I’ve started writing about my last year bike trip in the Indian Himalayas. Before I had not forced myself to more than one blog post and an unsorted pile of photos. Now I’ve started with a short illustrated text about practical issues, answering questions which I had at the planning stage:
Cycling in Himachal Pradesh: practical issues
My next plan is to publish the daybook with facts and impressions. Stay tuned.
We’ve done a great sunny full-day ride on our tandem with a kidback plus two other bikes. The target was Vanhankaupungin koski (stream and a waterfall), one of the city attractions we had not visited before.
This made 56 km and 10 hours door-to-door. I think it was the first day of the year when it was possible to cycle in shorts – not morning and evening though.
Map of the ride: § Read the rest of this entry…
My family spent a week of vacation in a rented cottage house around Kuopio (Finland).
This was an utter joy for me. I love winter, that is, the real winter – meaning lots of snow, frozen lakes, and beating the ski track through the intact surfaces. § Read the rest of this entry…
A motivated-looking female character illustrates the software update process. Picture from nokia.com
Are you sometimes getting a thought that the life feels a bit too routine? That you’ve done nothing really crazy for a long time?
Even if so, the good news is that there is always an escape from such dead end! That is, unicycling!
§ Read the rest of this entry…
What a vandalism is this? Turning a keyboard into two pieces of junk?
No, it’s just the opposite – Bringing the Order, and Getting Rid of Junk!
I never use the “numeric keypad” on the right side. And it takes valuable space from my right hand. So what’s the problem if I got the hacksaw? Read on how I did it (with pictures and instructions for followers).
The winter – meaning, snow and ice – is not yet coming to our region, but I somehow feel that the roadbike season is over. With this thought in mind, I rebuilt my road (or cross) bike with flat bars.
I’ve uploaded the pictures from the “cycling” part of my Himalaya trip.
Some thumbnails: § Read the rest of this entry…
It has been a month since I have returned from solo cycling trip in Indian Himalayas.
Impressions clearly overloaded my brain. This was first time I’ve been to Real Mountains – the highest pass, Kunzum, was at 4500m. And this was my first time I’ve been to a non-Western country (not counting my home Russia, which I’d put “on the border”).
The route was easy: start at Shimla, and follow the National Highway 22 (with some variations in the beginning) until Manali. Oh the highway… Never have seen anything like this before.
Numbers, mostly of interest to cyclists only:
What else:
once had to wait until it’s cleaned (I waited just half an hour, but others were there from the morning to the evening):
In fact the impressions of India as a country overweigh the “mountain-cycling” impressions. It deserves much more than one blog post – even much more than one book. All my perception of the surrounding world is now a little bit different than it was before. Probably such thing is called “cultural shock”. I’m so happy that this happened; now I see how terribly narrow view I previously had.
Of the real India, I have seen only Chandigarh, which is described in all guides as most comfortable city in the country. Still it is, of course, Indian city (just like my home Saint Petersburg is the most European of the Russian cities, but still fully Russian).
I’m feeling own deficiency of not being a good writer to describe my thoughts about these two weeks. I will certainly do what I know I can – produce a technical report, with details for cyclists such as what tires to put on your bike and how much food to carry.
All pictures (unprocessed) piled here.
Today evening I was catching last weekend of the school vacation. Starting from tomorrow, my time limits for the outdoor activities again become much more strict. And there was a great chance to use it: in a company of Antero and Matti (thanks for calling me in!), we made 100km at average speed a bit over 30 km/h.
Now I have 2000km on my roadbike’s computer during this season. Quite an achievement for me, taking into account that I was not cycling during 3 weeks when we went out for family trips, and that I do most of my everyday commuting on the other bicycle. Now intensive collection of kilometers slows down; I have a positive feeling that the time available to collect them was used at full extent.
We have fantastically good cycling weather now in southern Finland. And I’m happy to report the fact that I’m using this chance at full speed! Specifically, last Saturday I participated in a group ride in Hamina region. § Read the rest of this entry…
It may be fun to post to the blog from a mobile phone. Doing so via the default web interface is certainly not the most convenient way (lot of extra traffic). WordPress has blog by email solution, which is OK from traffic viewpoint, but I was scared by instructions – involving setup of a “secret email account” and a cron job. Also, it does not support insertion of images.
Scribe is a free Python WordPress publishing client for Symbian S60 phones. Worked fine so far on Nokia E90 – this post is written in Scribe. Insertion of images is still not supported though; seems that the only client capable of it is a commercial Wavelog.
I cycled Helsinki-Tampere route to hang out with my former colleagues already many times. This became almost a tradition; I ride about 200km, and at some place meet my friends who rode maybe 20km from their homes. Each time I naturally try to choose a new route to explore small roads in between. This is how it went today:
The first span, Espoo-Karkkila, was nothing too interesting; I rode main roads to cover the distance faster. Early Sunday morning even roads like Valtatie 2 are almost empty. Then the nice part came. 2832 was a really great road: excellent pavement, very low traffic, spectacle outlooks. On road 283, in a small village Teuro, an exhibition of old machinery could be viewed at “Teuro old technique day”:
Old machines at Teuro day
Old bicycles at Teuro exhibition
40 km along road 2846 were another pleasant experience. The headwind, which I was fighting against all the route, became stronger; but I had enough time before our meeting and did not care about riding at too low speed. In the end, the average was (disgraceful for me) 24.6 km/h; well I have an excuse of that headwind.
It made altogether 230 km door-to-door – I did not cycle back but took a train. Great ride!
I have a number of favorite ride routes. Most of them are to the west from Helsinki area, as I live almost on the western border of Espoo. Recently I’ve refreshed two especially beautiful, probably “classic” treks: Hanko and Lohjanjärvi.
First was Hanko. Espoo-Hanko distance is 110 km by an arrow-straight, relatively flat, moderately loaded road. Last 35 kilometers are especially flat and especially nice; the path is cut through very clear and dry pine forest. The area was a battlefield two times in the history. About 20 km to Hanko you can turn for a cup of coffee into a military museum. § Read the rest of this entry…
I’m writing this from Helsinki cyclist’s viewpoint.
Do you know the Finnish traffic regulations applicable to bicycles? When you are obliged to yield to a car by the rules, and when to do this only if you see that you’d be ridden over otherwise?
The best thing is to read the source, but to get the feeling, you may answer 9 test questions for car drivers. Only a beginning knowledge of Finnish is required.
4 May, the first Sunday of the month, Helsinki bicycle clubs traditionally go out for a joint ride.
This time the ride was more than just enjoyable. It was fantastic! At the starting point, Vantaankosken grillikioski, there were about 25 bright-color roadbikers. § Read the rest of this entry…
Use case: I want to draw a bike route on a map, for own joy or for sharing with my cycling friends. Google maps are cool, and free. As they are, they are not perfect for this task… but you can make them perfect with a tweak. § Read the rest of this entry…
This time I was “leading” the club ride. I did not expect too many people to join, as the weather forecast was not the best one, ride was announced less than 1 week in advance, and there was another club ride the same day. 4 persons rode in the announced 22-25 km/h tempo to Veikkola and then back via another road. Nothing too much, but not bad for the first time in the spring – in case you did not have chance to “open the road season” earlier!
Cycling from work yesterday, I noticed something… well, uneven, on my rear wheel. At the cellar door, the exploration has revealed three places where the sidewall cord of the tyre was torn, two of them longer than 3 cm! Inner tube was buldging out. What a luck that it still got me home and did not explode, say, on half way to work – clear failure of the Murphy’s law!
