| 7:30 – 0km | And so it begins… Dark clouds. A bit chilly but should get better soon enough. Get a few drops of rain every other minute. |
| 8:35 – 15km |
Already in the country side…
|
| 9:20 – 40km | Broke a spoke |
| 20 minutes later |
I start to feel like having driven over 150km already. Noticed I broke the spoke and the wheel had been dragging against the brakes. No wonder I got so tired so fast. Had to fiddle with the remaining spokes to get the wheel more or less straight again, also had to adjust the brakes a bit. Note to self: do not unscrew the spoke unless you have a spare in hand or you’ll lose the nut. |
| 10:15 | The wheel is bent again. More fiddling with the spokes. |
| 10:45 – 48km | Hyvinkää. First, or two actually, gas station in sight since leaving, I think about checking the pressures. Except that neither one had an air pump that I could see. Weird. |
| 11:00 | I can almost see the sun! |
| 11:10 – 54km |
Due to fractures in space time I suddenly end up near Switzerland. As I didn’t have any skiing equipment with me I thought it best to skip it.
|
| 11:50 – 64km | Another gas station, with a pump! And the pump isn’t having enough pressure (5 bar) to fill the tires! |
| Gas station again. 2 pumps, one doesn’t have pressure, the other one is missing the buttons! | |
| 13:25 – 91km | Gas station. Air pump with pressure! Yay! Didn’t really have a need for it after all… |
| 14:00 |
Hämeenlinna. Decide to take the next train and call it a day. The next train was leaving in ten minutes but it didn’t have free places for my bike so I had to wait a few hours. In the mean time I wondered around Hämeenlinna castle, can’t remember ever being there before.
|
| 18:15 – ~350km | Seinäjoki. Head to summer cottage and start doing absolutely nothing. |
Total distance: 350km. Total time: 11h.
Ok, so maybe I rode only 110km and 5h 20min but who’s counting…
In the end it was many small things conspiring against me that convinced me to quit the ride and just skip to relaxation part of my holiday. The weather was not bad, but somewhat depressing, there was constantly a hint of rain; breaking the spoke wore me out too early and made me lose confidence in my bike. Later on I would’ve been riding along roads with nothing within 20km or so if memory serves. Not a nice place to notice something broken.
Worst of all, though, I think was the utter lack of practice. When I did the same trip three years ago I hadn’t done any long distance rides prior either. But the difference was that I did some extra 20km rides several times a week (in addition to getting to work and back.) This summer I haven’t managed to ride much. Thought it didn’t matter that much. It did.
Not a bad trip by any means. I could’ve taken shorter distances per day, but I felt it better to spend the few days I had totally relaxing. I may need to consider trying this again next summer.
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