Tag: BMW

  • August rides

    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!

  • Springtime was so short! It started in the end of April and soon in May you will start to feel like it’s summer already. And I had so many ideas about new possible routes for transeurotrail.
    First idea was to make additional route Helsinki – Turku. There was already one but it was going from Turku to the TET route and to connect to it in Räyskälä (almost 100km away from Helsinki). So I started to check my plans in the beginning of May.

    Here I’m riding the few possible selections Between Karjaa & Perniö and also all the way to Teijo ironworks area. I made second checking ride a week later and I was checking the possible routes between Salo and Lieto. I found only private yards and tracks that were impossible to ride.

    The new update for the TET route was made on 13th of May!
    On that same day I was riding again! For that ride I found interesting start From Karjalohja: A very small ridgeroad going between two lakes (Kannaksentie) -but there are quite many summercottages on the way, I’m not going there again.

    The part in the end of this video comes to Ruonankorventie that I have recommended to quite many riders that they should check this. I was riding from Lohiojanie to Lemmulantie and then to Ruonankorventie.
    On May 15th I was inviting riders to make a group-ride to Iso-valkee and 15 bikes came to make a very nice ride together!! You can see some pictures here! I made also a video:

    Then in the end of May (Helatorstai/ Ascension Day) I made a ride to check some small roads and tracks on Hanko Peninsula. Found some very good ones! Here’s the video:

    Waiting to ride again!!

  • BMW X-Series

    These were quite extraordinary bikes 15 years ago! And I own one! That’s why it’s very nice that advrider.com made a srory about these bikes together with bigger HP. Enjoy!
    https://advrider.com/revisiting-the-bmw-g450x-g650x-and-hp2/

    My bike “The Swan”
  • Helsinki Motorcycle exhibition 2019

    This time it was very interesting! There was so many new models it felt like there’s no time enough to get to know all of them. Luckily I’m not a big fan of sportbikes… So few bikes wasn’t so interesting to me.

    1. KTM 790 Adventure
    Maybe the biggest group of interested viewers was around this bike. It’s no wonder. The bike looks very good! It has hew parallel twin engine that KTM introduced last year. The engine has little bit less power than in 790 Duke but of course the torque is better is all rpm’s. Bike has almost all possible electronics: traction control, cornering abs, offroad abs, ridemodes and so on. It has 20 litres tank that gives the bike easily more than 400 km’s range on the road. Tank is placed around the engine so the center of gravity is very low. Price for this bike is 18500€ in Finland!

    Tank around engine
    It was difficult to take pictures of this bike! There was so much people all around it all the time.

    2. Yamaha 700 Tenere
    Another adventurebike but totally different kind of idea! This is simple, not too much electronics and it looks more ready for an OffRoad ride! It’s almost 6000€ cheaper than KTM! The final price is still open but they said it will not be more than 12800€! 200mm travel is not much but they’ve tested this bike quite long time so I guess they think it’s enough. 16 liters tank gives this bike more than 300 km’s range.

    It should’ve been white-red bike in the show!
    But this look very good! It calls me to make an offroad ride right now!

    3. BMW R1250GS
    And here is another adventurebike but yet again totally different kind of thinking. This is legend of all touring/ adventurebikes but now it has bigger engine, more power and torque and it’s again more expensive. It has simply everything you can ever imagine the bike could have… -Ok, no reverse gear or automatic gearbox but anyway.
    The price for adventure version is more than 31000€ in Finland

    Big bike to make long rides and tours

    4. Suzuki Katana 
    Suzuki makes a nice return to interesting and “modern” bikes. But the funny thing is that the design is very retro when it is based on 80’s Katana.
    The engine they take from GSX-S1000F so it delivers very nice power and easy riding. And the way it looks it will always give strong feelings to all pure motorcyclists!

    Katana

    5. Triumph 1200 SpeedTwin
    Triumph presents new line with 1200 Twin engine. The bike still looks totally retro but the engine is now more like modern and sporty. It delivers 96 hp with 112Nm torque in 4950rpm. Compare this with T100 engine: 64hp and 80Nm in 3800rpm -you can say that there is a big difference.

    SpeedTwin


  • Unfortunately we didn’t have time to get to know the city of Ravenna -I bet it would’ve been beautiful!
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    We took the big road to south and San Marino. The streets of San Marino are full with very expensive cars! We stopped on the “Other side of the mountain” when we saw some possible places to park the bikes. But there was no cafe or even a grocery store!
    The roads on the westside of San Marino… OMG! They are nice! There’s a corner after corner, twist after twist and some very nice views all the time!
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    Ducati Monster went straight to Ducati service in Ravenna. They couldn’t fix the starter but they did fix the rear brake! (Not the brakedisc though…)
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    From motocaching we marked “as found” these:
    San Marino from southwest, Passo dei Mandrioli and SR70 Consuma
    But the whole route from San Marino to Livorno is excellent riding!! There’s not much traffic, the scenery and views are great and you will certainly enjoy riding! I really recommend these roads!
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    The pink decorations are there because it was the 100th Giro d’Italia this may.
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    Video compilation of the day 5:

    This was the route for the day 5:

  • I could do some demonstration of the bikes (and I probably will do later) but here are all the new interesting bikes for season 2017, shown to us by 44teeth.com (with BaronVonGrumble and his face! -You don’t see that too often!)

  • Day 21
    We rode from the northern parts of Poland through Lithuania to Latvia, like this. It was the longest ride in this trip but it didn’t feel like it at all. First of all it was a great weather!
    We made a short visit to the hill of crosses and that made a nice break in the boring ride in those endless straights in Lithuania (and the road A12).
    And in the beginning of the day we had some nice small roads of Poland and Lithuania!
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    We also stopped for awhile in the tripoint of Poland, Russia (Kaliningrad) and Lithuania. Here’s a short video:

    And then about 150km’s later it was time for the “Hill of Crosses” (which I think is a junkyard!)
    Here is the link to all the pictures I took in this strange place in the middle of Lithuanian countryside.
    Here’s one excample:
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    In Latvia we stopped in Riga dam, it’s a huge reservoir & dam with powerplant and there’s a road going on the top of the dam. The views over the reservoir are quite nice!
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    We had a room from the nice Hotel Sigulda (my fourth time here!)

    Day 22
    This was 300km’s from Sigulda to Tallinn (and ofcourse the ferry Tallinn – Helsinki and the final ride from Helsinki harbour to home!)
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    First break was ofcourse in the border between Latvia-Estonia and the legendary Hesburger!
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    After this break it started raining! And we waited about 1 hour for it to stop (in Pärnu). Soon after Pärnu the road was dry again and we had time to visit the sandpit-lake near Saku. And I made some SocialMedia updates there (again!)
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    The final trouble we got in the harbour while waiting the ferry. We noticed that Ducati’s rear tyre is almost empty! But luckily there were many american cars trying to get to the ferry and some of them had the tyreweld-stuff. So Maria could ride her red Monster in to the ferry and then From Helsinki harbour to home!
    Thank you for ALL the readers who have been following this trip!! There will be more!

  • After rainy Day 19 this was easy! And it was about this:
    7716_oPolish countryside road is like this.
    We had 520 km’s to ride and the route was like this. It was raining every now and then but it didn’t bother much because they were only short showers. This day we had mostly only the “bigger roads” and even some new highway (with roadtull).
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    It was abaout 1,7€ to ride 30km’s in that highway. Luckily we also had some quite nice road from Olsztynek to Szczytno. It’s road number 58 and it’s a very good choice after many boring roads in Poland!

    Here’s a short clip from that road.
    We arrived in our accommodation quite early so we had plenty of time to take a walk in a beautiful city of Mrągowo and we had a dinner in Mercure Mrągowo Resort&Spa.

  • This day was riding from Lörrach to Aystetten like this. The weather forecast didn’t promise too much (but the rain) but actually it was like the first half of the day there was no rain and then the rest… yes it was raining. And now it was only me and Maria.
    Pretty soon after we started from Lörrach we found the Wehra valley and the road L148. What an amazing road it was!! It’s like from a fairytale…
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    Some might say that the corners are not too tight here… But I don’t think you can ride like a crazy! Some of them are pretty tight and with no visibility at all!
    On the north side of Bannwald Wehratal the landscape was still very nice all around and the road was interesting and not boring at all!

    This area has a lot of nature and forestpaths to visit and see very beautiful areas of Germany!
    As we continued to east we didn’t know what to expect. So what we found next was a total surprise for both of us!
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    It was just a small city (called Zwiefalten) among many others and I stopped there to have a break. Then we noticed a very big building on the other side of the square and we started to walk closer. Then we thought “Let’s go inside…” -And there was the surprise!
    I’ve never ever seen anything like this before!
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    It was an old abbey and this was the church hall. It had German Baroque style interior that looked very expensive with gold (looked like gold!?) all around! I was totally speechless.
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    There was 4 side-altars on the both sides of the church-hall. Then there was the “second altar” (here in the picture) and behind the fence and 2 gates was the first altar. I was thinking to myself “After seeing this I can’t imagine what St. Peter’s Basilica looks like from the inside!! This abbey in the middle of south Germany was already something beyond my imagination!”
    When we came out from this amazing abbey/ church it was raining. Finally after 3 hours of riding in the rain we arrived in the small city of Aystetten and we had a room in a small (and outmoded) Hotel that I cannot recommend (Hotel Sohnel).

  • This day we were riding in the Jura mountains in Switzerland and few km’s in France and few in Germany. The 266 km’s route was like this.
    First it looked like the weather would be as hot as it had been many days before, but actually pretty soon it was cloudy and +25 celsius felt quite nice!

    The views were still very impressive in Jura mountains! It would be nice to spend more time riding here too.
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    After couple hours of riding there was a raincloud following us.
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    And soon it was raining.
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    The most beautiful part of this days route it was raining so I didn’t take too many pictures. But that ride very near to Ch-Fr border (Cote-du-Doubs in the north side of La Chaux-de-Fonds) is a very nice road!
    After 3 hours of rain it finally stopped and we switched to France to avoid the traffic in Basel. And after a short visit in France we switched to Germany and that was the last time in France in this trip for us!
    We had an apartment in Lörrach to stay the night. So we made the dinner and breakfast ourselves! That was nice for a change…
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    Next morning Timo would go on his own way (straight to north and taking the ferry from Travemünde to Helsinki) and me and Maria would go on riding slowly home.