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…
videocamera
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.
These pictures are from Rantalansärkkä wich is the more beautiful one… or at least it is easier to stop the bike there.
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.
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.
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.
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:
It’s been quite many years since we had a real winter here in south Finland. Now we have! The snow came finally in the end of January… and now we have about 30-40 cm’s of snow. You can do cross-country skiing almost anywhere and the lakes and the sea has a thick layer of ice.
First picture from Hirsala (Väransby) is taken in 31st of January
Here I also made quite nice Droneflight:
8th of february we visited on the ice in the near lake. Took this picture:
And this video:
It was a long time when temperature was around -5° centigrade and when it was sunny it felt quite nice!
This picture is taken in 18th of february. So is this next one:
Video was taken in 17th of february:
Last week the temperature went down! -24° centigrade was the lowest we had. But it was very nice that we had better weather in the weekend… So again I got some very cool pictures:
On sunday we took a walk around the lake nearby (Meiko lake). It wasn’t totally sunny day but quite nice anyway. My wife was shooting a video in many places… Now we can enjoy these snowy landscapes:
This means we had to leave Lago di Garda! What a pitty! But ok there was some dam good roads ride. First to Lago di Valvestino…
You couldn’t much see the lake because it’s so far away below… and the walls are steep! We also stopped for awhile in the beach of Lago d’Idro. This is smaller than Garda but it looked very beautiful!! We also saw the small boat taking passengers from the pier so we only hoped there was time to go onboard! But we had to go on riding! First here’s a Finnish language joke: (Kuvassa on Kauko -niminen kaveri rannalla eli se on Kaukoranta!)
In Lago d’Idro: From the north corner of this lake started the first mountain pass: Croce Domini. This is one of the best mountain passes for me ever! I really liked it!
After this 40 km’s of mountain road we took the SS42 in the valley to get us to Bormio but there was one more mountain road to ride before this “famous city”. Passo del Mortirolo.
The hairpins in the southside of this road are very steep and tight, you can see it in the video from 06:00! We had a short break enjoying the mountainviews and atmosphere in the cafeteria up in the summit of Mortirolo. This was like wisiting someone’s home! Very nice cafeteria!
I also enjoyed the road down from Mortirolo… there was some pretty nice views!
After Mortirolo it was time for Stelvio!
Up in the Summit of Stelvio it was still like +20… So we’re lucky to have this very nice weather today!! But we were not the first Finns here this summer!! Here is “Prätkällä Töihin 2017” Sticker in Stelvio!
Then down with “Umbrail Pass” to Val Mustair and Ofenpass.
And finally for the end of the day the beautiful and fast Flüela Pass.
There’s not too many hairpincorners when you ride up to Fluela… It’s more about having fun and enjoying riding!
Our hotel was in Davos. We had the dinner in one of the most fine hotel-restaurants in the centrum of Davos: Hotel Seehof Davos. The service (and food) was excellent! This was one of the best days in our trip…. Thank You Kauko, Salla, Marko and Maria for sharing it with me!! Here’s the route for day 11:
I got myself a drone, I was trying to get something good enough so I wouldn’t think right away that this is only a toy. But I also thought not to buy too expensive so I would go crazy if I break it!
Here’s my first engine start at my home floor…
Once again I went to see the fireworks very near to my home. Every year they do the show already 8pm because there are lots of families with young children. This time they had some technical issues and the show started about 8.30pm.
Because there is music in this show it may not show in your mobile device or in some countries.
Few hours later in Helsinki the year actually changed from 2016 to 2017 and it was maybe the best & biggest fireworks ever! (this link is aviable only in Finland!), other good links here and here.
I was riding with a friend last sunday (24th of April). It was very cold weather but luckily we had enought clothes. We made a nice ride to Lahnajärvi and back…. it was about 190 km’s. This time I had the camera attached in my helmet so now the picture is not with the resonance.
In this first video you need to check the video from 14:15! There’s a goshawk very near to the road and it flies away when I ride to it’s place.
In this video the road gets pretty bad in 02:05.
