Ilpo Juvander

On the Road!
Around the Black And Caspian Sea + Pamir Highway 2010

So the plan is, that three teams which go a bit different route will meet in Kyrgyzstan sometime in July 2010 and head through Pamir Highway back to Finland.

Here’s how it roughly looks:

image

Team 1 consists of four people, Team 2 is three people and Team 3 is not really a team, but only me!

Motorcycles for the trip are BMW R1200GS & R1200GSA and KTM 640 Adventure.

Summer of 2010 – The Plan Continues to Live

After having weekend meeting with couple of guys who are planning trip to same area, I’m now thinking of including Pamir Highway to the trip as well. This just means taking two extra countries to the list, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan…

So something like this:

image

This also means extra 2-3 thousand kilometres driving, but it should be worth it!

Summer of 2010 – The Plan

This coming summer the adventure will be one of a kind. Nothing like the journeys before to Spain and Creek.

This journey is called ‘Around Black and Caspian Sea 2010’.

Plan is to drive from Finland through Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria to Turkey where there will be a stop for two weeks when my family is flying in there.

From Turkey journey continues through Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia back to Finland.

Here is a rough map of the journey:

image

My original plan was to drive only around Black Sea, but as Georgia and Russia have not opened the border for foreigners, I had to include Caspian Sea to the trip as well!

Trip planning is fully on its way and if timetables just allow I will meet some Finnish motorcycle drivers in Uzbekistan and drive back home with them.

My motorcycle is under preparations for the trip and almost ready for it. Some additional gears still on its way. Biggest challenges on it have been getting enough shields and also some extra fuel for it. Right now I have capacity to carry ~45 litres with me so that should get me anyhow over 800 km before I ran out of it!

I will be updating status regularly on this blog and also on created Facebook group.

My BMW R1200GS Adventure

My BMW R1200GS Adventure is 2009 model which I got end of August 2009.

It came preinstalled with these:

  • Enduro packet 2 (ESA, computer, fog lights, led lights, chrome exhaust pipes)
  • Enduro gear
  • Side and top cases with inner bags image image

After this I have been adding following into:

  • Autocom Super Pro Automatic with 4 bluetooth connections (Mobile phone, GSP, IPod) and support for pmr radiophone with tangent (Chainspeed) Autocom Super Pro Automatic
  • Vertex Standard VX-146 PMR radiophone
  • Bags Connection Quick-lock Electric-tankbag with 3 12V output plugs inside (R.M. Heino)Tankbag
  • Power output for Gerbing heated jacket
  • Power input for battery charger
  • Driver seat X-Low (Touratech)image
  • Akrapovic 2-1-2 Titanium Full Exhaust system (Motorworks)
  • PowerCommander with AutoTune

autotune_universal_fit_kit

  • Garmin zūmo 660

cf-md

  • Handlebar bracket for Garmin Zumo 660, lockable (Touratech)

    untitled

  • GPS Bracket Adapter (Touratech)image

     

  • Inner Fender (Innenkotflügel, Wunderlich)Innenkotflügel
  • Oil Cooler Grills (Ölkühlerschutzgitter, Wunderlich)Ölkühlerschutzgitter
  • Center Stand Protection Plate (Hauptständerschutzplatte, Wunderlich)Hauptständerschutzplatte
  • Side Covers (Seitendeckelsatz Titan-Silber, Wunderlich)Seitendeckelsatz Titan-Silber
  • Safety Oil Filler Plug (Sicherheits-Ölstopfen, Wunderlich)Sicherheits-Ölstopfen*
  • Hub Cover Tornado (Nabenabdeckung Wunderlich)Hub Cover Tornado
  • Quick release handlebars (Lenker Schenllverschluss, Wunderlich)
  • Sidestand Enlarger (Seitenständer-Auflagevergrößerung, Wunderlich)Seitenständer-Auflagevergrößerung*
  • CruiseControl (Wunderlich)Cruise Control, Aluminium silber eloxiert
  • Swingarm Pivot Covers (Wunderlich)Schwingen-Verschlussdeckel EDGE Design, rechts
  • Telelever Cover Set (Wunderlich)Telelever-Lagerabdeckung EDGE Design
  • Injection Cover (Abdeckung Einspritzanlage, Satz, silber, Wunderlich)Abdeckung Einspritzanlage, Satz, silber
  • Brake fluid reservoir guard front (Touratech)
  • Clutch reservoir guard (Touratech)
  • Frame protectors, silver (Touratech)
  • ZEGA PRO pannier lid bag x 2 (Touratech)
  • Holder for 2-litres canister, stainless steel x 2 (Touratech)image
  • Canister 2 litre x 2 (Touratech)image

     

  • Anti-glare shield (Touratech)
  • Headlight cover makrolon (Touratech)
  • Camping table (Touratech)
  • Engine Skid Plate Mark 4 (BestRest Products)

  • Peg Packer 1-gallon Unit x 2 (BestRest Products)
  • SplashGuard (BestRest Products)
  • CyclePump Adventure Combo Package (BestRest Products)
  • Spare Oil Bottle (Nippy Normans)

BCT_OILBOTTLEB BCT_OILBOTTLED BCT_OILBOTTLEC

 

And here are links to sites where all of above has been purchased:

Another Iron Butt Ride Accepted – SS2000

Just end of last week I rode an SS2000 ride (2,000 documented miles in under 48 hours) when coming from Germany to home.

Did all the paperwork during the weekend and send them over for approval into IBA Finland on Monday and was really surprised when I got mail this morning telling that the ride was accepted!

image

Good work even though it is most busiest time for checking these rides.

So, this was no my 9th accepted Iron Butt ride with the motorcycle. Right now I have 3 * SS1000, 1 * SS1000K, 2 * BB1500, 1 * SS2000K, 1 * SS2000 and 1 * BB1500GOLD accepted.

And two more SS1000 rides on the approval queue.

Way Home From Zakynthos – Day 7 & 8

On the morning I checked out from the hotel and dropped all the luggage into reception before leaving to work.

We had successful day and managed to get everything done by 14:00 so this meant early start for my planned SS2000 and final home coming trip.

Just quick walk to the hotel to get all my stuff, Gore-Tex on, luggage's to the bike which was still waiting at the hotel garage and then towards first gas station which was only few hundred meters from the hotel.

At 14:31 I was all set to go, tank full of gas and TomTom had all directions loaded up.

Drive through Germany was really pleasant, no big traffic jams on the way, just some road works which did not really slow down at all. Just driving and filling up tank.

I started seeing that after driving ~1200 kilometers I started being in Copenhagen and was planning to catch a hotel in there. I had nothing reserved so I planned to get into Clarion Hotel Copenhagen which from previous trips to Copenhagen I knew to be on good spot and it also had working wired internet connection.

First driving route was this:

image

Just before 01:00 I arrived there, got the room, quick shower, checking for e-mails and time to sleep. Did not had to wait long before this happened…

At 06:45 I had wakeup and 07:00 I was downstairs having breakfast which was excellent. After that I did some calculations on how much time I would have before leaving towards Stockholm and noticed that I was not in a hurry at all so just before 08:00 I was on the road again.

First 24h driving was to be ended near Stockholm before 14:31. I had marked in TomTom the first possible place to end this day and once passed this way before end time I just drove further since anyway I needed to drive these kilometers to get home.

In Järna Södertälje Municipality I finally then took the end for the first 24h after driving ~1800 km and this was also some 45 minutes before the actual end time, but I thought that good break at this point was wise thing to do.

I found one Finnish family from Turku to sign my papers for the ride, waiting few more minutes and second 24h was about to start.

At this point I still had the option of taking the ferry, but as the general feeling was excellent, bike was working well I just went for it and started driving towards home. TomTom was showing that I had 1815 km driving ahead.

Driving through Sweden from Stockholm via E4 was really not that nice. Road was horrible, nothing to see and I decided that this was my first and last drive on this road. It was switching from one lane to two lane road every 500 to 1000 meters, had these motorcyclist killer wires on both sides of the road. Cannot understand the thinking on why it was built like this. Local car drivers were not comfortable on driving this either, in general when the wires were there they were driving 10-20 km/h below the speed limit, once the wires were gone they were driving normal speed.

But, eventually I got to Haparanda and to the Finnish side ~2:30. That was a long night.

image

By the early morning I did not find my self sleepy at all, but after driving some 24 hours it really started to hit. I had to stop quit often for a cup of coffee, just to walk a bit and driving started to slow down. Since this was the way home and last driving day, I was not planning to keep any sleeping in hotel, but just driving through.

Originally I planned to be at home around 09:00, but because of these stops I eventually made it to the Mikkelä ST1 station at 12:20. Not too bad, I still had more than 2 hours driving time ahead.

This was after driving ~1800 km from Stockholm to Espoo. So during the past 48h I had driven ~3650 km… a good two days ride!

This was the last 1½ days worth driving:

image

After getting back home, quickly just taking all the stuff out from it and it was time for after drive Lonkero and Sauna!

Some paper work to be done, but that can wait for few days as IBA Finland has now the busiest times so why to push everything in there.

Way Home from Zakynthos – Day 5 & 6

On the morning I just relaxed at the hotel and read e-mails, I had a scheduled meeting at 11:30 with a customer so this was not a fully vacation day anymore…

At 11:00 I checked out from the Hotel Mennicken in Würselen near Aachen, which was a very nice small hotel. Had some issues on getting the wireless network connection working, which turned out not to be there, but instead I had to buy some 2 euro wired network connection which worked just nicely after I got it.

image image image

Had a ½ day meeting and then I headed for the next destination, Sindelfingen near Stuttgart.

Had only 415 km drive according to TomTom.

During the drive I stopped once to put Gore-Tex driving clothes on, then another stop to eat quickly at local Burger King and final stop was to get more gas. Driving on German autobahns is consuming lot more gas as the speed gets higher than usually.

After driving some 4 hours I arrived in Sindelfingen and balladins SUPERIOR Hotel Residence. Hotel was at excellent location for me as I had two working days in here at the client just 5 minutes walk from it. Hotel had also garage where I could park my bike.

Shortest and fastest was the route I took:

image

For the next day had not much else but trying to set mind to work, full days meeting, some dinner in the evening and preparing for the last day in Sindelfingen.

One thing i was thinking on the last evening at Sindelfingen was how to get back home and the plan that I started implementing was SS2000 ride from Sindelfingen through Stockholm to Espoo. So not taking the ferry from Stockholm to Finland. I planned to end first 20h drive at Stockholm so anyway I had the ferry option if driving was not at its best.

This was the route that I had in mind:

image

So one more good night sleep, working for the day and then starting to execute the plan!

Way Home from Zakynthos – Day 4

This day had lazy start. Plan was to start driving SS1000 Iron Butt ride from Split / Croatia to Aachen / Germany.

Same time at the breakfast room there was a group of Swedish people and they were really hard on discussing the one Finnish bike out on the hotel’s parking… but they did not dare to ask anything on that.

Everything was ready by 10:30 at Hotel Zvonimir, so I decided to starting preparing for the ride.

Hotel Zvonimir image

By 11:30 everything was ready and I headed for the first gas station to start the ride, filled my tank and way to Aachen was started.

From Split to Zagreb there is A1 motorway, a toll road with 130 km/h limit. I drove with just t-skirt and shorts half of the way, until it started climbing higher and higher I decided to switch to Gore-Tex. This was not a minute too late as temperature was dropping closer to 20 degrees and it was very windy, speed limit was set to 80 km/h.

Stop to switch Gore-Tex clothes on image

What a view!

It was almost half way already to Zagreb when I started looking for a gas station as planned and I even stopped on one of them for a while until I gave up. There were very long queues on all of them and I made quick calculations on if I’m going to make it with the gas I had to Zagreb or not.

Refueling with these queues would take at least ½ hour or more, but with the speed of 130 km/h my bike is taking too much fuel to handle ~400 km journey to Zagreb so I needed to lower speed to 100 – 110 km/h. I was constantly monitoring from onboard computer on how much longer I could get with the fuel I had left and lowered or accelerated accordingly.

At Zagreb I took 22.33 L into 24 L tank, onboard computer was showing that another 25 kilometers to go at this point.

On the way to Zagreb one Finnish car spotted.

There was also funny thing at the end of the toll road: when everybody was trying to get out from it to get paid, they all wanted to use money and queue was 2-3 kilometers long. When paying with credit card, no queue. Go figure. Not hard to imagine which queue I took…

From Zagreb everything started smoothly, toll road ahead and going towards Slovenia. But that ended quickly: either the A3 highway was under repairs or Croatian / Slovenian border on that road was closed, but everybody was guided away from the highway into very small country roads and that was not very nice. It took over an hour to get out from there back into bigger roads and it went through very small border control which had only one man looking into passports. There went my good night sleep…

Eventually I got out from there and from Slovenia to Austria, no big surprises there. Near Austrian border at the planned stop I spotted hotel by the gas station and again after quick calculations decided to take a 4 hour break and sleep for a while. I got bike at the behind of the hotel and everything was set for a sleep.

Breakfast at 02:15 before leaving

At 02:00 alarm woke me up, quick shower, breakfast, clothes on and out. 02:30 I was on the bike and riding again.

This 3½ hour sleep really made big different on the general feeling, only thing which I forgot was to put Gerbing heated jacket on for which I needed to make an extra stop. Temperature at this point was only 8 degrees. After getting the Gerbing on feeling was even better, almost like driving back in Greece!

After driving few hours it was again time to get sunglasses on as sun was finally getting up again and starting to warm up the air.

Rest of the trip went pretty much as planned, some minor adjustments on the stops. Last thing before the end was a bit nightmare again. Gas station that I had planned was there, but road was blocked and no way getting there! After couple of smaller circles I decided to make a bigger one and finally found a way into that gas station. This was anyhow a corner place so I had to get a ticket from it.

Then it was just ~70 ride to end and I managed to get end ticket some 40 minutes in advance.

This was my ending spot This was my ending spot

Total riding 1661 km according to bike’s odometer.

This was the route according to TomTom recordings that I drove today:

SS1000 route from Split / Croatia to Aachen / Germany

Roads were on excellent conditions and one can really ride Iron Butt rides all the way down to Croatia as there are 130 km/h speed limits almost all the way. If just no roads are being cut off… Lots of maintenance work was on the Austrian and Germany side, must have been 100-150 kilometers driving slower than usual.

Now just have to put all papers together, send them over for checking and hope for the best. Those parts in Croatia where I ended up on those small roads are going to be hard one to figure out since MS AutoRoute does not know any of them… but that is not my headache!

Way Home from Zakynthos – Day 3

This was just excellent day! What a drive!

Day started at 10:00 local time by leaving the hotel at Montenegro and heading towards Split / Croatia. Soon after I left from hotel TomTom made it to the map and started showing directions.

My bike ready to go in Hotel WGrand parking place in Montenegro Hotel WGrand in Montenegro

At that point it showed 312 kilometers to the target, but I ended up getting 30-40 kilometers and 1 hour since I took a bit detour around the Croatia you see circled in the red below:

image

That detour was because I did not want to take the ferry that is seen in the map (looks like a road…). Around those shores were loads of small swimming places, summer cottages, small villages and road that circled that was very small, hardly car and a motorcycle could pass by! But what a view.

At some point I crossed the border to Croatia and then to Bosnia-Herzegovina and back to Croatia. At the border people were not really interested on motorcyclist with a Finnish flag on it, they just waved a hand and let me pass without showing any passport or anything!

Stop for a drink before Dubrovnik Croatian country side

Everything went smoothly as usual on this day, just lazy driving, relaxing and enjoying the view. Average speed was somewhere around 60 km/h.

Only few bikers spotted on the way, some more when getting closer to Split.

Air was very warm, whole day over 36 degrees and on some places I spotted this trips best temperatures, 38.5 degrees Celsius!

Hotel Zvonimir that I booked was a small disappointment. They advertized that they have wired internet connection in every room, but that was not true. I needed to pay extra to get a room with that and only third room that I tried had a working connection…

Anyway, now after eating I’m again ready for a sleep, tomorrow need to drive to Aachen / Germany in one ride. SS1000 ride, 1619 kilometers in less than 24 hours.

Way Home from Zakynthos – Day 2

Today’s plan was to drive from Ioannina / Greece to Petrovac / Montenegro.

Day started ~09:00 and since it was only 21 degrees out, I decided to drive with all Gore-Tex clothes and take them out if it becomes too hot.

First trick on the day was to get TomTom to guide me to the border of Greece and Albania since they are on separate map, you cannot directly point it to the other country and I had to choose one village closest to the border and drive there and then switch the map and continue.

On the Greece Albanian border Greece side had no issues letting me go out of the country, but on Albanian side I had to present all the motorcycle papers along with passport and at the customs I even got an certificate that I had the bike with me when entering Albania!

Albanian side was excellent ride. Although the road that I choose was at first not at its best, the views were excellent and since I was riding only 50-60 km/h, this road condition did not really matter.

In Albania I did only two quick stops to drink, once in some far away country place and second time some 100 km before Montenegro in local gas station.

Traffic was not that bad, although some of the people were driving these local roads which were not in perfect condition like they would have been good highways, but still they passed by using a good distance and not disturbing my driving. But still, it is good to look all the time in the mirrors to see if there is somebody coming from behind of you.

Good think in Albania is that even though euro is not official currency, they all seem to accepts euro’s, which is good since credit cards are not that widely accepted.

Once I got the the Albania Montenegro border, on Albanian side I just had to show passport and leave the certificate from the bike that I got when entering the country and I got out. On Montenegro side procedure was again bit different: there I needed to show passport and also green card I got from insurance company for the bike. Good for me I had that with me. After that I was in Montenegro!

Now it was just time to find Petrovac, before that one quick stop for drink and filling the gas tank in Podgorica. TomTom had co-ordinates for Petrovac, but still there was one surprise on the way: there was a new tunnel road built which TomTom did not know and I decided to take that. That was a bit mistake, should have taken the mountain road… I ended up doing a bit side tour and the end of the tunnel before finding the correct road again, few kilometers and 15 minutes wasted on that…..

After I found village Petrovac, finding the Hotel WGrand was easy, all the area’s hotel were pointed out very well with signs. TomTom had no clue what so ever from this village, only the location of it.

Driving into this village from Ioannina was ~500 km and it took 9½ hours so I arrived here ~17:30 local time. Montenegro is in different time zone than Greece where I left.

Hotel is very nice, excellent wireless internet connection which cannot be said from all of these places where I have been!

Dinner was excellent in the restaurant near by, 300gr grilled stead with potatoes, rice, beans, small carrots, mixed salad and two big beers was only 18 euro’s.

After that I was ready for a good night sleep.

Waking up in the morning was quick, 06:00 local time and starting to plan for next day. This looks like it is going to end up in Split Croatia. There I have found a nice little hotel to stay for a night.

Below is the map of the route I took, recorded by TomTom (click for larger map):

image

At the end of the route on the top you can see the detour I took…

Way Home from Zakynthos – Day 1

We started at 11:00 from our Arkadia Hotel at Zakynthos, escorted by family to the airport and looked that they got through the check-in.

After that headed to the ferry from Zakynthos to Killini, ferry was about to leave at 13:00.

All ready to roll, my TomTom had direct co-ordinates to the next hotel which was Dovitel Boutique Hotel at Perama near Ioannina.

I started at Killini harbor at 14:30 and ended up in hotel after driving ~400 kilometers. Some detours on the way and some happy surprises as TomTom did not know all of the roads ahead…

Also the hotel POI that TomTom knew was about one kilometer too early, but lucky for me I found an German speaking lady who guided me to the right direction.

Hotel is very nice, quite new and only drawback is that air conditioning is not working. But that was known issue as the hotel manager called day before after I made the reservation and let me know about this.

This was the route that I actually drove, straight out from TomTom (click for more details):

image

Right now I’m driving on my own, two ex-friends Kari and Arto I had on the way to Zakynthos decided to take quicker route through Italy.

Way to Zakynthos

Day 1

Our first driving day started with SS1000 ride which we started from Tallinn at 00:36. Then just heading down Via Baltica to Riga, Kaunas, Bialystok, Lublin, Svidnik, Debrecen and Oradea.

Did not have much surprises on the way except the fact that driving through eastern Europe is a pain. Way too little roads and too many turns.

This lead us into timing issue on our SS1000 ride and we needed to take the plan B instead of original plan.

I had already checked an earliest possible ending spot which we gained easily and filled our tanks, but decided to continue to the next one just in case. Next gas station we found some 30 kilometers further towards Oradea/Romania where we made then our final ending for our SS1000 Iron Butt ride. This was just few minutes before the time ended.

After this we continued to our hotel which was Hotel Maxim in Oradea. Had some issues on finding the hotel as TomTom did not have any clue on Romanian streets… Arto fell with his bike while it was on very slow motion, but eventually we did find the hotel, managed to get our bikes parked and got some sleep.

First day driving was ~1700 kilometers.

Day 2

Second driving day started ~10:00 as we let us some extra sleep. Packed our bikes and started heading our next stop which was going to be Pitest / Romania.

On our way to Pitest we hit few minutes of thunderstorm and we got our bikes cleaned… water was really pouring down! But eventually it stopped and sun was shining again.

This day driving was only 460 kilometers, but we took it quite easy and stopped often for a while and we were on our Hotel Victoria. Hotel was very nice, again had some trouble on finding it but some local biker was kind enough to guide us there.

Finally got some real food inside as well.

Hotel Victoria Bikes parked at Hotel Victoria

Day 3

Third driving day was from Pitesti to Sofia / Bulgaria.

This day was now the first time TomTom did not find the correct way. On the border of Romania and Bulgaria there was a passing of river in Vidin / Romania and TomTom did not find the way to border and to the ferry from Romania to Bulgaria.

We had to do a bit of detour and start following the signs to the ferry and finally made it to there as well. Had to wait some 1½ hours before the next ferry came and took us to the other side.

image

We got our bikes really on the front of the ferry where the cars drive out from it, that was a kind of interesting place for us…

image

But eventually we got to the other side.

In Bulgaria we needed to pay some road taxes at the border which was from all of us three 9 EUR all. Not too bad.

We had some company from some Italian bikers, one driving with scooter and other with motorbikes. They were driving really fast and passed us quickly. Then on some cases they made a wrong turn and we passed them again, but on the ferry they catched us again and they were so much faster on paying the road tax so we never saw them again.

When arriving to Sofia TomTom guided us directly to our hotel and there we got some interesting requests: Our bikes were to be parked in the hotels restaurant!

image image image

Just drove them in from the main entrance! Nice one from our Hotel Maxim.

This days driving was little over 450 kilometers.

Day 4

Fourth day started with the morning exercise of getting the bikes out from the Hotel Maxim’s restaurant:

 image image

image image

Up until this day we had followed pretty closely the planned route, but now came the first change for it. City that we had planned for next evening was all full, no cheap hotels on our price range was found so we took the next best option on our route and started driving to city called Nea Achialos in Greece and Hotel Protessilaos.

image

Here we actually got our first swim as the hotel was just in the beach! On the evening there was terrible thunderstorm again and the hotel manager was telling us that it had been like that for the last two weeks that in the evening it just rains and thunders and everything is gone by the morning. And it did.

This day was ~500 kilometers driving.

Day 5

This was the day that we would be arriving to Zakynthos, our final destination. We had only 370 kilometers driving which took 5 hours from us until we were at the Kyllini harbor waiting for our ferry to take us to Zakynthos island.

Bridge between Antirrio and Patra in Greek Arriving to Zakynthos

In Zakynthos we did not get into final hotel yet, so we needed to book another one for this evening, Best Western Zante Park Hotel.

Day 6

Sixth day was just to drive to the airport, wait for my family to arrive and get to our final destination hotel, Arkadia Luxury Hotel.

Looking at the Zante Airport when my family arrived And yes, they managed to get to Zakynthos!

Our hotel manager was waiting for us at the airport and we just drove behind him into the hotel.

image

And once we got there

image image

After this it was just time to enjoy two weeks in Zakynthos Island!

 

Here is our full route we took with all the stops along, click map to get bigger one:

From Espoo to Zakynthos Greek Island

Summer of 2009 – The Plan

As before, we will escape from cold and rainy Finnish summer and head for the southern Europe.

We have reserved ferry tickets from Helsinki to Tallinn on the evening 2nd of July and start driving as soon the ferry is in Tallinn.

This time our trip will take us to Zakynthos, Greece.

We start driving from Tallinn, Estonia and our first night will be in Oradea, Romania. Target is to drive one Iron Butt SS1000 (=1000 miles, 1609 km) on the way in less than 24 hours.

From Oradea we continue to Pitesti, Romania for our next night, then to Sofia, Bulgaria and Larissa, Greece. From there we should then head to our Kyllini, Greece where we take a ferry to our final destiny, Zakynthos, Greece.

At Zakynthos we stay for two weeks and then start heading back to Finland. Return route is pretty much unclear yet, some plans to ride Iron Butt BB2500K Gold (2500 km in less than 24 hours) on the way back, but this is to be seen. Anyway our route back will take longer than getting in there as we take the route through Albania, Montenegro, Croatia etc.

This is the route we are going to take on the way there (click for full map):

image

We have ~3600 kilometers driving in 5 days and after the first day we have left ~2000 kilometers so ~500 kilometers per day driving. Not too bad.

BB1500 Gold Results

Finally saw our BB1500 Gold Ride as accepted:

BB1500 Gold Result

So this ride was 8th Iron Butt Ride!

Käytännön ajotaito -kurssi

Tulipa sitten 16.5.2009 käytyä läpi ensimmäinen moottoripyörän käsittelyä koskeva kurssi.

Tämä oli Motiimin järjestämä päivän mittainen tapahtuma Joutsan Seudun Ratakeskuksessa.

Päivä alkoi Espoosta 7:30 startilla kohti Joutsaa, 10:00 piti olla perillä. Pienen sompailun jälkeen saapuminen sinne oli 9:55, jossa homma lähti liikkeelle kahvin ja pullan voimin.

Kahvi ja ruokailu paikka Omapyöräkin löytyi kuvaan

Tästä eteenpäin sitten olikin erinäköisiä harjoituksia, hitaasti ja nopeasti pujottelua, ympyräajoa, jarrutuksia eri nopeuksista, jarrutusta ja väistöä, ajolinjojen hakemista asfalttiin maalattua rataa seuraamalla jne.

Päivä päättyi 18:00 ja alkoikin olla jo aikakin, raskasta vääntää isoa pyörää koko päivän liikkeissä joita ei ihan joka reissussa tule muutenkaan tehtyä.

Kaikenkaikkiaan erinomainen päivä, vaikka itsellä on jo 50 000 kilometriä takana nykyisellä pyörällä – mikä on kyllä aikamoinen möhkäle – niin koko ajan on ollut epävarma olo sen käsittelyssä pienillä nopeuksilla. Pyörä on melkoisen yläpainoinen ja vaatii senkin vuoksi jo erilaista asennoitumista ja tarkkuutta siihen, miten sitä käsitellään.

Tämän päivän harjoitteiden jälkeen on jo paljon luottavaisempi sen suhteen, miten pyörää voi ja pitää käsitellä kun tehdäään tiukkoja käännöksiä ja muutenkin ajetaan hitaammin.

Kovemmilla nopeuksillahan tuon kanssa ei ole missään vaiheessa mitään haasteita ollutkaan.

Olisi vain pitänyt aikaisemmin osallitus tällaiselle kurssille…

Kaikki kiitokset Motiimin osaavalle kouluttaja tiimille, varmastikin osallistutaan uudelleenkin verestämään ajotaitoja tulevina vuosina.

  Kurssin kouluttajia Motiimilta

More Posts Next page »