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!
helmetcamera
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!)
The temperature went down for easter! It was something like -5 during the night and didn’t go up more than close to zero in the daytime. But still we desided to take a ride!
This is my first time to the top of the sandpit wall! I’ve tried it maybe two times before in this place, but now finally I made it!
In this same video I almost fell in good speed because the ground is frozen and I loose control of the rear wheel! You can see this in 09:35.
The second video is from Rausjärvi:
This same road I rode a day before and it was much more soft. Now the cold weather and the frozen ground made it quite easy.
Third video is a fast gravelroad from Ahonpää (Nummi-Pusula) to Antiainen (Karkkila):
Next video is 4 bikes going over the stream in Lammassaari:
I also made a short video to IG just a few minutes before:
And for the last I was shooting a video when my battery died, this was in Karkkila:
And finally one of my friends had a helmetcamera too and he desided to make a collection from yesterday. This is fun to watch!
Thanks Ville for the video!!
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!
Today I took a ride with some best paths I know nearby. Temperature was +3 c but I had enough clothes and didn’t feel cold at all.
Here’s some videos from todays rides:
This path is only 7km’s away from my home!
In this path I meet some moosehunters but they say that they’re on the break so it’s no problem that I’m riding here…
Here I take a detour to the forest.
These paths goes very near to Turku higway and under it.
The longest video I took today. With some quite hard part in 17:00.
This is from the sand-pit in Ojakkala.
Here in 03:10 I try to make a jump from the small sand-pit but I fail. Then I’ll try to do it again, still too slow speed but I made it all the way up.
This is mainly gravel, with a shortcut path to another gravel…
This is a sandpit very near to Myllylampi (Vihti) and then a path just beside a railroad.
Again a sandpit (This one is in Lohja) and there’s a motocross track too. After that some forestroad with nice speed.
This is a nice path under the powerline.
And another path under the powerline.
Then finally some paths very close to my home.
Finnish magazine (Bomber Magazine) takes KTM 1290 SD GT for a test. The main things they wanted to test were wheelies, drifting and braking with rearwheel up! Like this:
Day 18 was a little bit different than other days. We actually had a place to visit and it was going to take at least 1,5 hours. Here’s the route for day 18.
This was a break in a small city of Großköllnbach.
I took only 5 photos before we arrived to Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald where we took a walk in a special path or a Sky-Walk in 8-25 meters above the ground among the treetops.
So we rode 300 km’s and we walked 1300 meters.
Here’s entering the Sky-Walk:
I have a fear of heights. In my case it means that I’m not afraid but my body reacts strongly when I’m high! My stomach goes upside down, I’ll start to feel dizzy, my legs feels weak and I might even fall down when loosing all the strength from the legs. I’ve also fainted 2 times when I was young.
So this Sky-Walk wasn’t easy for me (in the beginning!) I felt pretty unsure and unbalanced but slowly it became easier.
At the end of the Sky-Walk there is a wooden tower with a spiral-path to the top. It is 44m high and ofcourse the view from the top is simply amazing!! (Even we had quite cloudy weather)
I’m not sure if we spent 1,5 or 2 hours in the path but it was quite special experience! I really would recommend it to visit in some of quite many Sky-Walks in Europe (In Finland we have non!)
Couple hours later we arrived in our place to stay in Czech Republic and during the last hour it had started raining…
Day 19
In the night it didn’t stop raining and we had a hard day ahead of us! It was raining all day! The rain was hard and heavy! Maria’s new waterproof riding shoes gave up after 30 minutes (the water came inside the boots!) My boots were a little bit better (It took about 5 hours when the water started to get in).
(Here is some news about the rain in Poland that day!)
We had 475 kilometers route including riding through Prague (That was actually one of the very few “Not so bad part of the day!”) After Prague there was a bad traffic jam in the highway and Maria and I got lost from eachother!
I tried to wait for her in some gas station every now and then but i just didn’t wait long enough! When she took a break it took a really long time for her to find the mood to continue riding! When we finally found eachother she had to have at least 30 minutes break… or maybe even 1 hour! But she is a fighter! She knew we had to continue so she did… And somewhere after we crossed the border to Poland she said “Let’s ride all the way to the end!!!”
It was almost dark and about 8.30 PM when we arrived to our destination, the small city of Bojanovo and very nice Villa Aurora. She had a big portion of Polish duck as a dinner and in the bed the blanket was thick!
So in the morning everything was ok again (even the shoes were still wet!)
This was the worst day ever of riding for me too!
Here’s our house in Villa Aurora where we slept after this hard day… in the morning it was easy to load all the stuff in to the bike. They were right in front of the door!
