Modern Vespa

At a metaphysical level, the NSR-tag is perhaps irrelevant.

Some scoot (verb. to scoot) just in order to stop at every possible place that even remotely gives an excuse to do so. Some race scoots at mud pits, paths and tracks. Many playe daily survival game while commuting with a scoot. Some hardly ride at all. And some lunatics (...) scoot flat out over a continent.

When I had a Vespa, I belonged to the first category. Scoot to explore, to let the scenery do it's tricks, to stop whenever I saw something - not necessarily even interesting. Now I scoot with a 900cc motorcycle - to be honest, not much has changed.

What has changed are the routes wich I explore. With a Vespa, I seemed to make trips with 80-90% on paved, very small local roads. 20-10% on faster roads, just to get from A to B if no alternative routes were available. Quite often one trip "to nowhere" was somewhere between 40-60kms.

With the 900cc motorcycle this intuitively changes. As it is so easy to ride faster, the routes utilize more faster roads in order to get to explore smaller roads a bit further away. Without any intention, the trips "to nowhere" now tend to be between 70-120km.

A side effect is, that when I used to wear ear plugs 10-20% of time, now I wear them most of the time. 100km/h in a naked bike makes a lot of wind noise, no matter how good helmet you have.

In Finland the summer has been hotter than almost ever - I believe we broke the heat records from the 40's. Not a bad summer for a new bike! So I've been riding a lot. Exploring a lot. And guess what - 90% of the roads I ride are very, extremely enjoyable to ride. And the scenery is the Finnish country side: again, it's very pleasant, but not very photogenic. Reminds me a bit of a work of art, where someone had taken pictures of all the major oceans in the world. Yes, they look exactly the same. When you have seen a field, you've seen them all. And because we have lot's of forests, often you don't even see the field.

I'll prove my words below.


That's my bike. Beside a field. There's also a small lake. As in almost all the pictures.

This is were I'm lost. In the middle of some fields, in a tiny gravel road. As I typically am, because I don't too much detailed route planning. Could use the same picture for all my trips.

Uh, I'm sorry, but this thread needs waaaaay more pictures.

Ha,ha....

I've been thinking about that "fields of Finland" piece of art anyway

How about this: in one occasion, I noticed a strange pull from my mat painted bike....towards one small piece of road....that lead to a military museum, specialized in tanks! Yes, of course. Matt green buddies.

On a more serious note, I've gor a bit of connection here. I did my military service in the Armoured Brigade unit. We did have a bit more modern equipment though....but there are still like old T-72s from the East Germany, that are used as target dummies. Nothing against our Deutch colleagues, we have plenty of Leopard tanks too nowadays

actually captures the spirit of my "field exploration" quite nicely.

You can see a small piece of the road on the left, disappearing somewhere. That's what they are like - the best ones, and there are plenty of these.

It's late evening of a hot day. We've been riding wiith my buddy, taken turns who leads the pack and sets the pace. Stopping here and there, to boast about nice roads we have just ridden, or what we've seen on the road.

Curve after curve, once and awhile a bit of straight in the middle of the fields.

Life with a bike don't come much better than this. At least around here

There we go.

And I know you also wanted a bigger bike so you could ride with some friends, so cool to see that happening

Keep 'em coming!

Oh, and last night the news mentioned Finland's record heat.

I've got to say, this must be the first time ever we get to the news because of heat But yeah, can't really complain...

Oh, I forgot barns. The old ones.

As we've been literally living in the woods, most of the old Finnish buildings are made of wood. Combine this with cold winters and need to heat, there are relatively few really old buildings left - at some point of time, they've typically accidentally burned down.

But good old hey barns, many of those still there. There are even different styles of barns in diffferent parts of Finland. In Southern Finland they used to build a bit more sturdy ones. More North, they are often kind of "see through" design that breath well.

The one in the picture is actually not a hey storage, not a proper barn as such. More likely there have been animals/tools or both.


Incidentally, the picture shows my massive storage system. It's stolen (well, not literally) from a HD leather front tool roll, adapted as a scrambler side pannier. Holds a small bottle of water. Or tools.

Oh, and there's this - summer cafes.

Those small places that provide stale coffee and fresh(ish) bakery during the few months of our short summer.

This one had very interesting signs of guided paths around the lakes and hills nearby....but as I was wearing toreador pants, I left that exploration for some other time.

I avoid motorcycles for all the reasons you mentioned. I will be 70 this year and the older I get the slower I want to go. There is still a lot to see and if I had 900cc's in my right hand the quickest thing I would see probably would be an ambulance followed by a funeral procession. I had my first major wreck in Germany on a Triumph. Fortunately, I was not hurt. Cannot say the same for the motorcycle.

"Ride fast, take chances" but slow enough to post a picture or two.

I know what you mean. I hope I can enjoyr faster riding, safely, for while. I also hope I'll see my 70th birthday - and I'm really lucky if I own a scoot at that time!

Another good day on the road!

Weather was cloudy, but warm. Not good for pics, but good for riding


A nice place to strech legs.

Pumped into a summer meet of Finnish Corvette owners. This 59' was my favourite, plenty of nasty, souped up machines present together with superbly finished restoration projects.

Just have to add this one, because there's a funny story behind.

This 59' original cabriolet is a beauty as such. The owner really uses his cars (several old ones) and has even raced this Vette.

The story is about license plates. "CRC-1" doesn't really mean anything. It was just available when the current owner bought the Vette and though that he really have to get the plates changed. Because the previous owner has bought vanity plates.....with the text "SEX-69"

I had my GoPro with me on a recent ride. Started to check the material at home and I realized this long, about 11min vid actually represents quite nicely the Finnish countryside.

There's a bit of gravel road and paved, semi-twisty paved roads in varying condition. Ride is only sometimes smooth, as there are various dents on the road.

Fields, a small lake hear and there (not all visible in the vid). Patches of forest. At some point I even pass a small summer cafe.

Actually, on average the portion of forests along the road is higher, but I selected this road expecially because it had less trees. Nice to have something else to look at and a bit smaller probability for a deer or moose to jump at the front of your bike.

So, be warned - this is un-edited, boring as heck piece, but at the same time, shows quite the "whole" picture of how the roads at the Finnish country side look like.

Amazing how much those pics -- and the video -- look like, say, Washington state, especially once you throw in some American muscle cars.

I shouldn't have watched that, tho, cuz now I'm coveting both that Triumph motor purr and those green fields.

I've heard that before, the similarities between the countrysides at certain areas both sides of the bond. I have to admid, that there's a lot of US non-explored for me - many places I'll have to try to visit some day.

During the years, the business has taken me mainly around Europe and Middle-East. Holidays mainly in Southern Europe, trying to minimize time spent flying and at airports waiting for planes.


Now that tdrake mentions the sound....I have my GoPro set into a mode, that minimizes the wind noise. This makes the sound of bike interesting. It kind of reminds the original sound, but lacks all the "bass" part, that there is quite much in real life.

Actually I got so curious of the sound after I heart the first GoPro recording, that I tested to record the sound also with my phone. Surprise, surprise, the bass was missing there too. It's a difficult one to capture!

RRider,

The trees the fields look just like Minnesota. Of course, we have no
mountains - the Glaciers plowed the State flat. The likeness may come
from similar Northern latitude.

Thanks for the photos.

Bob Copeland
Frost Bite Falls Minnesota

Does your new jacket mean we'll get ongoing reporting as the weather turns cold?

Ha! I'm hoping for it It's gamble with the weather around here...if it rains a lot at September, it takes fun out of riding no matter what gear. Means less pics too....

My season typically ends at October, sometimes in the beginning, almost never longer than 2 first weeks. Every day that I can extend this is a good day!

Never yet been in Minnesote area. Just out of curiosity, I've have to fix that one day...

It's pretty much the same thing with what Glaciers did in the area of Finland. All the high peaks were left at Norway, where the long coasts are nowadays. We are mostly flat(ish).

Way up North, a few hundred kilometers up from the Arctic Circle we have our "fells", small mountains....this area continues all through Swedish and Norwegian Lappland, and the bit higher mountains (not very high either) then all through Norwegian coast down to South.

It's beautifull up there, at the very Northest corners of Finland....not many trees though. My relatives were there just the last week, walked up to Saana, our highest fell/mountain. Already minus degrees C in the mornings there....

RRider,

There was very heavy immigration from Finland to Minnesota 1870-1920.
Those hardy souls mostly moved to Northern Minnesota and worked in
the Lumber and Mining Industry. They wrote home and advised the place
looks just like Finland.

Also, many folks from Norway and Sweden came to Minnesota during the same time frame. There are so many Norwegians in Minnesota that King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway visit here every year.

Not only do your photos look like Minnesota, we may have the same reduced riding season. Our riding usually shuts down in late October and may not
clear up enough to ride until late April. This last Winter was extra heavy snow and cold.

So, if you go on holiday, go somewhere warm. If you came to Minnesota it would be like visiting your own country.

Bob Copeland
Frost Bite Falls Minnesota

The season is not over!

The city of Tampere in Finland. There used to be TT rides between the years 1932-71, using normal roads around a central hill. As the bikes got faster, there were more accidents in the difficult, curvy road. The races ended in 1971 after 3 fatal accidents.

During this weekend there's a tribute "race" , with over 20 old racing bikes - and many with not-so-young riders too.

Although these a not street legal bikes, they rode through the city in a police escort. I rode just behind them - jeez, the noise from those brutal race machines was infernal, and I was wearing ear plugs! Many of the bikes don't just have straight pipes, instead they have megafone type "silencers" (..err..."louderers"?). The motorcycle polices escorting them seemed to be tuned into the music too, as I would say some of the bikes took quite fast starts from the street lights....that was a cool sight.

When I walked through the racing pit area, I met one of the gentlemen who had also ridden in the original races. He got a nice, restored (by himself) BMW, that he now rodes for fun and at this kind of tribute races. And he is only a bit over 70 years old...

He told me that he still has 6 bikes at his garage. One of them is an old BMW, that was originally equipped with a side car. He still has the side car storaged, and he is going to make this his "tri-cycle", as he is expecting that age might slow him down a bit in the coming years...

After we had chatted a bit, he also told me how lucky he was to be here at all. Back at the TT days, not in the Tampere track, he once rode as fast as he could uphill....and when the downhill started, there suddenly appeared a guy trying to push his stalled bike away from fhe track. They collapsed full speed. He broked nearly everything one could, including his skull and spine. After two painfull years, he was fit enough to carefullyy try a bit of swimming as an exercise.....and now, at a bit over 70, this guy races for fun and restores bikes as a a hobby.

"Ride safe", was his salute to me, and it sounded like he really meant it, not just as an expression...


This is from the "Pyynikki" TT races back then....

...and this is how the race pit looked today!

Lovely Ariel, with rather convincing sound!

Not many British brands missed this event...

Hello RRider, lovely photos, yes I know exactly where you are coming from to feel the power of a big bike under you, but I have to agree with lostboater we have made it to 70, life is going past quick enough so riding the scooter at a moderate pace is most pleasant. Your pickies of the AJS Racers took me back a few years so I dug out this picture of my third motorcycle, this one a 1961 AJS Twin 650. My first was a 1948 Aerial Red Hunter 500 Twin and the second a 1955 Matchless 500 Twin. Thank you for taking me back in time plus your photos to view.

That's an awesome bike and quite a history with some of the greatest bikes, than you for sharing this!

It's a funny world with bikes. There's the aesthetic part of beautiful bikes, mechanical, technical part for many, the simple joy of riding any 2-wheeled machine and then there's power & speed.

I would never have been a good race rider, just average at the best - mainly because 99% of time I play it on the safe side. I do hope it gets me through the life with bikes - and keeps me with the sanity to enjoy riding with respect to my physical abilities and age.

Ride safe!

Addition to the TT tribute - I checked the photos published afterwards. Many good ones, but I like especially this - don't know by whom it is, but a nice capture of the moment.

Sunday evening cleared up. It was sunny and +20C warm, felt like summer again!

I took the opportunity to make a 60km trip along familiar, nice country roads...

Again, a warm weekend, more rides!
Much warmer than it should be at this time of year, almost +22C.

Stopped by in the middle of nowhere to see some land art.

This is by an American artist Nancy Holt - actually the place shown in this wiki article.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Holt

It was hard to capture how the piece looks....a bit worn out nowadays.




...and this is how it looked when new, a bit over 20 years ago (pic from public photo archives)

Hmmm....

One man - or woman's - art is another man's backwoods dirt bike track.

I was tempted...but too embarrassed of the though of getting caught

Luckily there were other, empty sandpits nearby. I did some scientific experiments on the traction control, on and off -sort of experiments....
I'm glad still to wait to grow up....

Starting to get a bit cold, but today we got nice warm sun!

I'm glad we did, as I spotted this

That is a block house size Heimo Vesa in the city of Tampere.
Heimo is a character from a Finnish cartoon called Fingerpori by Pertti Jaarla.

Rather cool way of reminding about pedestrians in the area.




Fingerpori is a series of 2-3 pic strips, always playing around with words. Most won't translate in other languages, but a bunch have been published in English...

...and that's about it.

Ha!

Took a little spin today, +7C (~45F)....just had to see how the Fingerpori comic trip will develop: and it did!

Here is the whole three pic story....very typical Fingerpori

Still a few leaves hanging on...so a riding weather

And the season just goes on!

It was ~50 degrees in Fahrenheit....a bit cold, but OK at sunny spots.

Trees look just amazing, I really had to concentrate to look at the road too

In some ways fall riding is the sweetest -- like spring, with all its potential, but in reverse as we know each hour may be the last for months to come.

Sweeter still if you have heated grips, btw.

That's all folks! The last ride of this season.

Did a bit of everything: a short back road tour, scrambling on a gravel road + shortcuts through easy paths (nice to ride standing up, just this last time... ) and a compulsory WOT part by riding a short piece of highway back and forth - just for the sake of it

During the latter I froze my head - didn't have anything under the helmet, darn the wind really found all the leaky spots...but it was worth it.

Hmm...I don't know: don't see any snow on the ground yet, maybe one more week of riding?

This season starts slowly. The warmth is almost there, but not quite.

Today was a good example: quite windy, cloudy and only moderately warm... so a good day to do a bit of scrambling along the back roads!

As the habbit goes, the moment captured into the pic was the one when my low fuel light went on. Nothing to worry about, there's still plenty of juice left at that point. Still, I just thought to stop and check from the GoogleMap that where the heck am I - a bit too much woods on the horizon to be comfortable getting complitely lost with the last gas fumes...

In theory now is the riding season proper around here.

This year it has been a bit cold and rainy, contrary to the rest of the Europe

Quite nice days for riding here and there though. This pic is from my "private fun" series, as where ever I stop, the scenery is either

a) fields with forests looming at the back
b) forests
c) either of the above combined with a lake...

I guess I'll have to make at least one trip to the seaside this summer, just to get some varistion to the themes!

RRider,

Again I love that Retro-Triumph. At age 70, that is what Triumph looked
like when I was a young man. Both the BSA and Triumph were hot items.

Bob Copeland
Minnesota

Thanks Bob! I love it too - it's also the kind of bike that you grow into more and more over time. A true multipurpose vehicle as bikes used to be.

As it happens, I just discovered an interesting piece of historical connection between Minnesota and the area from where the picture was taken.

The old center of the area is Laukko manor. The history of this place goes back to 1400, but the connection is a bit more recent. At 1929 an owner of nearby paper mills, Rafael Haarla, bought the ruins of the Laukko manor after a fire had destroyed almost all the main buildings.

Rafael Haarla heard, that a bunch of Finns living in the Minnesota had thought of importing brocket deers to Finland. They thought that these would be a good source for game hunting.

At 1934, five white-tale deers where brought into Finland, where Rafael Haarla provided a home for them at his new build mansion. Just before his death, he let the first deers to freedom. Today, there are over 100 000 white-tale deers roaming around here!

A lovely animal, but very dangerous for a motorcyclist. Laukko area has excellent, curvy country roads, but also a very high risk of running into a deer....


Laukko mansion is still very much alive. Just visited there for a summer jazz concert.