Motorcycle Tour

Nice Trip (Day 3)

Posted by gozamite on 22.11.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, Mountain Road, Video. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

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 +4
Autumn 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:


The route for this day was like this:

Tour around Finland Day 16

Posted by gozamite on 16.9.2018
Posted in: adventure, Make life a ride!, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, S1000XR, videocamera. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This is the last day of our tour around Finland. We didn’t try to follow borders as close as possible. It just came like this… We went north from the east side and came back from the west side. We tried to check nice places on our way but certainly there was many places that we didn’t see. So there will be many nice spots to visit in the future.
Quite soon after we started riding we had this road. The route has a very nice ridgeroad going through small lakes 2 times! These are very beautiful places to make short stop and take pictures.
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These pictures are from Rantalansärkkä wich is the more beautiful one… or at least it is easier to stop the bike there.
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When we arrived to Ruovesi area we rode to the forest. With this bike and this load (maybe around 450kg’s) it’s not easy to ride on the forestroads if there is soft sand. We found this interesting “monument” or a memorial sign anyway.
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They put the sign because some war-veterans were planting this forest long time ago (I think it was 1972).
Couple hours later we took a short walk in the museum-bridge in Teisko.
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It’s called Aunessilta. It’s nowadays for walking only. Usually here you can see also some boats.
Then we checked one of the most famous place to have a coffeebreak (for motorcycle riders). It’s the Vehoniemi car-museum and cafeteria. This is located in a beatiful high ridge in Kangasala. The place is more than 40 meters higher than the lakesurface just beside the ridge! There is also a viewingtower.
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After this we didn’t make any stops anymore… We just ride back home!
Video of this day made by my wife:

The route for the last day was like this:

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 6

Posted by gozamite on 12.8.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, DJI Mavic, Drone, Make life a ride!, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, S1000XR, summertime, touringbike. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

We started the morning wit a short walk around the Ruka “city-area”. The streets were empty and weather was already very warm! There is a small pond just in the front of the hotels and skiing area.
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After breakfast we packed tha bike once again and started the ride from Ruka to Kiutaköngäs. Even this is not a long way there is still one very nice road (and rare in northern Finland) with low bending corners. This Juumantie is very nice ride in this area and I recommend to ride it even if you are not going to the rapids.
To see the rapids it is maybe wiser to change your riding gear to hiking gear. There is about 1km walk to the rapids… but after you find them you will probably walk quite a lot more to see everything and you might even climb or at least take the more difficult paths!
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It’s vey rare that the water level is so low here! Normally you wouldn’t see any rocks in the middle of the rapids.
It took maybe about 2 hours for us to check the Kiutaköngäs -rapids.
We continued riding north… and went over the Polar Circle! (In Hautajärvi) Here they don’t make so big number about the Polar Circle even it is quite remarkable “line in the map” when you think about the nights and the sun (summer or winter).
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In Salla -village we stopped for a little while to check the nice church (built in 1950).
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And from further north we found our place to stay… We chose the “lappish style” hut from Loma Joosula. We really enjoyed the place!
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We walked to a hotel nearby to enjoy the “real Lappish food” -The reindeer stew.
And in the evening when I was making a flight with my drone the host of this place recommended that he would like to have photos and video from this area and his place and if I would do it I could have my stay for free! And ofcourse I said “Yes!”
Here are few of the photos I took from this area: Google Album
My wife made a video about this day:

The route for the day 6 was like this:

Tour around Finland Day 5

Posted by gozamite on 10.8.2018
Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, motorcycling, S1000XR. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

We woke up in our small cabin 7 meters away from the lake (we measured the distance last evening!) and ate some breakfast that we bought from the grocery yesterday. The morning was very beautiful!
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I had at least 2 possible persons/ shops who might have motorcycle tires to sell. After 8am I started to make the phonecalls. The first one answered about 8.30 and they told that they have one 180/55 R17 tire and also they could install it to my bike in the morning! I knew right away that our tour will continue on the same day! But I wanted to check the other number too… Maybe I could have the tire with correct size?? (= 190/55 R17)
And about 1 hour later this other guy answered. First he said that they don’t have any tires… But then he asked “What size?” and after I told him the numbers he said that he has 190/50 (little bit lower than the correct size) because he owns Suzuki Hayabusa and he ordered new tires to his own bike earlier… but didn’t install them because Hayabusa was now little bit broken.
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He was also ready to install the tire to my bike about 1 hour later.
So I got new tire very fast and we were able to continue our trip!
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I made the reservation for the next night from a hotel not so far from Suomussalmi. We would stay the next night in Ruka (one of the biggest ski resorts in Finland).
On our way to Ruka we stopped only at Juntusranta birdtower…
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And at Hossa to enjoy some ice-cream…
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Then we were at Ruka! First we took a ride to the southside hilltop. From there you’ll have some very nice views almost all around!
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The view to the east is the most interesting because you know that Russia is there somewhere (not very far!)
Later in the evening we walked up to the northern hilltop, this would be 500 meters above sealevel! The views are very nice!
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There were few stairs to climb to the top (I think it was 338 steps…)
The room at the Hotel Arctic Zone was very Nice!
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And once again my wife made a nice video of this day:

The route for day 5 was like this:

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: