We took the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn on wednesday 29th of may. This was my first time with Eckeröline M/S Finlandia.
Helsinki, West harbour
The ferry arrived to Tallinn 5.30PM so we didn’t have time to visit many places or ride too far. But we did check something…
Muraste viewing platform
First was this viewing platform only about 23 kilometers west from harbour. Quite nice views to the Gulf of Finland!
Keila waterfall & park
Then we stopped at Keila Waterfall. There is very nice park in this area and you can easily spend 1 hour or more there. We enjoyed it very much!
We arrived to our place for the night around eight PM, so we still had time to check the restaurant nearby. We will not recommend this Günther kohvik to anyone!
Easter we spent in Imatra. Riding there was like this:
The nicest place to stop and look around was in Taavetti. There is an old fortress that was originally built in the end of 18th century.
In Imatra I had to take the picture of the famous “Valtionhotelli” (State Hotel)
Next day we did some riding near Imatra but also to the middle of Saimaa (The biggest lake of Finland)
This is from IRRC track. The Imatra IRRC is in June 14-16thVery nice (and old) Belltower in RuokolahtiSome war barricades in SyyspohjaAlone in the ferryThis is from Jäppilänniemi -very beautiful lake views!
On the day when we had to ride back it was quite cold so we chose mainly the big road when we started to feel too chilly. The way back to Helsinki was something like this:
At least I took 1 picture of 1 church (in Miehikkälä)
Here is the video compilation of the drone flights I made in Easter:
This time it was very interesting! There was so many new models it felt like there’s no time enough to get to know all of them. Luckily I’m not a big fan of sportbikes… So few bikes wasn’t so interesting to me.
1. KTM 790 Adventure Maybe the biggest group of interested viewers was around this bike. It’s no wonder. The bike looks very good! It has hew parallel twin engine that KTM introduced last year. The engine has little bit less power than in 790 Duke but of course the torque is better is all rpm’s. Bike has almost all possible electronics: traction control, cornering abs, offroad abs, ridemodes and so on. It has 20 litres tank that gives the bike easily more than 400 km’s range on the road. Tank is placed around the engine so the center of gravity is very low. Price for this bike is 18500€ in Finland!
Tank around engineIt was difficult to take pictures of this bike! There was so much people all around it all the time.
2. Yamaha 700 Tenere Another adventurebike but totally different kind of idea! This is simple, not too much electronics and it looks more ready for an OffRoad ride! It’s almost 6000€ cheaper than KTM! The final price is still open but they said it will not be more than 12800€! 200mm travel is not much but they’ve tested this bike quite long time so I guess they think it’s enough. 16 liters tank gives this bike more than 300 km’s range.
It should’ve been white-red bike in the show!But this look very good! It calls me to make an offroad ride right now!
3. BMW R1250GS And here is another adventurebike but yet again totally different kind of thinking. This is legend of all touring/ adventurebikes but now it has bigger engine, more power and torque and it’s again more expensive. It has simply everything you can ever imagine the bike could have… -Ok, no reverse gear or automatic gearbox but anyway. The price for adventure version is more than 31000€ in Finland
Big bike to make long rides and tours
4. Suzuki Katana Suzuki makes a nice return to interesting and “modern” bikes. But the funny thing is that the design is very retro when it is based on 80’s Katana. The engine they take from GSX-S1000F so it delivers very nice power and easy riding. And the way it looks it will always give strong feelings to all pure motorcyclists!
Katana
5. Triumph 1200 SpeedTwin Triumph presents new line with 1200 Twin engine. The bike still looks totally retro but the engine is now more like modern and sporty. It delivers 96 hp with 112Nm torque in 4950rpm. Compare this with T100 engine: 64hp and 80Nm in 3800rpm -you can say that there is a big difference.
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!
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:
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 +4Autumn 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:
