Trip to Estonia!

So, the lazy-crazy tähtipyörä Moxie L 500 sponsor cyclist is again on the road. I started my way from Tallinn on Friday 18.4. I´ve made it until Pärnu, where I am at a moment. Cycling kilometers have been short, just around 70 kilometers so far.. Estonia is a nice country to bicycle, lot of small roads, not big distances..

Here are some photos from the trip, later on there will be more writing.. Now outside :)

Cycling around the Åland!

After arriving to Mariehamn in saturday, I have been staying at my couchsurfing host´s place. Still no bad words about couchsurfing! ;) I have been doing little tours around the island, to Finström and Sund.  Like early said, Åland and Archipelago are really great areas for cycling, but one thing there is that can annoy the yesterday´s pasta out of you: wind.

Most of my trip since going from Inkoo, I have had a headwind, which really makes the treading much more harder. I´m not sure if I´ve just had bad luck, or is it just more common to have the wind blowing from the southwest (like the song says), which is the direction I have been heading to. Anyway, I would recommend these routes  to anyone interested in bicycle travelling. Just keep an eye for the winds,  and maybe plan your trip to go from southwest, not to southwest, and you just might have tailwind for you all the way :)

Yep, it was a windy day.

Sunday was really windy day. Expect that the weather was totally fine. And I saw a dead deer in the ditch next to the road. Poor guy, in Lapland the (rein)deer herders already would  have been taking the corpse away for the possible meat and solving out the payments. Not here, they are just wild animals.

Apparently he was hit to one of the hind legs by a car.

 After cycling about 5 km in the great headwind, I saw a church. This day, the wind was not so annoying, I didn´t have to hurry for anything, and I was just carrying a little bit of stuff in my bicycle bags. I was not in a hurry, so I decided to check the church. I´m not a religious guy, but churches always make a big impression, when you will get to go inside of them.

Yes, I was that lazy that didn´t move to have the church properly in the picture ;)

It´s crazy how people have been able, and motivated to build such massive and impressing buildings, even though they had lack of basic facilities of life (from the point of view of today). I don´t really know if people were really so religious that they wanted to sacrifice so much to worship God, or if all that was done just to control people. I´m not amazed that church had a huge affect on peoples lives, since the space inside of the church is so unique (especially in those days): lot of space, impressing colors and paintings, absolute silence with all little voices echoing, so that you can almost hear your own heart beating clearly. It´s easy to make a feeling of holiness and presence of supernatural to ones head with all those things contributing it. However, the church of Jomala was really nice :)

Åland is really agricultural area, and  if you wanna see lot of sheep, cows and horses, here you have them every second kilometer growling next to the road. It was funny to notice people keeping horses and big highland cattle within the same fences. You would just think in a urban mind, there will be some trouble some day because of that. Instead, if you´re big friend of apples, choose a little bit later time to visit Åland. There are lot of apple farms here, and also lot of of wild apple trees, but for now, they are too raw to be eaten. Just come in the middle of august, and I bet you can eat your belly full of tasty local fresh apples, either from a store or from the trees :D

              .

Performing stage of  Ställhagen, a beer factory and a pub

When you are doing tours around the island, and during the first part you have headwind blowing to you, for the second part you will most certainly have tailwind pushing you. That´s what happened this time also, and coming back was, - like, to be honest, the whole day- really easy job. I passed the Church of Godby, which was cooler from outside than the Jomala´s, unluckily you it was already closed from inside. Close to the church was a nice path to a top of a hill, where you could see great landscapes of Åland from a tower. Also there you could be figuring out when will the tower collapse for the enormous wind. So far it was still standing. Day was only about 50 kilometers of cycling, but a_lot_of things to see!

I´ll be back!

Trucks - cyclist´s good buddies

Trucks are the most massive vehicles moving on the roads, and when you´re cycling on the side of the road, there will be frequently a truck passing you, sometimes far, sometimes close. You would think that it´s at least annoying, even scary to have a box weighting 40 tons passing you with less than 1 meter distance  and 80 km/h speed. But during these trips, it has been one the little joys and reliefs, truck passing, as close as possible.Why?

Truck is such a massive object, that as it pass, it makes a big wind. When moving to the same direction as the puny cyclist, it pushes him forward, making a little turbo-effect. Many times I have been on a tough rise with a headwind coming hard, feeling that I should have been staying home eating cheap chocolate and watching Simpsons. And when you hear the massive vehicle approaching, you know that a relief, small one, but still, is coming.

Thank you very much, truck drivers! When you pass me, do it at close as possible! (still safe) :)

Finally in Mariehamn!

Greetings from the library of Mariehamn! Librarys have been the only places were the free connection never let´s you down, in many other places it just doesn´t work for some reason, or has many problems. And you don´t even have to buy anything :)

I finally arrived here today afternoon, after having some problems. The Åland is really good place to do cycling trips, there are even bicycle ferries going from island to island just for people who go cycling. It took me more than 2 days to arrive here from Kaarina, even though the way is only about 100 kilometers, which could be easily cycled in one day :) I will write little bit about why:

19.7 Parainen-Korppoo

I woke up from slowly in my tenth in the morning. I slept surprisingly well, despite all the rain and humidity in my tenth. I started to feel something wet in my foots during the night, and I thought it was just from the soil and the rain trough the tenth, so I just putted some more clothes there to be able to sleep more. It wasn´t before 11 when I noticed that I have been leaving one of the zips open for whole night. So, you can actually forget those kinds of things too :D Well, I just had to pack all my wet stuff and hope it wouldn´t get too bad until I could dry them. It was still raining some drops here and there, so I just wanted to get moving. I had about 50 km to go in 3 hours in order to make the ferry from Korppoo to Långnäs, which is the harbor in Åland where the ferries arrive.

Being forced by the idea to reach the time of the ferry I started with good tempo, because I knew too that there was some smaller ferries during the way. Those ferries go every 15-30 minutes during the daytime over some rivers and lakes where is no bridges, and at times you have to wait. I was doing fine and I passed many cycle travelers, groups, couples, old and young people, Finnish and foreigners. Turku Arhcipelago and Åland have clearly some really popular cycling routes. I had never seen that many people on a bicycle with bike bags.

I was just about 20 kilometers away of Korppoo and in time, when my rear tire started to get worse. I knew that my inner tube was little bit too big, but it had been working well for over a year. In this trip however, it started to get worse and the tube was puffing up a bit from the side of tire. It started to puff up more and more until it made the cycling impossible. Then I had to stop, empty the tire and stuff the tube back inside of the tire. I was really pissed off : did this have to happen right now when I´m in hurry and having a good rhythm.  Apparently it did ;)

I was continuing with the annoying tire for some kilometers, passing one couple every time, and them passing me when I was fixing my tire. I was only 15 kilometers away from Korppoo, when I heard a crack: the inner tube had broke the outer tire, and it was puffing up really badly: okay, I wont get to Åland today either. I just stopped to bus stop and started to dry my wet stuff, luckily there was bus coming soon.

             
 Trip gone a bit wrong in pelago..











After paying 10 euros for the 15 km ride for the stressed out bus driver, I found out there was a repairing shed in Korppoo, where they all so fixed bicycles. It was right next to the bus station, so I went there, and in 15 minutes, about 2 hours after my tire had broke, I had a new and well working tire in my bike. And 33 euros less money in my wallet. Fast actions here in the culo del mundo. I found out there was a ferry going to Kökar at 21.30, and in the morning 6.30 ferry from Kökar would go to Långnäs, so I would be in Mariehamn easily in the early afternoon.

I was going to sauna and washing some clothes in the Buffalo restaurant, from where I had to cycle like maniac to the ferry of Kökar to reach in time. The ferry only cost me 5 euros, and the guy said I could use all the ferries of this area with this ticket for the whole summer. Not bad. Ferry was cool with a nice cafe inside, where surprisingly was a wifi-connection also. I was the only cyclist there, rest of the people were with their cars. At 2 am we arrived to Kökar, where I just changed to the ferry that would be leaving in the morning and went to sleep in one of the sofas in my sleeping bag. I slept really nicely until Långnäs, and rest of the journey was just a piece of cake. 30 kilometers in a wind that was more tail- than headwind. So, finally I arrived to Mariehamn, where I will hanging out for the next few days. I hope I will have time to do some little trips around the island and post them here, I know there is some great routes here :)

Still going wrong, 4 days = 150 km

Hello from the ferry of Korppoo - Kökar!

I have been cycling now three days with a holiday tempo, not cycling more than 60 during the best day. 

Inkoo - Tammisaari Tuesday 16.7

My host couple in Inkoo were really nice people, and we of course had to do some frisbeegolfing in the Inkoo Track, that was really nice, in a rocky area with some different fairways and distance variation. Since I was doing some nice holiday activities, my cycling for the day didn´t start until 5pm. Once I got on the road, I noticed that my tire is quite empty and the brakes are too louse. A pit stop right in the beginning, nice. 

Weather was really nice, if you were travelling with a car. Sun was shining but the wind from the southwest was disturbing the cycling for the whole time. The wind was probably close to 10 m/s, and it felt like it dropped my speed from the normal 20 km/h to not much more than 10 km/h. I was planning to go until Salo, which was about 100 km, but with the notably annoying wind, it started to feel like a impossibility. Along the way I noticed, that I had been setting my brakes too tight when I started, and it had been braking the tire all the time and making my cycling even slower :D 

Luckily I had a contact from couchsurfing in Tammisaari, and we met up and he said later that I could stay at his place overnight. I was happy to stay there, we spend the evening in the restaurant Bossanova, where he was working. It´s a really nice place, especially if you happen to know the stuff there! With a great pizza, some nice beers and even better company holiday had gotten a great continuum! Couchsurfing made my day again! 

Tammisaari - Kaarina Wednesday 17.7 

Well slept I woke up at 10 with the same plan than yesterday, check out rapidly the disc golf track of Tammisaari and continue the trip until Kaarina, which was about 100 km of distance. Well, it didn´t really go as I planned ( once again), and the frisbeegolfing was so fun that it took longer time for. After some other incidents I found myself eating another pizza in Bossanova ( for free...THANKS ALOT), and I decided to use the Great Old Public Transportation to help my journey a bit. Train to Karjaa and a Bus to Salo..

                                         

                                         ...This is how we do it...

From Salo to Kaarina it was all a mess, I didn´t know where I was gonna sleep that night, but I wanted to go close to Kaarina, because I was going to meet my sister in the morning. I called some camping places and one seemed to be pretty close to Kaarina, in Harvaluoto (or something, he said).  The dude in the phone all so told me the camping was free, so I figured it would be a good place to spend the first night of the trip without the help of couchsurfing. With great wishes of good night I turned to the road of Harvaluoto from the Helsinki road, and started cycling trough the traditional agricultural landscapes, that were nicely calming at the evening. Well, after crossing the bridge and cycling about 10 km from the road of Helsinki, I figured out: no, the camping is not around here...

There was really no problems setting the tent down right there in the "culo del mundo" , but I wanted to get closer to Kaarina for the Thursday morning, so I just turned around and started cycling back towards the Helsinki road, with a bit of a frustration bubbling within: "shoulda been listening that dude better in the phone". So I reached Kaarina, which turned out to be one hole of place, where everything was closed at that time ( 1 am). I had pictured the place as a bigger one in my head, but even the gas stations were closed as my eyelashes every 3,5 seconds for the tiredness. I thought there is no use going again out of the center, because I had to come back for the morning, so I just scrambled out into the closest place where there was little bit shelter for the houses and roads, and set up my little campy there. Surprisingly well slept considering the place...

                                         

                           My little urban campy :)

Kaarina - Kaarina + a stone´s throw 18.7

It seemed become the theme of the trip, that the days would be more about hanging out and frisbeegolfing than cycling. Well, when you´re on a holiday, you should try to stick something else to the days than just going forward and staying in the schedule. So I was having a lunch and hanging out in the center until late afternoon, when I finally left on my road, with the plan to go until Korppoo, which was about 70 km way from Kaarina. It was raining a bit, and I was feeling a bit lazy with some nice food just bought from the store, so I figured out, it´s better to have a little break here. I went to the forest to find a shelter of the rain from the trees, Lied down and watched some Louie with the laptop, eating well. Not the first thing people would do in the break of a cycling trip, but still cool. 

                                                         Holding onto rain..

Later, arriving to Parainen, there was a disc golf track right next to the road, in a really nice looking park. Naturally I couldn´t resist the temptation of trying another track, so it was bye bye for bicycling for another hour or so. The track was really nice besides the fairways that were really close to the river. You really can´t concentrate on your throw fully when you know you might lose your only disc and all so the tool to satisfy my newest addiction :/ 

I left Parainen with some gained energy from the always-exciting disc golfing. I couldn´t find any gas stations  in order to fill my water bottles, but I figured out there would be one coming soon, I still had long way to go. To fulfill the Murphy´s Law, it started to rain hardly just 3-4  kilometers after Parainen, and I had to camp down to the closest piece of forest with a somewhat flat ground. So, I went to sleep worrying about _all_ my stuff getting really wet, without any drinking water and a bit pissed of for myself for not making much more than 20 kilometers away from my starting point : / Still, the vibes were pretty good considering the circumstances. I fell asleep basically watching Louie from my laptop, with all of my clothes in the sleeping bag and hearing the rain threateningly splashing over my tenth. F*** this day, my mouth would have been saying if it haven´t been so dry for the absence of water and for the presence of the licorices I was eating.

So far, so loose...Helsinki - Inkoo

Hi people / hola personas!

My start for the first day was pretty sloppy. I had to patch my tire, remove the breaks, and do all the huzzling and puzzling around the city, like walk 4 km to buy a pump for the tire. Finally at the afternoon I got out of the city and started to drive towards Inkoo, a small townie 60 km from Helsinki, where I would have a place to stay overnight.

First tens kilometers outside of Helsinki was kinda difficult, because there was just a highway going to my direction, and I´ve been fined once for driving in the side of the highway with the bicycle. Cycling in the verge of a highway is forbidden in Finland, which really makes no much sense to me, because the verge of the road is way bigger in the highways than normal roads, so for me it feels safer. Well, it´s always difficult to start, as we might say in Finland (but the victory is near).

I´ve heard that many people ride bicycles next to the road 51, which is a highway. But if you don´t wanna get fined or just don´t like to drive in highways (and don´t have GPS), plan your route well, it´s gonna be a big mess finding all the little roads that go at least somewhat right direction. I was wondering around in the side roads and found myself in a residential area with dead ends to all directions. Wihii! Just get back where you came from, little berk! On the other side of the road 51 I found a old way that should have been going to Kirkkonummi, but I found myself in a small train halt. Well, it was late and there was a train going soon to Kirkkonummi, so I waited for that and jumped in with all my stuff :D Funny things happen when you don´t plan your routes...

My way or the high way ;)

The trip in the train was just couple minutes of standing and holding the bike, and watching and smelling a local, little "vagabondish" dude smoking some marijuana in the hall room of the train. Welcome to Kirkkonummi, where grass is allways really brown! From Kirkkonummi the way was easy and chill, going trough some agricultural areas with little traffic. It was getttin late though, and luckily my Couchsurfing host offered to pick me up from the way, so that poor me wouldn´t have to drive in the darkness for some hours ;)

I just got few pretty poor photos from the way with my about 3000-kilometers-survived tähtipyörä´s bike, that is still working really well. I want to say big thank you for Tähtipyörä´s people, who have been supporting me economically (=), mentally, spiritually, paternally and politically! I´m really happy that I contacted those people in the spring 2011 ( for those who don´t know, Tähtipyörä bike company sponsored me my 700-e-worth Moxie bike and gave me some money support to cover the costs of the trip, like buses and trains. And in return of the favor, I write this blog and say syrupy things about my great bike and put dazzling photos of it here,so that people would like this bike :D )

Evening and the night went really smoothly with a great company, once again couchsurfing didn´t let me down! I really recommend it for everyone, check the page out! Now I will start my segond day, with the aim to reach Salo, where is my next couch waiting :)

Some reflecting and darkness with my Bikey :)






Days saldo:

Kilometers: about 70 (20 in car :D)
Average speed: about that
Route: without getting lost 

Take care and spread the glad tiding of cycling!

"Abroad" I go, so let´s write in english!

 Helllouuu there again!

 Crazy Finnish cyclist is going to be on the road again! This time I´ll write my blog in English, so maybe more people can enjoy/laugh-/feel sorry for it. I´m now in Helsinki hanging out for some days, and I will start the trip to Turku Archipelago and Åland with the bicycle within couple of days :)

Just little bit about me: I´m 23-years old Finnish forestry student from Lapland (Rovaniemi), who is into every kind of physical activity and all likes to be close to nature at times! I´ve done bicycle trips in the summer/spring time since 2010, and from 2011 with the help of Tähtipyörä!. Big props for them, since they are again helping me out economically to enjoy well-equipped cycling trips trough out the Earth (Finland and Norway....so far..)!

So,  my Plan is to cycle the circuit of the Archipelago for at least half of it, and then take the ferry to Åland and see all the best places and landscapes there!Åland is a pretty small Island in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden. The length of the Island from the side to another side is about 60-70 kilometers, so it´s not the hardest trip I´ve ever done. It´s more about the great scenic routes of the Archipelago and Åland. I all so have never visited the Island, so I got curious to see what kind of place it is. It´s mostly Swedish people there, and the area has autonomy, which, for example, means that the men of Åland don´t need to do the military service, which is (so far ) obligatory in Finland. And all their roads are read too, I´ve heard!

I will be trying to take nice photos of the routes, and I hope somebody might get excited to try the wheel travelling based on organic power! Check out my upcoming blogs and have a nice summer!