7.8.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Extreme ride, gravel road, helmetcamera, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, motorcycling, S1000XR. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

After very nice breakfast we chose the road that goes over Kuurna dam.
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There’s not too many places in Finland where you can ride over the dam that’s why it’s quite nice to ride here. Then we continued to the north and we were riding on the westside of Lake Pielinen until we stopped at Pirunkirkko (Devils Church). These caves are 34 meters deep and even 7 meters high (but actually it’s not a cave -it’s just a crack in the rock).
23392_oVery close to this cave is one of the most famous views in Finland: Koli!
Koli is a hill just beside the lake and the elevation is more than 200 meters from the lake surface to the top of the hill. Luckily we had perfect clear weather to check these views!
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This is called “The National landscape” but I think it’s little bit misleading. I would understand that The National landscape means something very typical Finnish view… But this is quite special and NOT typical at all! But on the other hand I feel quite proud standing up there and I’m thinking “This is my home country!” So maybe it is a good thing that we call it “The National Landscape”!
Then there was quite a lot of riding to Nurmes and to the house of Bomba.
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Here we had a short break and we continued riding to Kuhmo and still to Iivantiira.
On the southside of Kuhmo there is many places in the forest (and beside the road) that are kind of museum about “Winter war” in Kuhmo. We stopped at one of them and walked around a little bit.
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About 10km’s north from Iivantiira I had a flat rear tire! It was a gravelroad but quite in good condition… It seems that I just had very bad luck that one sharp stone found its way to make hole in my tire!!! This happened about here!
I had the repair kit to fix the tire but I was suspicious -it will not hold! There was one local guy who stopped and said he has the kompressor at his home (with Pressure gauge) and he can pick it up. I had only 3 small bottles of pressure air in this repair kit so I was sure I will need more air to have the correct pressure! These 3 bottles make only about 0,5 bar so I was very lucky that I got this air kompressor and I could fill the tire! After maybe 45 minutes of fixing we were riding again…
But not for a long! Maybe after 20 km’s and the tire was flat again!
I fixed it again and I got “normal hand pump” from another local guy.
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This one didn’t have a pressure gauge… But I think I got the pressure quite ok just by checking it with my “sensitive hands”!
After 30 minutes we were riding again… But not for long!
I felt how the tire was getting empty all the time! The bike felt like it was “wobbling” all over the road and I had already made the decision that we will leave the bike there and we will take a taxi to the nearest camping area… So I stopped the bike, took the bags away from the bike and ordered the taxi. We were about 28 kilometers away from Suomussalmi.
While we were waiting for the taxi my wife started to listen to the tire… If there was this quiet sound of air coming out from the tire? But there wasn’t! And there was still some air in the tire! I checked how the bike felt without the bags… and it wasn’t so terrible!
So very fast decision: Cancel the taxi-order, put the bags back to the bike and try to ride as far as we can… And we did all this 28 kilometers!!! I step out from the bike, walked inside to the reception-house (in the camping area) and while I was there paying for the cabin the tire finally gave up! With a loud “farting-sound” all the air came out from the tire and ofcourse the bike fell to the right side…
Luckily I had my new bags (SW Motech Trax) and they are aluminium. So no holes to the bags and no marks of any kind in my bike!
I only needed to hit the small dents away with the hammer. This I did few days later…
I didn’t take any stress about finding a new tire, The camping area was so beautiful so We just enjoyed the sunset in The Campingarea of Kiantajärvi.
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And my bike was waiting for the next day:
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Wife made a video about this day. This time it was in 2 parts, part 1:

And part 2:

The route for the day 4 was like this:

Tour around Finland Day 2

Posted by gozamite on 31.7.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, gravel road, helmetcamera, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, motorcycling, S1000XR. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

The day started with a littlebit of rain. The road was wet and there were clouds in the sky. We stopped anyway in the museum bridge of Virransalmi.
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From Tuustaipale to north we had first gravelroad about 19 kilometers and because of rain there were parts with soft surface… almost like mud. In the video you can see how it can be…
Kissakoski was the place where we stopped and walked around.
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Then we stopped for a short break in Hirvensalmi.
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And for a little bit longer break in Mikkeli to check the observation tower of Naisvuori.
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It had already stopped raining and the roads were already dry. So the rest of the day it was cloudy and warm. From Mikkeli we took the roads to east. And from the gravelroad near Anttola we found nice quarry.
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And soon it was about the time to take the “private” ferry over the Lake Saimaa and I also took my drone up to the sky to make a video when the ferry was about to enter to the pier:

The ride over the lake was so relaxing! The lake was calm without any waves and the beautiful archipelago all around us made us feel that this is a fairytale.
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We still had some riding to do after this. First is was this nice paved road in the middle of Lake Saimaa:

We went to Puumala to have a pizza. There was quite interesting tent in the middle of the willage:
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There was 1 more quite nice road and a yellow ferry (These yellow ferries are for free in Finland) before we arrived to our destination.
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The place we were about to sleep was quite terrible. Luckily it was also cheap.
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Here is the video about this day made by my wife:

Here is the route for day 2:

Tour around Finland Day 1

Posted by gozamite on 29.7.2018
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, BMW, BMW motorrad, gravel road, Make life a ride!, Moottoripyöräily, motocaching, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, S1000XR, summertime. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

My holiday this year was about making tour around my beautiful home country: Finland.
I haven’t been in in the north part of the country since 2011 so it’s really a time to do this. And I have new tires in my XR so I can try also the gravelroads with my bike. This time I also have my wife with me so it will be very heavy load! (450kg)
This pic is from the first stop that we did in Vanhankylänniemi (this link only in Finnish) and mansion. But it was only a short stop.

rremThen we stopped at the old ironworks area in Kellokoski. There’s been quite a lot of renovations going on lately and it’s starting to look pretty nice place.
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Next stop was at the Tönnö Museum Bridge in Orimattila. This is built/ open in 1911.
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Then in the north side of Nastola we stopped at the Cafe of old Mill in Immilä. This is very beautiful place with the rapids just beside the area.
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We also checked the old industrial heritage site “Verla”. This was a carbon factory from 1872 until 1952. Now it is a museumarea with very nice buildings and nature.
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Verla is also Unesco World Heritage site since 1996.
It started raining a little bit but it was very warm, so still we checked the Elving observation tower which was built in 1907. It is 20m high and the view would be totally amazing if it would be clear weather. Even now it was very nice!
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The night we slept in a small cabin at Orilammen majat.
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My wife made a video about this first day:

The route for Day 1:

Trans Euro Trail

Posted by gozamite on 17.7.2018
Posted in: adventure, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, KTM, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, Off-Road. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Trans Euro Trail is an epic motorcycle journey through some of Europe’s most remote, diverse and inspirational landscapes. I’m proud to tell that now the TET Finland is updated and I’m the one to blame about the most southern part (From Espoo to Hämeenlinna).
So all you enduro and adventure riders it’s ok to download the track from TET-site and go riding and having fun!
You can find the track here.
It looks like this: