GoZa Mite

Holiday 2020 Day 2

Posted by gozamite on 6.7.2020

Posted in: adventure, autoilu, gravel road, Matkustus, nature, summertime, Travel. Tagged: car tour, holiday, Mätäsvaara, Ruunaa, summer tour. Leave a comment

First night slept in the car. It wasn’t bad at all!

Small pond “Harakkalampi” in the morning

We ate breakfast (as fast as we could -the mosquitoes were eating us!) and packed the car. Soon we were driving again.
First stop we made at one old ironworks area called “Möhkö”.
Unluckily they have entrance fee to almost everything there is to see so we checked only the cafeteria that was built inside a boat and the old boatcanal.

After Möhkö there is very big museum-area about WW II called “Öykkösenvaaran battle zone”. There would be quite a lot to see but we wanted to continue driving. At least I took a picture of this:

The route I was choosing is marked pretty much as the main road… At least in some maps. But I can say that I was about to loose my faith many times! It didn’t seem like the road was leading anywhere! And when I tried to check from google maps where we were -there was no internet!!
This was the road: https://goo.gl/maps/zsoDNcJEPmVnNNgL8
But finally we made it to the bigger road and after maybe 2,5 hours of driving we made it to the Ruunaa rapids! Amazing area with many different kind of wild rapids…

There is also some islands where you can walk and it was so nice to see a duck family there swimming!

You can also see the work of the Beaver in Ruunaa! In one place there was more than 10 trees fallen… It would be nice to see the “guy” in action!!

After Ruunaa we were still driving north, we visited Mätäsvaara mine. This used to be the biggest Molybdenum -mine in Finland but it stopped working already in 1947 because nobody needed Molybdenum anymore.

This is very interesting place! Old mine…

Finally we arrived to one camping area from where we booked one small cabin. This was in Suomussalmi (one of my own personal favorite places in Finland!) We still took a drive to the “city” and went swimming.

The route for our second day was like this:

Holiday 2020 Day 1

Posted by gozamite on 5.7.2020

Posted in: adventure, autoilu, Russia, summertime, Travel, walking. Tagged: Haukkavuori, Kiuruvesi, Punkaharju. 2 Comments

This summer we are making our holiday trip with the car. Luckily last winter I bought a Station Wagon (Ford Focus) so we can even make the beds to the back side of the car. The bed will be a little bit too short for me but I was thinking it will be OK.

We started driving on tuesday 23rd of June to the north from Imatra. The first goal was one nice hill quite close… So I typed the address to google maps and we started driving. After about 50 km’s we stopped and I was looking around. It was a wrong place!! I had typed “Hukkavuoren…” when I should have been typing “Haukkavuoren…” Luckily the correct place was only about 20km’s away!

The first place we visited was “Haukkavuori” in Rautjärvi. It’s a hill 79 meters above the lake below so the views are amazing!

We continued to Punkaharju. This National Landscape is so beautiful that people of Finland have voted this road as the most beautiful road in Finland!

We checked one possible sleeping place near Punkaharju but it wasn’t ok… and it was still quite early. We continued to Kerimäki.

This is the biggest wooden church in the world. We had seen it before so we continued to check few bunkers close to Kerimäki. There is so called “Salpalinja” that Finnish soldiers built during the WW II against the Russian attack. Luckily we never needed to use this defense line.
Finally quite far from Punkaharju and Kerimäki we found a place to stay for the night. It was only 1,5 km’s from the Russian border!

First day’s route was like this:

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: Rally Pro, Testride, Tiger 900, Triumph Tiger, Triumph Tiger testride. 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.

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)

S1000XR 2020 review

Posted by gozamite on 14.5.2020

Posted in: adventure bike, BMW, BMW motorrad, BMW S1000XR, motorcycle, motorrad, OneworldOneXR, S1000XR, test-ride. Tagged: BMW motorrad, BMW S1000XR, OneworldOneXR, Review, Testride. 2 Comments

Today I took the testride with the S1000XR (New 2020 model). My wife was there with me so she could give some opinions about the rear seat and how the bike feels from her POV.

When you sit on the bike you can notice right away that the seat feels quite different. It’s more narrow and the edges are too sharp. Luckily I’m quite tall and my knees are coming quite high so I don’t feel this sharp edge almost at all. In my 150km testride I didn’t feel uncomfortable and I could ride longer trips easily!

Then I notice the narrow handlebar. But it doesn’t bother me at all! Maybe I should’ve gone to some heavy traffic where you need to use the maximum steering… But in this kind of normal street riding it didn’t bother me (Even I like the wide bar of the old XR!)

The bike feels maybe little bit lighter, it feels like it wants to take the corners tighter and faster -it reminded me about S1000R that I was riding back in 2014. All the buzz or vibration is gone from the handlebars but there was few times when I felt a little bit of buzz in the bike itself -somewhere around 4000rpm.

Since I have owned already 3 XR’s it makes me think “Is this bike really so much better than my old XR?” The price of the new bike is about 4000 euros higher. Is it worth it?
I think there is 2 correct answers to this question!
1) No it is not worth it! Keep the old one and you will be very happy with it!
2) Yes definitely! They made it little bit better, little bit more unique and little more nice in every way (except maybe the seat!)

My wife didn’t like the backseat of the bike. She thought it was too short and the handlers for her were too short also. They should go further behind the seat.
One thing I found very interesting! There was 1 page in this new TFT screen where you can see the leaning angle of the bike… I think I would be staring this page only… all the time! Or at least when I’m riding in the curvy road.

Thank you Biketeam Vantaa for making this testride possible.

Repovesi National Park

Posted by gozamite on 1.5.2020

Posted in: adventure, National Park, nature, Ruoka ja juomat, Terveys ja hyvinvointi, Travel, walking. Tagged: Hiking, Lapinsalmen silta, Lapinsalmi, National Park, Repovesi. 2 Comments

This National Park is pretty close to Helsinki -only about 180 kilometers to Lapinsalmi parking area. This National park is mostly about lakes, hills and cliffs -the “official webpage” says like this: “Repovesi’s rugged forests are dotted with blue lakes and ponds. The park offers accessible adventures for everyone. Its hills and cliffs challenge keen hikers and climbers.” (Link)
Me and my wife visited here few days ago. We were lucky to have very nice and sunny weather and not too many people in the park!

We enjoyed our walk in the beautiful and peaceful forest! And of course we had some food with us and we made fire.

Ahh, sorry! It wasn’t banana -it was Bratwurst sausage!

And for the dessert we got some ice cream… Or actually hail! It wasn’t very warm weather.

The information about the possibility to walk around “the main route” wasn’t very clear! We saw 1 or 2 info board about the ferry not being in use in the winter time. But I was thinking “It’s not winter any more!”

This is self service manual ferry, you have to pull yourself to the other side. But it was NOT in use yet. So we had to walk back the same route we did so far… But it wasn’t so terrible because we got to see this another time:

This bridge was opened in november 2019. There was old bridge but it was collapsed in the summer 2018. This new Lapinsalmi bridge is very beautiful!

Seasonstart (for streetbike)

Posted by gozamite on 23.4.2020

Posted in: BMW S1000XR, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycling, S1000XR. Tagged: BMW S1000XR, OneworldOneXR, S1000XR, Seasonstart 2020. Leave a comment

Finally it’s nice weather and warm enough! So I didn’t need to put all my clothes to feel warm… S1000XR is out from garage!

Small beach in Saavajoki -river, Karkkila

The route we did was 250km’s -you can check the route from here:
https://www.myrouteapp.com/route/open/2952577

Enduroride April 19th

Posted by gozamite on 20.4.2020

Posted in: actioncamera, adventure, adventure bike, BMW G650XChallenge, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycle. Tagged: BMW Enduro, BMW G650XChallenge, BMW motorrad, Enduroride, Railroad. Leave a comment

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…

2020 SeasonStart

Posted by gozamite on 30.3.2020

Posted in: adventure, BMW motorrad, dirt bike, enduro, gravel road, KTM, Moottoripyöräily, motorcycling, yamaha. Tagged: BMW G650XChallenge, Dirtbikes, Enduroride, KTM Adventure, Yamaha Tenere. Leave a comment

This season I started later than in a long long time! But there’s quite obvious reason: Covid-19.
Last week there was already quite nice days but finally when I made the decision to go out on sunday it was quite cold! +3 (celsius) was the highest and -1 was the lowest. But at least we had sunshine!

With me was one KTM 1050 Adventure and yamaha XT660 Tenere

The route for this day was something like this:

Porvoo

Posted by gozamite on 18.3.2020

Posted in: autoilu, Travel, Video. Tagged: finland, History, Old town, Porvoo. Leave a comment

I visit this beautiful city quite often -mostly with motorcycle. There are nice cafeterias and restaurants by the river & on the boats that are floating on the river.
This time we drove there by car and it was beautiful sunny day!

Porvoo is the third oldest city in Finland (or second oldest depending how to count) and it’s only 30 minutes drive from Helsinki. With motorcycle it takes longer because there are nice roads on the way!

Short video of the riverside

MP Messut 2020

Posted by gozamite on 31.1.2020

Posted in: BMW motorrad, Ducati, Honda, kawasaki, KTM, motorcycle, motorcycling, S1000XR, Triumph, yamaha. Tagged: Motorcycle exhibition, MP Messut 2020, mp-messut. Leave a comment

Motorcycle Exhibition in Helsinki 2020

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.

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!

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.

I spent few hours in MP Messut 2020 and took quite many pictures.
Here you can check my pictures.