We don’t have a lockdown in Finland. We are allowed to go out but meetings with more than 10 people is not ok. There was only 4 of us in a beautiful sunny weather and almost +10 degrees celsius. This time I didn’t choose any difficult tracks… and I finally made a video of this interesting route:
Old railroad track
This was a narrow railroad in Finland and it stopped working in 1967. But the track has stayed and it’s kind of in use as a road. But for example now in spring it can be tricky if there is still snow (and there was!!) Unluckily my riding ended with the flat front tyre in Karkkila (65 km’s from home).
I was lucky that there was one big bike (KTM 1090 Adventure) so I could take a ride with him back home and then I picked my bike with my big car…
Here are the most interesting new bikes (my opinion):
1. Suzuki V-Strom 1050 New V-Strom has design that reminds a lot the old DR 800 (and 750) adventure-bike from 80’s and 90’s. Now it has 1037cc V-Twin engine with 107 HP.
V-Strom 1050
2. BMW F900R & F900XR 1 year ago BMW brought new 850cc engine and now they made it even bigger! This new parallel-twin gives 105 HP and XR version makes nice small brother for the S1000XR adventure bike!
F900RF900XR
3. Ducati Streetfighter V4 Ducati is now officially “the king of naked bikes”. This amazing bike has 208 HP and the bike weights only 180kg!! You can update the exhaust and the bike will have even 220 HP!!!
4. Harley Davidson Livewire HD makes a big surprise for quite many! It is bringing full electric bike with very reasonable price!! You can ride more than 200 km’s with one charge. And it’s totally silent.
BMW Motorrad made a quite big miracle when no-one shared any pictures about new model. So it was first time for all of us on November 5th 10 am when they released the new models: BMW S1000XR, BMW F900XR and BMW F900R. Here is the video of BMW Motorrad Press Conference at EICMA 2019.
First time for everyone to see the new models
There was few surprises in technical specs of the new XR. It has the same engine than the new RR has but does not have the Shift Cam technology. I asked about this from BMW Motorrad and they answered like this: “Hi Gozamite. There will be no ShiftCam technology. Above all, since this technology offers great possibilities for achieving maximum engine performance, the use of a ShiftCam has no advantages due to the specific demands on the full midrange power curve in the XR engine. In addition, additional weight could be saved in this way, which benefits the agility of the entire vehicle.“
BMW S1000XR (Red color with Carbon details)
Second surprise was that even the bike has new engine it doesn’t have more power than previous model! The consumption is also about the same. So for all those who were waiting much more powerful bike this is a big disappoinment!
S1000XR (Ice Grey color with carbon details)
But the new model looks very nice. I don’t like the color options too much. So I’m thinking I will not change to this yet…. But you never know, maybe I can’t say no when I will see the bike in february in Helsinki.
Triumph brought totally new models with 1200 twin engine. It has nice 90 hp -which doesn’t sound much but in this kind of bike it’s more than enough.
rrem
Even I didn’t have real knubble tires I felt the calling! “Go to the gravel! Go to the forest!” -It was shouting… And I did.
This is bike is definitely at home when riding in gravel!
It’s totally the best bike that I have ever been riding in the gravelroad! It is too heavy to take Off-Road but I don’t really miss that anymore. The seat should be softer and it should have better design. I could feel my ass wouldn’t like this after 200km’s!
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!
On august 17th I bought a new enduro bike! This time I chose BMW G650 XChallenge! It has the same 1-cylinder 650ccm Rotax-engine than in many many other bikes. It is known to be very trustful and you don’t have to make service all the time.
I rode the bike from Lappeenranta to home and I really was enjoying enduroriding again!
During this autumn I’ve been riding few times with friends also and I’ve had videocamera with me. Here are some nice videos:
This was 2nd of september. We were riding mostly quite big roads/ easy roads so everyone could join the ride!
The roads in Kiikala area are very nice!! You really can enjoy the speed and essence of Finnish nature and adventure motorcycling!
This one is from Vihti/ Karkkila/ Lohja area (Rausjärvi). It is also a part of Trans Euro Trail route that I planned last spring. In this video there is a scary moment in 06:45 when a car comes from the yard straight in front of me! Luckily I had enough time to ride aside!
In the end of september we had a little bit different ride. This time mostly OffRoad. This was already in the beginning of the day… The most difficult parts! I can say that I was sweating like a pig… or a horse!
This path is quite well known route in Vihti. Not too difficult, almost quite ok for ordinary roadbike too.
This is one sandpit near Lohja. There is also nice small pond and we are riding around it two times.
And the last route is an old railroad (without rails) in Pikkala. The railroad was built by Russians when the area was part of Russia after the WWII.
In this video there is short break to take pictures under the bridge and then riding over the log. This log is not that difficult anymore…
(In Finnish: Puumalan Saaristoreitti)
I’ve started my holiday tour 2 days ago. I hope I will have more time to write about details and routes but in this update I want to share this:
My drone finally arrived from service and I got this video made yesterday!
This is ferry “Norppa II” and it takes bicycles and motorcycles and makes a ride in the lake Saimaa. Even it wasn’t the best possible weather it was still quite amazing. The beautiful archipelago of Saimaa made me forget even about riding for awhile… I was just sitting on the deck and enjoying the views and summer breeze.
(Sorry for all international readers: This is only in Finnish!)
Moottoripyora.org nimistä keskustelufoorumia ylläpitävä motorg ry (jonka jäsen olen ollut 7 vuotta) lataa pöytään melko hienon jutun tänä vuonna! Sinulla on mahdollisuus moottoripyöräillä ilmaiseksi!
Muutaman ehdon kuitenkin motorg ry asettaa. Ensimmäinen ja kaikkein tärkein on se että sinun pitäisi olla motorg ry:n jäsen. Jäseneksi pääsee maksamalla jäsen- ja liittymismaksun (yhteensä 45€). Samalla lunastat itsellesi paljon muitakin etuja sekä mainion sosiaalisen yhteisön kanavat moneen suuntaan hienon harrastuksen parissa.
Motorg ry on hankkinut omistukseensa moottoripyörän jota saavat yhdityksen jäsenet lainata käyttöönsä ilmaiseksi! Pyörän nimi on MotOrgBike.
Pyörä on Kawasaki er-6n ja ns. “täysitehoinen”, eli sillä ajaminen vaatii A-ajokortin. Lisäksi motorg ry on asettenut muitakin ehtoja pyörän lainaamiseen:
– Laina-aika pääsääntöisesti 1-2 vrk.
– ensisijaisesti niille joilla ei ole omaa moottoripyörää
– ensisijaisesti niille jotka haluavat osallistua Ajotaito 2 -koulutukseen motorg-ratapäivänä
– Lisäksi toivotaan aktiivista sosiaalisen median käyttöä mp:n laina aikana, eli kuvia on otettava ja niitä on julkaistava halutuilla kanavilla!
Moottoripyora.org foorumille tullaan perustamaan keskusteluketju mihin kuka tahansa motorg-jäsen voi kirjoittaa hakemuksensa, eli vapaamuotoisen kirjoituksen tarpeestaan ko. moottoripyörän lainaamiseksi. Motorg hallitus käsittelee hakemukset oman harkintansa mukaan.
Motorg ry suhtautuu pyörän pieniin naarmuihin ja vaurioihin lainaajan kannalta anteeksiantavasti. Pakollisista korjauksista saattaa lainaajan lompakko hieman ohentua mutta maksimissaan täyskaskon omavastuun (500€) verran.
Pyörä pitää tietenkin palauttaa tankattuna samaan paikkaan mistä se on lainattu.
Alkukaudesta pyörän sijainti tulee olemaan Tampereella ja loppukaudesta ilmeisesti Helsingissä. Kauden jälkeen pyörä tullaan myymään huutokaupalla josta saaduilla rahoilla motorg ry maksaa 2000€:n yli menevät roposet hyväntekeväisyyteen.
Maksamalla siis motorg ry:n jäsenmaksun sinulla on mahdollisuus kokeilla ilmaiseksi moottoripyöräilyä! Sinun ei tarvitse ostaa omaa pyörää, eikä vuokrata. Sinun ei myöskään tarvitse maksaa kalliita vakuutusmaksuja tai huoltoja. Kannattaisko kokeilla? UUTINEN
New Top Box will be Kappa KGR 46. This box has nice design even it is kind of “normal box”. With this box I had some troubles with delivery… I made the order from ebay from Italian company. But when they told it is on the way the tracking was never working!
And finally the box arrived after more than 5 weeks of waiting!
This goes straight to the monokey platform that I already presented in part 1.
I hope there will be enough space for all my stuff!
GoZa Mite 