This day was about turning back… But only after we would first ride quite far away north to Raippaluoto. We made a quick visit in Botniaring (racetrack) and rode through Jurva (city or village?). But soon it was time to turn to gravelroad!
At the end of this “offroad” ride there was a nice small observation tower of “Rajavuori”
Then we rode to Vaasa, it’s one of the oldest cities in Finland. There was old church but it burned in 1852 -Now there is only ruins.
From Vaasa we rode to Raippaluoto and to go there you have to ride over this very nice bridge!
Here in Raippaluoto we wanted to check another observation tower in Saltkaret.
This is quite amazing place if it is clear weather and if you will climb to the top of the tower!
From Raippaluoto we rode little bit more east so that we wouldn’t have to ride the same roads back home.
Before we arrived to Seinäjoki we took a short stop at Ylistaro church -the third biggest church in Finland!
And after putting all our stuff to hotelroom we went swimming (Yes it is 11th of May and it is very early for swimming in Finland!)
But it had been so nice weather already many days and the water was actually very warm in Kyrkösjärvi!
The route for day 3 was like this:
gravel road
In january I sold my KTM. Now I Have new bike that I will use in gravel and dirtroads:
This Triumph Street Twin is going to be also a bike that my wife can (or will) use if she ever will have the licence. We tried quite many bikes and this was the best bike for her.
I thought I can use this same bike in my endurorides if I only will change the tyres.
Now I’m only hoping that the spring will come soon… Now we still have snow on the ground and temperature below zero…
By the way, motocaching.net is growing fast! We have now 3000 caches (rides) to be found. All over the world, all continents, 72 countries and more is coming all the time!
Since my XR is is not with me I had to make the last rides of the season 2017 with my KTM. And since I’m a married man nowadays I needed to add the passengers footpegs and go for a 2-up-ride. It’s quite crazy thing to do with this KTM 690 Enduro -but it wasn’t so bad after all!
First we stopped at small pond in the forest. You can’t see it from this picture but it actually has a little bit ice on the surface!
This was in the beginning of november and we already had some snow here and there!
But the nature is still very beautiful and it calms your mind to ride in the middle of Finnish forest.
This is Sjunby Castle and rapids in Siuntio. We visited grocery store hear nearby and bought some sausages to grill them on the Sandfjärden beach in Kopparnäs.
This time of the year there’s no-one else in these places so we really enjoyed our time!
After a couple of hours it was time to ride back home. The darkness comes so early! But we still had some nice places to stop and take pictures!
My wife had 1 very important job while sitting on the backseat of KTM! She had be the rearfender and take all the water-mud-dirt to her back. I think she did quite well!!
And then it was the laundry time!
Yes, after 9 weeks I finally thought I can try. Neck and back didn’t feel too bad and I had my KTM ready and fixed back home so lets go!
This is kind of my favorite place now! It’s very near and you can always take a good picture here (Just beside Espoonkartano).
I had the idea NOT to ride any offroad parts… but when I noticed a new trail in place I didn’t see before I just had to go there…
I can tell now it wasn’t a good idea!! Because next night I had much more pain almost everywhere and I suffered a lot while I was sleeping!
But it is autumn now. I fould a huge stack of pink hay bale and they looked weird.
It was a great day for a ride so it was nice to take pictires in beautiful places!
It is still easy to find place where you don’t see the autumn colours… But then again if you find some mapletrees you can really see the autumn is here!
But after this weekend I can say that maybe it’s not the right time yet. My back still hurts and becouse I can’t stay away from offroad parts it’s better to wait.
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!
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:
Yesterday it was local Ducati dealers season start with the possibility to take a ride with new models of 2017. I was interested mainly about this new Desert Sled and its OffRoad possibilities.
But the bike is big! When you sit on it, you’ll not feel it could be an easy ride in a difficult surface. It is also very heavy bike! It’s over 200kg with gasoline in the tank. And with roadsize tyres it could not be enjoyable ride in a rocky or very soft (soil & mud) surface!
Riding in the streets with it the experience is much more nice! The engine has nice power from the low rpm and the suspension is nicely stiff even with the heavy guy like me.
The same suspension feels too tight in the offroad and it has no settings to change.
The bike has tyres that gives you an idea that it would be a nice ride in unpaved roads. And it could be like that as long as the road is in good condition. The worse the surface of the road gets more uncomfortable this bike is (I think). The whole bike is more like a show off to your friends and other riders -so that they could think you’re somekind of real adventure rider. But you’re not.
Engine is soft and it has no soul. Where’s the spirit of Ducati V2???
RallyRaid products makes nice additional tanks for KTM 690 Enduro. I bought one for my bike last autumn but it took too long for me install this to my bike. Now I finally did it!
At first I removed the rear fairing… As you can see my bike is totally dirty!
Then I needed to empty the fueltank, so I needed to lift the airfilter box a little bit up so I could detach the fuelpipe.
Then using the bikes own fuelpump I removed the fuel. I had too much gasoline in my tank (about 8 litres!)
When the tank is empty I could start to remove the fuelpump from the bottom of the tank.
I only needed to take the pump out from the tank, remove the wires and then I could add this fuel connector adapter to the bottom of the fuelpump.
Then I needed to drill the holes to rear fairing (18mm) and start install the rear rack. This rack has the new bolts that will go throught the holes in the fairing for the proper installation.
After the rack is installed it’s time for the additional tank itself.
I was lucky with my miniblinkers that I installed last autumn. They are in perfect position and I didn’t have to change anything!
My bike is missing the passenger footrests so I needed to make an contemporary ironbar to keep the the tank still.
Here the bike is ready:
But still very dirty… So finally I washed the bike!
And finally I got the chance to test my bags I bought last autumn. These are from Poland (check: http://www.xcountry.pl). I will also try these in real action and I will make tours that will take many days!
I can’t wait to hit the gravelroads and tracks!
Last sunday it was three KTM 690 Enduro bikes testing the forestpaths in Kirkkonummi and Siuntio. The roads are mostly dry but the forest has much more shadowplaces and it means more snow and ice!
The first video is a track I found last summer… But in the summertime it’s too wet, now it’s mostly ice:
I fell through the ice there and it’s not easy to move the bike away from the hole with the boots that has no grip! But I did it…
Second video is a ride near aluminium factory in Pikkala:
And third video is a very nice track under the powerline between Karskog and Evitskog:
I did not have any spikes in my tires so for me it was very slippery and I had to be very careful!
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!
GoZa Mite 