The sweet revenge of the bitter Grandmas United Against Pedal Pushers Club in Munkkivuori, Helsinki. I wonder what caused the installation of this fabulously hilarious and absolutely nonsensical speed bump for bicycles. Were residents of this quiet area riding their bikes too fast? Too reckless? I really wonder just what the hell was going on here that someone actually took the trouble of bolting the bump onto the concrete path tiles. And it’s not that it would require incredible effort to ride around the bump, it’s the sign that scares the bejesus out of me: “No thoroughfare.” I’d much more expect to spot something like this in one of the German speaking countries, not Finland.

I regretted so much that I was on foot, as otherwise I would gladly engage in an act of civil disobedience and ride right through. Boohoo.

Mladen

It was just as I was standing on the edge of a swampy forest looking for the right spot where I would spend my first night on the road that I could really understand why in Finland they annually organize mosquito killing competitions. All my fingers, both palms and hands were flying in all directions trying to ward off the nasty tiny blood-sucking insects. As I begun fiddling with my tent trying to set it up, the situation became even worse. I was trying to pay more attention to the tent, but what I was doing resembled juggling with invisible objects more than anything I’d actually tried to do.

And I was very much aware that I am probably not even getting close to the worst of what mosquitos can offer when they gather in large quantities. I couldn’t have possibly imagined what must it feel like to do anything in Lappland in July, both the right place and time for a mosquito paradise. And considering that I’ve slapped only about 50 or so in the last half an hour, I probably couldn’t even qualify for the first round of any insect swatting competition anywhere.

The first day of my cycling trip to Koli area was almost over. I have only a very rough idea of how I want to get there and what I want to see on this trip. However, it might just as well be that the whole trip itself was a very good excuse for me to go cycling. It’s the journey that matters much more than the actual destination.

If everything had gone according to plan I came up with while I was surprisingly enough, lying on the bed at home in Kuopio one evening, then right now I’d been setting my tent somewhere very close to the town of Juuka. Incredibly enough, getting from point A to point B by dragging a finger on the map seems to be much easier then when you actually set out to cycle there. Juuka is situated on the eastern shore of lake Pielinen and is not very far from Koli national park. But it was already 8 o’clock in the evening and being some 30 kilometers away from Juuka, there was no way I’d reach it while the sun was still up. So I decided to camp close to the hamlet of Kajoo.

I’ve been dreaming about a cycling trip like this for about two months how. All I’ve been waiting for was the right opportunity to go. The weather had to be right, bike had to function properly and I needed enough time. And during those two months preparations were almost all the time under way. The biggest challenge was fixing the bike, as first of all I did not even know what exactly needed fixing. All I knew was that there were too many clicking and squeaking sounds a bike shouldn’t be making at all. Now, I really don’t know anything about fixing bikes so this great source on bike technicalities helped me immensely. After getting all kinds of different special wrenches, nuts and bolts, I finally fixed it the night before I took off. It’s not difficult to imagine you shaking your head thinking “This is not too smart, pal.” I know, I was skeptical myself. But then again, what the heck, I’ll see on the road how good of a job I’ve done.

Physically I haven’t undergone any particular preparations either. Sure, I still run now and then, but not being in good shape did not prevent me from going anywhere anytime earlier either. So I’d merrily spend several evenings sitting in front of a map making really bold plans. 180 kilometers the first day sounded quite right and it didn’t look that far either. After sitting around all day, eating warm dinner and 180 km being there on a piece of paper, that is. But being actually on the road cycling the whole day, being hungry, those 180 km turned out to be something completely different. Sure there were no mountain passes on the way and there won’t be any to come, not anywhere near to where I’m going, but it’s not like I’m cycling in the Netherlands either. It’s rolling hills all the time. And when I say all the time, I truly mean all the time.

Another issue was cycling with panniers. Lifting up the back of the bike with all that luggage attached to it just two minutes before departure was not too encouraging as I could barely lift the damn thing. How in the world am I going to cycle hundreds of kilometers with this? It didn’t sound like fun at all. There was no way I’d cycle 180 kilometers the first day. I didn’t even want to weigh the whole thing. It simply ceased to matter as there was absolutely no way I could have taken less things with me than I did. And I proved to be right on that upon my return home, as of all the things I’ve taken along there was only one long sleeved T-shirt which I have not used. Everything else was in use at least a few times during the trip.

Raindrops hitting the window glass woke me up on the morning of departure. At that point I was still convinced that I’ll just have to delay my trip for another day or two. But as I was reading the paper and eating breakfast, sky begun clearing up a bit. I packed my stuff as quickly as I could and left around noon. The feeling of going on a trip without any particular constraints other then those linked to my personal fitness is probably one of the most liberating feelings of all. Cycling gives a sense of liberty.

Although I might have felt free of the usual everyday concerns, new ones started haunting me all too soon. Not even an hour into the ride a storm was approaching so quickly that my attempts to escape it turned out to be rather futile. Even though I did try riding faster, I knew I’d loose this game. Rain, or rather, large buckets of water were poured on me by the time I reached the Puutossalmi’s cable ferry some 25 kilometers south of Kuopio. Even though I wore my poncho I was wet through and through by the time I stepped of the ferry only a few minutes later.

Not minding the rain too much, I was wondering more about just how well the public transportation is organized in Finland. True, in some places city buses are absurdly expensive and you’d be paying 5,2€ for a single ride, but then there are also such absurdities as cable ferries, or lossi, as they are called around here, which are free of charge. They are considered a public service. You can actually think of it as a moving bridge: they operate 24 hours a day and if the cable-pulled ferry is not on your side of the shore when you want to cross, you ring the bell and there it comes. Probably the most famous one is Föri in Turku, which has been in operation since 1903 and was originally powered by a steam engine. In Turku lossi transports people between the banks of the Aura river, but they can be found all around Finland.

Cycling in Finland is great. There are lots of cycling routes, maps are well made and pretty much all roads are in good enough shape and extremely well marked. Unless you’re daydreaming or go on a trip without a map, there’s almost no way you could get lost. Well, maybe you’d still do just fine even without a map, although meticulous following of small brown signs carrying a bike pictogram with an arrow and a number would be a must. These carefully placed signs mark the national cycling network around the country and are to be found everywhere. I remember wondering about them even before I was aware that such a network is maintained when I spotted quite a few in Jyväskylä a couple of years ago.

Finland might be sparsely populated country, but you’d be amazed to see that not even a few kilometers go by without at least one building visible from the road. Before I set off I thought I’d be alone on the road, but I couldn’t be more wrong. Traffic was sparse, but there was just enough of it to feel safe in case something goes wrong on the road.

As kilometers went by the landscape hardly changed at all. Forest on the left, forest on the right for as far as the eye could see. Only occassionally there was a meadow, a pasture or a lake interrupting this incredibly regular pattern. But it sure made me cycle like crazy. With every single hill I climbed and turn I took I awaited with anticipation possible unseen landscape feature around every turn. But to no avail. All the time it felt like I was cycling around the lake and over the hill.

And there I was, 130 km away from home, sitting by the tent, eating and trying to catch the last rays of light on spread out map, making big plans for tomorrow.

Mladen

This is the second part of the Koli cycling trip series. Here you can find the first, third and fourth parts.

Soon after I moved to Finland to study in Jyväskylä I’ve heard about the Koli national park. And just how couldn’t have I. Not only is it regarded as a natural treasure rich in flora and fauna, but it has also earned a status of a national landscape. There aren’t many places in Finland which could claim the same.

Since the rise of national romanticism at the turn of 20th century every important or even aspiring Finnish artist visited Koli area for inspiration. As writers, painters, composers, poets and other artists came here to seek roots for their own work, they pulled along the whole nation and Koli soon became a tourist attraction. However, the national park itself, covering mere 30 square kilometers and including the famous Koli hill, has been established only in 1991 (although it has been a nature reserve since 1906). Since Koli is today as popular as ever and on top of that easily reachable from anywhere in Finland, there probably aren’t many Finns who have not visited it at least once.

Both Koli hill and the national park run along the western shore of lake Pielinen, which has throughout history of human population in area occupied an important role. The area around the lake has been populated by hunter-gatherer and slash-and-burn cultivating communities. Lake Pielinen was also en route between the Gulf of Bothnia and lake Ladoga (in what is today Russia), a frequently traveled route. The lake had a very important connecting role until the 1930s when easier accesses were established on land.

Such historical and cultural details accumulating in my mind over the last two years resulted in my growing interest in Koli and its surroundings. It became a must-visit destination and I was sure that seeing it would importantly contribute to my knowledge and understanding of my Finnish culture and history. Visiting the area thus just became a matter of time and, as it turned out, style.

It might be a bit difficult to imagine, but 72% of Finland is covered in forest. Let’s put it this way, it is world’s 11th most forested country. For comparison, 32% of Germany is covered with forest and 28% of France is. Both Germany and France are considerably larger than Finland, but it is only when their total areas of forested land are combined that the total barely amounts to more forest than there is in Finland alone. Numbers aside, I thought that visiting an area like Koli by means of motorized transportation would be, to say the least, inappropriate.

That said, I went to a nearby bookstore, picked up a map for cyclists for the area, went home, studied it a bit and drafted a rough plan for the trip. As it turned out Koli was not as far from Kuopio where I currently live as I had first imagined. However, I definitely wanted to avoid traffic as much as possible and thus opted to follow the national cycle touring route of Finland as much as possible on my way journey. As it was probably conceived with leisure in mind instead of efficiency it is a winding road and is far from being the shortest and easiest way to get there. Since there are hundreds, if not even thousands of lakes between lakes of Kallavesi and Pielinen, road was as twisty as it gets. But I knew immediately that it was definitely what I was looking for as it turned out it offered as much nature and silence as one could get from traveling on the road.

Before taking off I’ve only had a pretty solid idea of my route for my first day including a place I’d want to reach by the evening of that day. The rest, I’d decide on the fly. Each evening of the trip I’d sit down holding a well deserved meal in my hand and facing a map spread out on the ground, deciding where I wanted to go the next day. Even though the whole journey lasted only four days, it was fantastic.

So this is the first and introductory of four parts about my cycling journey to Koli. The remaining three parts will be published each a few days following the previous one. Enjoy the ride.

Mladen

This is the first part of the Koli cycling trip series. Here you can find the second, third and fourth parts.

Bothered by strangers or friends sitting next to you on a park bench? You shall be bothered no more, at least not in Helsinki. Come to this park right across the street from Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and enjoy your loneliness.

I have no idea how popular these are as I have not seen a similar concept anywhere else. Anyway, when I was in the park, observing these single-seat benches amused, they were as lonely as people resting their derrières on them would be. It was a sunny day and everyone hanging around in the park seemed to be happy enjoying the company of other people rather than isolating themselves.

Variety is great and I appreciate it, but sometimes it seems a bit too extreme. Even though Finns might appreciate a lot of personal space, I am sure that benches like these could just as well be found in places where most would get attacks of agoraphobia by just looking at them.

Anyway if you want to sit alone in public, you are welcome to Helsinki. Or alternatively you could get your very own private park. There you have it.

Mladen

It was a perfect day. After running some errands in town and after a bit of writing I jumped on my bike and set out riding through the forest until I reached a nearby lake. And that nearby lake can never be too far away in Finland anyway. I leaned my bike against a tree, glanced at the kids splashing in the lake and perched myself on a sunny chair-like rock poking out of the water. After a contemplative moment I decided to pull newspaper instead of my swimming shorts out of the shoulder bag.

It is summer and coming from about twenty degrees south of here, I am still very much used to associating summers with scorching heat and thinking oftentimes about ways of protecting oneself from the burning sun and hardly bearable heat. Both of which is usually accomplished by staying indoors only to peek out once the sun has set. I believe I need not remind you anymore that matters such as weather are rather different around here. Although there are a few perks that are definitely still worth mentioning. One of them is tolerance.

All the technological advancements in garments aside, people everywhere still complain about bad weather. I don’t ever expect this to change. Bad is of course whenever something is falling out of the sky or even if it’s just being hot or cold. So it’s not really a big surprise that people spending their whole life living in the same place get used to the local climate complain merrily when they relocate to a different environment. Heck, some complain regardless of what is going on. Finns can be particularly vocal when the winters are not cold enough. Which is strange enough as they also perpetually complain about them being too cold too. Often both statements by the same person in the same sentence.

I’ve noticed this is no different when the summer comes. Alright, one would expect that rainy and cold summers might not be this nation’s favorite flavor of the season, but hear, hear, they spread it all over the front pages of their national newspapers when it gets too sunny and warm too. And you’d be surprised how cold this can still feel.

A couple of years ago I’ve read an interesting piece about weather and how our bodies adjust to temperatures and as a result we have different perceptions on when the weather is cold or hot depending on where we live. I can’t remember the exact details, so don’t quote me on this in your high school science reports, or anything similar. Anyway, it was the temperature differences that astounded me so much that I remembered the numbers from the article. The authors claimed how the limit for hot weather in Greece is around 35°C, while that same limit in Finland is around 25°C. A difference of whole ten degrees Centigrade.

Even if it wasn’t for reading this article I couldn’t track down, this difference is already obvious by just looking at the thermometer and looking at what people are doing outside. I think I’d have a really difficult time imagining that anyone would walk around topless at 25°C in Greece. Not only that Greeks wouldn’t go purposefully sunbathing, the thought of it alone wouldn’t even begin to cross their minds in such chilling conditions. And Finns? At 25°C, men are more than happy to take their shirts off, women will lie for hours at a time in their bikinis wherever there is anything green in town and newspaper editors will send their junior journalists on assignments as absurd as checking which bars in Helsinki would serve topless men without issuing complaints about their half unnatural attire. And it doesn’t even have to be 25°C, on a sunny day 20°C is more than enough.

Their affair with natural waters is similar. They swim in the sea and lakes all around the country at what are for me suspiciously low temperatures. Sure, they like it when the water is warm, but it’s difficult to figure out when warm is as people really do go for a swim, whether the temperature of water is 4°C and they need to cut a hole in the ice or 24°C. A couple of months ago the temperature of the Baltic sea had risen to something even my mother who doesn’t even think about dipping her toes into anything less than hot spa water would consider for a swim, just to see it drop to no more than 13°C overnight. But I don’t think this temperature swing made anyone change their mind. Ten degrees up or down, who cares.

Well, as a matter of fact, I do. Even though I don’t need a thermometer to figure out if I’m going for a swim or not. If it’s only kids gleefully splashing in the water and their observant parents sit fully clothed on the shore, I’ll try some other day.

After all it’s not really difficult to figure out an optimal climate for Finns, it is impossible. And it doesn’t really have to do with the weather anyway.

Mladen