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:
From Karjaa to Lahti
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:
From Orimattila to Mankala and from There back to Karjaa
The best picture of the weekend is from sunday. This really made me smile!
Alive Children
I hope I will have a chance to do more these kind of longer trips this year!! I really enjoyed this so much.
Finally got out with my bike and this interesting camera Insta360 was attached into it. First ride I made a week ago. The camera was in handle-bar and I wanted to check only how it will look? Editing a good video was quite easy (Ok, I dunno about good but it looks quite ok to me!)
Insta360 One X2 attached in handlebar
Second ride I made yesterday. Now I had 2 cameras and my microphone with the wire (I couldn’t find my Rode Wireless!!) My DJI Osmo Action was in the normal place (handlebar) and Insta360 was on the tip of the stick behind me. You can see it from this picture:
Editing with 2 different cameras is much more complicated than you first think! They have dirrent picture style and colors. And my microphone with the wire mostly doesn’t work! I need to find my wireless mic -it has much better sound quality. Here’s video from yesterday:
Riding with 2 different cameras!
3 times in this movie there’s a cut from Osmo Action to Insta 360 when you should “understand” that this is the same place, same time and same ride. But if you don’t get it… It doesn’t matter! You can still watch the video. Maybe I can adjust the cameras so that the picture will look more similar? And maybe I need to make more “sharp cut” to make it more obvious. And the battery of Insta360 lasts much longer than DJI Osmo Action!
Helsinki Motorcycle Exhibition first time in 3 years!!
There was 3 bikes that were extremely interesting for me: Aprilia Tuareg 660, Honda XL 750 TransAlp and Ducati Desert X But lots of other nice bikes too!
Aprilia Tuareg is lighter than Yamaha Tenere 700 (187kg dry weight) but the engine delivers about same power than Yamaha. It seems to have more offroad capabilities and surprisingly low seat (86cm).
To the same “middle weight adventure bikes” comes Honda XL750 Transalp. It’s about same weight than Yamaha Tenere 700 but the engine delivers more power (90hp!) Seat is also quite low in this (86cm).
Ducati Desert X is bigger than those “middle weight” bikes. It has 900 cubic engine with 110hp! And it weights only little bit more than 200kg’s. This would be very very interesting bike to ride TET Finland all around!
It’s not very difficult to guess that New Honda Transalp will be on top of the list about sold new bikes. Let’s hope it is trustworthy bike for the new owners!
There’s alrady new routes (sections) made… but we need to check everything before anything will be published. Here are the plans:
So there will be these new sections – Tikkakoski to Juva and from Juva (via Savonlinna) to Parikkala – Porvoo (via Juva) to Suonenjoki – Section 2 will have new route going from the westside of Tampere – From Siikainen to Kyröskoski (between sections 2 and 3) – From Yli-Ii to Taivalkoski (Between 2 and 3) – From Tornio to Muonio (Final part of section 3)
At the moment TET Finland looks like this. It is impossible to say when these will be published but we will start checking them pretty soon after all the snow is gone! At the moment it looks like it’s going to be before march!?!
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!
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!
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-SuomiSnow 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!
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!
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 HämeenlinnaShort visit to Aulanko area in HämeenlinnaAnd 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 EVOHere 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!
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 😉
Go - Za 