I went for Åland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Poland. I’m making videos for each day of riding.
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
Day 5:
Day 6:
Day 7:
Day 8:
Day 9:
Days 10 & 11:
Motorcycle Tour
This is a big deal for me! I’m almost crying here at home as I sit down for the last night before my trip.
The last time I was on a long mc-trip with my ex-wife was in summer 2019. Then we’ drove’re riding 3 weeks to Croatia and back. It was a very good trip and I definitely thought even then that I should go again! Now I can.
Last summer I was trying but didn’t make it. That trip had to last at least a few more days than it did.
And it ended due to technical problems with the bike.
And when I finally got that rear shock working properly last fall so that it could handle longer trips, I started thinking and planning a longer trip in the winter.
At first it was in my mind that if it would be north again… But then I started to think all these places and things that are close to Finland. And made them as a bucket list for myself. So it turned into the plan and tomorrow morning I’m leaving to make this plan to come true.
For the first time in 6 years, a long bike ride is coming (Baltic Edge Adventure)!
(Hopefully there will be no problems with the bike)
It feels like the days are exremely long and time is passing by very slowly for me.
But luckily I have few things I need to do for my bike before the midsummer festival and the monday after that weekend. Early morning on that day I will start my Adventure!
I will call it “Baltic Edge Adventure” and I even made my own introduction for the videos that I will publish from that trip. Here’s the intro video:
YouTubers from UK decided to ride TET Finland! They have 30k followers in their channel.
I started to follow them in the spring when Martha was about to get her licence for the big bikes. Then it was maybe in April when my Messenger had some questions from Mitch and about TET Finland. And It was actually quite close that we didn’t meet each other around Midsummer when I was riding in the north myself! I think it was Sunday when they were doing the Alta old post road and for me and my friends it was tuesday!
This is actually the first time when someone is doing a full series (10 episodes) of YouTube videos about TransEuroTrail Finland and I think the movies are very good!! First episode here:
They have also very nice instagram channel: Jammy Gits
On the last days befere my “big adventure” I changed the tires to my bike. Metzeler MC 360 Mid Hard was already pretty much gone from the front. Rear had still about 5-6mm of knobby.
New tires were Heidenau K60 and they were quite perfect for me in this situation!
Then started packing:
I was very happy about the size of all the luggage! Even I decided to take my tent and camping mattress with me (and I didn’t need them!) I was ready for my biggest adventure so far.
First leg was to ride to Helsinki and put my bike to the train (Helsinki – Kolari). And after 15 hours in the train I was far north in Lapland!
Day 2 was about continuing the section 41 to east and then turning to section 4 to noth.
The route for the day was like this:
After I started following the TET route I came almost right away to Strömfors.
And then quite soon the TET route was mostly about very nice forest roads! Just before the route goes to the south side of Highway 7 there is this:
Yes we have toilet for TET riders! Actually I don’t know why they are there in the middle of forest?? The video of the day is here:
DAY 1: Just by random I was checking prices for midsummer night from booking.com.
And from Ylöjärvi I found place to stay… with bed, toilet, shower and basic kitchen stuff with 39€ when all the other places were something like 150-200€. So friday morning I started riding!
This was very early in the morning. First I was heading to Kylmäkoski -to the same place where I started checking TET Finland Section 2 update 1 week ago. But back then I was checking it from Kylmäkoski to south. Now I was planning to take the route north towards Sastamala and Hämeenkyrö.
And of course I made a video of the first day ride!
The route wasn’t as good as the route south from Kylmäkoski but it wasn’t too bad. I accept!
DAY 2: The place where I was sleeping used to be a school “Voionmaan opisto”. The room was pretty perfect with the toilet, shower and basic stuff for kitchen. And yes -the price was 39€ for midsummer night!
There was a slight risk of rain and thunder in the afternoon so I decided to take a shorter and faster route back home. I still saw some amazing places!
I also mad a video of the second day ride!
The routes that I was riding were like this (blue was the one on friday and red on sunday):
Next time I will do wild camping also!! I tried couple years ago and my back didn’t like it. Lets see how it will go now…
Officially you can check the different section numbers from TET Atlas.
https://atlas.transeurotrail.org/
Remember these previews are not necessarily correct.
The Sections will have updates after this!
Section 01
Our “Main Section” That goes from Helsinki to Norway. This Section has the most variation in landscape and in different road types.
Section 02
This section starts from Renko and connects back to section 1 in Kuusamo. Section 2 has some interesting historical landmarks and nice technical part in the north before Kuusamo.
Section 03
Section 3 is from Turku to Enontekiö goes in the most western parts Of the country. There are some nice technical parts between Raahe and Oulu.
Section 04
Section from Vaalimaa to Raate road. This section goes very close to Russian border and you will probably meet the border patrol. You need to be careful that you have enough gasoline after Lieksa.
Section 05
Section in southwest Finland. Has some nice technical parts.
Section 06
Section from the eastside of Helsinki to north.
Section 07
Section starts from the westside of Taivalkoski and it ends to the most northern point of EU.
Section 08
Section in the “Middle of Finland”. Some nice technical parts and soft sand.
Section 09
Section between sections 01 & 02 (from the lake Ala-Luosta to the Lake Oulu)
Section 10
From East to west with Thousands of lakes…
Section 11
Section to Niekka Hill
Section 12
Section between sections 03 & 02 (Pudasjärvi, Taivalkoski). It has one manual ferry!
Section 13
Section “Lättis”. The most famous motocafe.
Section 14
Section from Helsinki to Vaalimaa.
Section 15
Section between 3 and 2 (from Siikainen to Hämeenkyrö)
Section 16
Section between sections 02 & 03 (from Kinnula to Eskola)
Section 17
The sections has updates all the time so remember to Download the latest GPX before you go to the TET. The right place to download the GPX file is transeurotrail.org/finland
On saturday I hade a meeting in Lahti so I started planning the route to ride there. The spring was already so far that there was no ice and snow anymore except in few places. But I could ride through from all the places and I didn’t turn back anywhere.
Here was my route to Lahti:
It was all together almost 300 kilometers for saturday. And it was really nice route and very enjoyable ride! I visited one friend in Orimattila to sleep the night there.
Here’s the video from Day 1:
On sunday I first did a ride to Mankala Power Plant and from there I turned “back home”.
But the route was about checking the Section 6 of TransEuroTrail Finland that I will share later.
That turned out to be very nice route also!! Even less ice and snow than on saturday.
I’m sorry but I’m not sharing the picture of the route because it will be published later in TET.
Here’s the video from Day 2:
The best picture of the weekend is from sunday. This really made me smile!
I hope I will have a chance to do more these kind of longer trips this year!! I really enjoyed this so much.
I made myself an intro that I will start to use in all of my motorcycling videos!
I’m not a graphic designer so I just put a search word to Google
“Free animations” and downloaded the first one that looked good to me.
Then I added music from my favorite band Tangerine Dream. It’s the first notes from the track called
“Kiew Mission” from the album Exit.
Here is my Intro that you will be seeing many times from now on:
I hope you like it!! Or at least don’t find it irritating!
GoZa Mite 