Off-Road

August rides

Posted by gozamite on 13.8.2022
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, BMW G650XChallenge, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, Finnish Nature, gravel road, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycling, Off-Road, TransEuroTrail, Video. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Surprisingly june and july were moths (in the middle of the summer) and there was almost no riding at all. But when august came… It was on again!
August started with “Tour de Karis” -kind of ride around this village where I live.

28 minutes video of riding in Karjaa – Snappertuna area

And quite soon again I was riding. This time to the north side of Raseborg city. I was especially interested about this road: Malmitie – Malmvägen. It looked interesting on the map and it turned out to be even better!! (in the video it’s from 4:45 to 09:15)

Malmvägen and some offroad

Then on 7th of august I did a ride with friend. That turned out to be excellent tour from Veikkola all the way to Kisko. Best parts were in Fiskars forest and then on the north side of Kärkelä Ironworks area.
First Järventaustantie then Ruonankorventie and then Ahvenlammintie. Great Roads!
And I made my longest riding video so far (38 minutes!).

Long ridingvideo!

Next week we’ll have MAD (Moto Adventure Days). It’s now second time this event is happening in Finland and I’m one of the guys riding in front of some group, doing so called “punainen tekninen” routes. These are mainly big and small gravel roads added with some challenging tracks and trails. Here is the description in Finnish:
Harvaan liikennöityjä metsäautoteitä, polkuja ja kapeita yksityisteitä, joille ei välttämättä kannattaisi lähteä henkilöautolla yrittämään. Vastaan voi tulla pehmeetä hiekkaa, sepeliä, helppoja vesistöylityksiä ja muuta hauskaa. Toki välillä ajetaan nopeampia sorateitä.
Sopii jo kokemusta omaaville kuskeille. Kuivalla kelillä pärjää hienosti karkeakuvioisilla kumeilla, mutta kostealla suosituksena nappulat.
See you there!

Visit Café Lättis

Posted by gozamite on 23.6.2022
Posted in: adventure bike, BMW G650XChallenge, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, motorcycling, Off-Road, Video. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

New cafeteria/ motorcycle meeting place Cafe Lättis was opened few years ago. It has become very popular and if the weather is nice there can easily be 100 or even 200 bikes on sunday afternoon.

Last august we had the first ever XR-meeting there and we had even 12 or 13 BMW S1000XR bikes in the same time!

8th of August 2021

This cafeteria has homepage in facebook. They are quite active there and sharing new pictures and updates very often!
This summer when I’m riding with my enduro the distance to to visit Lättis is quite long. But if you just make the route it can be made easily. This time the route was excellent!

Best ride so far this summer

The route from Veikkola Neste to Cafe Lättis was like 150 kilometers. I found trails that I did’nt ride before and especially the trail that starts from Suopellontie (Karkkila) was excellent!

In the map the route looked like this!

On the west side of Cafe Lättis there is one landowner who doesn’t want bikes or cars to ride through!

So you need to ride to the paved road of Rautakoskentie!
It seemed there was al lot interesting trails on the west side of Lättis so gotta go exploring there again!

Vanjärvi in VIhti

Season 2022 Start

Posted by gozamite on 6.5.2022
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, BMW G650XChallenge, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, Finnish Nature, Moottoripyöräily, Motorcycle Tour, Off-Road, Spring Is Coming. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Finally after a winter with HUGE amount of snow it was possible to start riding!
And I did it with 4 times riding in one week. The weather was already quite warm -not like I needed to put all possible clothes on me.
First day ride was less than 100km like this:

First ride of the season

Second day I was checking one place where was flooding.

Ride to Kärkelä Ironworks area

Here is the short video of the place where the river was flooding!
I made a riding video of this next days ride.

3rd day short ride
Riding to the border of Varsinais-Suomi
Snow was mostly gone but lakes had still ice!
The temperature was something like 10-13 degrees -so not too cold anymore!

And then on saturday I got three friends with me and we did already almost 200km!

Tour around Lake Lohja

And here is the video of the ride:

Spring ride 2022

And there is more to come!!

BMW G650 XChallenge rear shock change

Posted by gozamite on 5.1.2022
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, BMW G650XChallenge, dirt bike, enduro, Off-Road, Video. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I did this already 2 months ago but finally I edited the video how I’m making the BIG impovement to my bike… Changing the rear shock from the original Continental Air Damper to Touratech “normal shock”.
I hope this can help you if you’re planning this change!

TransEuroTrail 2021

Posted by gozamite on 26.7.2021
Posted in: adventure, BMW G650XChallenge, dirt bike, motorcycling, Off-Road, TransEuroTrail. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

In the beginning of July 2021 the Linesman of Finland (Roland from Austria) gave the task to me!
I was ofcourse very flattered about this and I was thinking should I take such a responsibility to me since I’m not very active rider anymore, But from the other hand I want to be more active! So here’s my reason to go riding Enduro more often!

I’m the new Linesman of TET Finland!

For my first active thing I went riding! Took my XChallenge very early in the morning…

Sun is about to rise…

I didn’t have too much planning done. First to ride to Iso-Valkee lake and to the TET route and then start to follow the route to Hämeenlinna and beyond. My main goal was to change the eastern route to go to EVO -area.
It was about 1,5 hours ride to Iso-Valkee.

Just before Kisko Kko (Church village of Kisko)
Somewhere in Kiikala forest

About 6.30 am I arrived to Lake Iso-Valkee -I had the video camera also with me!

Iso-Valkee as beautiful as always!
This place is already in Kanta-Häme (Tavastia proper)
Riding up to the lake highlands of Tavastia… 150 meters AMSL
Getting closer to Hämeenlinna
Short visit to Aulanko area in Hämeenlinna
And the TET route goes through Parola military area…

FInally I found the place to stay for the night quite close to EVO area and next morning I would meet Lauri and we would ride together few interesting roads of EVO.

Early morning in Kuohijärvi

After 2 days of riding in this interesting area I can say that I know area quite well!

These roads I was riding in EVO.
1 interesting road in EVO
Here I separated from Lauri

I wasn’t sure where to ride on the 2nd day but the bike was making some strange sound! I got little bit help from Autohuolto Markku Ruuskanen in Luopioinen to find out that it wasn’t the rear wheel bearing that was making sound.
But I still decided to continue riding south… I was thinkin maybe to spend the night somewhere in Forssa (???)

I checked this Off-Road route near Toijala

But finally it was riding all the way back home! And it almost 400km’s in one day!
The whole trip was like this:

2 days Enduro trip…

And after few days of planning the new TET Finland route is ready for download!

Tiger 900 Rally Pro testride

Posted by gozamite on 25.5.2020
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, enduro, gravel road, motorcycle, Off-Road, test-ride, Triumph. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Took a short testride today. Even I knew this is going to be great bike I was still surprised! What an amazing bike!
The engine is marvellous! It gives smooth power already from 2000rpm and it sounds very nice too.

Already OffRoading…

The suspension is totally with manual adjustments but it seems it made me very happy with the factory defaults (I’m 120kg’s!) And that is rare. I was also very happy with the riding position even when I was standing. Maybe I would add 2cm’s to the height of the handlebar if I would be the owner of the bike.

The bike doesn’t look very special… Except the spoked wheels are very nice!

This bike would be big enough for me and for my wife. The power is ofcourse much smaller than in XR but I think I could manage with it.
I did find ONE thing I didn’t like! When you’re filling the tank the lid of the tank doesn’t stay up! So when you take the gaspump you have to lift the lid up with your other hand to get the gas to the tank… Not very big thing but it made me think how easy it would be to change this!
One interesting thing was the rpm meter in the TFT-screen! There was 2 of them!!! One on the left side and then another on the right side of the TFT…
It seems they had (too much) space in the TFT screen to put it there twice 😉

Keimola race track (or it was a race track)

Testride Triumph Scrambler 1200

Posted by gozamite on 9.6.2019
Posted in: adventure bike, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, motorcycle, motorrad, Off-Road, test-ride. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

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!

Enduro autumn 2018

Posted by gozamite on 17.10.2018
Posted in: adventure, adventure bike, BMW, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, Extreme ride, gravel road, helmetcamera, kawasaki, KTM, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycle, motorcycling, Off-Road, videocamera. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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.
rrem
I rode the bike from Lappeenranta to home and I really was enjoying enduroriding again!
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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…

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:

Riding first time after accident

Posted by gozamite on 27.9.2017
Posted in: adventure, enduro, gravel road, KTM, motorcycling, nature, Off-Road. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Yes, after 9 weeks I finally thought I can try. Neck and back didn’t feel too bad and I had my KTM ready and fixed back home so lets go!
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This is kind of my favorite place now! It’s very near and you can always take a good picture here (Just beside Espoonkartano).
I had the idea NOT to ride any offroad parts… but when I noticed a new trail in place I didn’t see before I just had to go there…
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I can tell now it wasn’t a good idea!! Because next night I had much more pain almost everywhere and I suffered a lot while I was sleeping!
But it is autumn now. I fould a huge stack of pink hay bale and they looked weird.
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It was a great day for a ride so it was nice to take pictires in beautiful places!
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It is still easy to find place where you don’t see the autumn colours… But then again if you find some mapletrees you can really see the autumn is here!
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But after this weekend I can say that maybe it’s not the right time yet. My back still hurts and becouse I can’t stay away from offroad parts it’s better to wait.