My first set of Finnish wheels

20th April 2012
Friday

A little over an hour ago, I was outside in wet sleet pushing Samuli and his three year old brother Vili on the swings. The ground was free of snow but very wet.

It is now blanketed in snow once again.

It seems the winter doesn't want to make way for the spring.
...
Last Saturday, English Chris called me to say he could pick me up to go and collect his bicycle. We set off in his car as he explained he was going to take me around the backstreets where the roads are tarmac most of the way.

A lot of the backstreets around here are gravel and tend to be water logged and very muddy in the spring - they are actually more accessible in the winter when they are solid and covered in snow. At least in the winter the cars are prepared for these kind of conditions with their studded tyres.

The final couple of hundred metres to Chris's place is an obstacle course of muddy channels and the car slides around as it tries to follow the gutters left by previous traffic.

He shows me a handsome Finnish made steel framed bicycle. It's a Sunset Boulevard bike in orange sunburst with a curved cross bar, white wall tyres and swept back handlebars. It has a front brake lever and while it is not a fixy, the back brake is operated by pedaling backwards.

It will do.

We have a cup of tea and a brief chat before I set off. It's getting late and I don't want to be caught out in the cold. Chris tells me of how he set off on the bike when it was minus 30 and by the time he got to the end of the track his eyebrows had frozen.

It's not that cold now, but I have on my ski trousers over my jeans, a ski jacket and some decent gloves and a rather clever snood-like tube which I can pull up over my head and create a balaclava over which I wear my beany.

The fat tyres make hard work of the muddy track. I wonder if they are up to pressure. I get onto solid tarmac and it's a bit easier. These are snow tyres so there is a bit of resistance but I'm not going to enter the Tour De France on this bike.

It will have to do.

Traffic proceeds on the right hand side of the roads here, like most of Europe but not England nor Japan where I am used to journeying.

I get to my first junction and although I want to turn left, I pull into the right. Normally, I would lean to the left and support the bike with my left foot on the ground and kick back on the right pedal to get it into position. However, all this does is lock up the rear freewheel. It will take a bit of getting used to but as I cycle along, I start to enjoy myself.

I stop at the bridge and watch the river as a giant iceberg is carried along. The surface of the river is still frozen about a hundred metres downstream and as the water rushes into the ice, part of the flow is forced back creating an eddying current that spins the iceberg around. It starts to go back on its journey towards the bridge again but is bounced off the frozen bank and spun back round again into the main stream. I watch this for a while wondering when the iceberg will ever break free.

I get home and lock the bike up, stand back and admire it. It's a good looking bike and I feel childishly excited.

Now to plan some adventures.