Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The Year's First

On Saturday it occurred to me that I hadn't been on a single overnighter yet this year. I sent an email to Toni and he had the same feeling. The weather was again safely below freezing after a few days of rain and above freezing temperatures, which unfortunately reduced our snow cover from 30-40 cm to 0-10 cm We decided to meet at Linnavuori in Piikkiƶ.

I started around seven in the evening and first spent some time on the trails near my home and took some video footage. The trails were hard and nice with occasional spots of ice.



After my home trails I rode on roads to Piikkiƶ and arrived at the trail leading to the shelter. The trail was rather bumpy, since some idiot had been there on an ATV vehicle. I don't like motor vehicles in the terrain and it is with very few exceptions illegal in Finland.



I arrived at the shelter some about half past nine in the evening and unpacked my stuff into the shelter.



Soon Toni arrived.



I drank a cup of hot chocolate and we chatted about this and that. Due to the light pollution from a greenhouse nearby, there was no point in doing much photography.



We went to sleep around midnight and slept very well. I hadn't slept until nine in the morning for a very long time. The temperature was about -7C, but for some reason it felt a bit colder, especially around my feet. I think my socks might have been a little too small.

The morning commenced with the usual routines. This time I had hot water from two thermos bottles and consumed some soon-to-expire hot chocolate and porridge. Toni melted snow with his new MSR Whisperlite Universal stove and had a Pasta Bolognese meal in addition to the morning coffee. He needed extra energy to train for the Rovaniemi 150 race.


The morning was nice and we were not too late, since sunrise was at 9:30.





We took our time, but finally got going. Toni was accompanying me to Turku, to get some more miles to ride.



The ice on Lake Littoinen was again rideable. After some ice riding Toni continued towards Paimio and I was only a few kilometers from my home.




I now had only a small section of my home trails left.



A nice overnighter again, but it felt a little underwhelming compared to the fantastic winter conditions we had one week earlier.

Thanks to Toni for the company Toni's report is here.


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