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!
The route we did was 250km’s -you can check the route from here:
https://www.myrouteapp.com/route/open/2952577
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:
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…
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!
The route for this day was something like this:
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!
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.
LUX Helsinki is every year in the beginning of January. This year there was amazing “Fire Tornado” Made by Dutch artist Ivo Schoofs.
Vyborg is a city that was part of Grand Duchy of Finland from 1812 to 1917 and part of independent Finland from 1917 to 1940 but was finally lost to Russia after World War II.
Russia made it now possible to apply e-visa for a short visit in St. Petersburg area so this is what I did.
Me and my wife took the border crossing in Svetogorsk and because it was first time for me in Finland-Russia border it took nearly 1,5 hours to get through all the papers and documents. But we knew it will be like this so we were at the border quite early. We took a short stop at Svetogorsk centrum.
From this not-so-beautiful-city we took a one hour drive to Vyborg. There I made a short stop at the train station. There is still parts of the original train station left but that was destroyed in WWII. It was originally quite accurate copy (smaller size) of Helsinki railway station.
But finally I stopped my car in the market square. And we were lucky it wasn’t raining so we could explore the city on foot.
Market Hall 
Buildings on the other side of Market Square 
Ruined buildings 
Old Town Hall 
Transfiguration Cathedral from the inside 
Cat inside Transfiguration Cathedral 
The only Lutheran church “Saints Peter and Paul church” 
Round Tower
There are many buildings in very bad condition or totally ruined in Vyborg. But luckily some of the buildings they are renovating so there will be something to see in the future also.
The city is definitely much more nice to see in the summer but we thought it was beautiful also now in the beginning of december… On a very grey weather. After the city tour we took a walk also in the famous Monrepo Park.
Pavilion 
Ludwigstein castle 
Väinämöinen 
View from the hill
In tourist maps this area is sometimes called as a National Park. But mostly there are some buildings, Art, Statues and other “things” in this area so it’s not a “normal” national park. Half of the area is under construction so we could see only the other side of the park. This would be totally amazing place to visit on a beautiful summer day!
I hope I will come cack to this beautiful town again some day. And of course Saint Petersburg… E-Visa makes the visiting Russia so much easier now!
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.
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.“
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!
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.
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only continuous member until his death in January 2015. Tonight they are performing in Helsinki! And I’m going to see them.
My uncle introduced me to the synthesizer music. At first I was very excited about Giorgio Moroder, Donna Summer and Space. But my uncle had very wide taste of music so I was also introduced with rock, classical and electronic music. I already had Cassette tapes with Jean Michel Jarre and Tomita when I started to visit record shops by myself.
I think it was autumn 1981 when I was listening an album by Tangerine Dream… It was their latest release “Exit” and even I think it was little bit boring music I bought it anyway. It was my first electronic music album.
Actually this music was called “Progressive Synthesizer Music” because “Electronic music” didn’t exist yet.
Soon I bought also the previous release “Tangram” and with this I lost my heart to Tangerine Dream!
I’ve been listening them since then. They have simply too many album releases plus Original Sountracks, Live albums, Solo -albums, Colloborations and unofficial releases… to try to make a list here.
But I still think this Tangram is their best album!
The album “Phaedra” was released in 1974 and it was reaching number 15 in the UK album charts. The best known track by TD is the theme from the 80’s TV Show “Streethawk“
Few albums to mention: From 70’s I recommend “Ricochet“, From 80’s “Underwater Sunlight” and especially the track “Song of the Whale, Part Two: …To Dusk” which is an amazing track that tells a story.
From 90’s I recommend “Turn of The Tides“, from 2000’s “Views from a Red Train” and from 2010’s I recommend the album “Quantum Gate”.
They couldn’t have a better timing for their live performance! Tomorrow is my birthday so I guess this will be a evening to remember!
Somebody made nice video of the “Stratosfear” performance:
And still no spyshots of the new S1000XR??!!
Maybe it’s not even coming yet? Maybe it will come later in 2020… We will see! Here’s a new photo from BMW Motorrad:
But no, it’s not the new XR. It looks excatly the same than concept bike about 1 year ago: BMW 9Cento.
So this ne model will be presented in EICMA in 10 days. And we already know another new model: R18
And there will be 4 new models coming… Those two more will be F850R (small naked bike) and possibly this new S1000XR -but nobody knows?
GoZa Mite 