Winter rally -97, THE tough one
This is a story of three Big Off-Road Freaks: Marko, Jussi and Timo making their way to the Winter rally in Kitee, Finland. The tour was made using mostly backroads (of course).
This guy is the "DR-oldtimer from Karhula" with his bike and his pal.
Feb 14th -97, Friday.The whole thing started, when Tenere-Timo left his warm living room in Sarkola, and headed to Tammikoski, where the home of Marko is, and also his barn, that could be considered as the headquarters of the Big Off-Road Freaks. The plan was to continue the trip with Jussi and Marko early Saturday (next) morning. While on the road, Timo visited the service station's bar in Kuru to drink a cup of something HOT. Only free seat in the bar was next to an oldtimer drinking a beer. The oldtimer stated, that isn't it a bit too cold for snowscootering in this weather? After Timo told he rides a motorbike the old man just said that feltboots aren't suitable for it. Wind goes through... Then he was quiet concentrating just drinking his lager beer. Then Timo continued towards Tammikoski. In the freezing weather the speedometer wire started to make screaming noise always when the speed exceeded 80km/h (50 mph) (i.e. almost continuosly...). The noise stopped only when the wheel stopped. After few stops, Timo was fed up, and started to quieten the wire by locking up the front now and then. When finally arriving to Tammikoski, he had already 130 km (80 miles) in his odo. Immediately after his arrival, the bike was in the barn, and the driver in the SAUNA!
Feb 15th -97 Saturday. The start was planned to be at 8:00. Jussi was almost in time, since his Suzuki co-operated and started quite easily, after getting some additional power from the thresher's battery. So Timo had plenty of time to disassemble his speedo wire. The start was 8:15, but they didn't get so far. Marko forgot to lock the top box, and after few miles it started to spread Marko's things all over. Of course Marko himself didn't notice this, and when he speeds up, you cannot catch him... So the others collected the things along, and when Marko stopped to see where the others left, they caught him with all his stuff. After some more miles, Marko woke up thinking, that when they packed the stuff back to his box, he didn't see his Ray-Bans at all. A U-turn and searching. So they found also his earmuffs, a map, and his forehead-lamp. New try ahead, with some better luck. Few miles later, It was Jussi's speedo wire that came loose. No worries. They used some duct tape to prevent it hanging loose. The lady in Vilppula service station smiled, when she heard how far they were heading. She felt sorry for the bikers, and gave them each a chocolate bar :-) After Mänttä, (20 km/12 miles later) Jussi's low beam was off. He switched to high beam so no problem. The lamp was just changed, and lasted about 40 km (25 miles). In Korpilahti Jussi bought a new lamp for his headlight. Same time they, very amused, looked the snowscooterers nearby, and thought: "Crazy people. It's 16 degrees C below zero (3,2 F) and they come out this freezing day..." Just before Juva, Timo noticed that Jussi had a flat rear tire. Timo had a tyre weld spray with him, but still after warming it against the exhaust pipe it didn't give out even a small breathe. Then they changed the tire valve, in case the frost had stuck the valve leaking. Marko's handpump didn't fit because of the brake disc and the rear sprocket. Jussi's handpump worked only one push out of ten, so the guys got all warm before there was air enough to go on.
In Juva service station, they filled up the tire, and enjoyed a healthy burger meal. You seem to see these mystical commenting oldtimers drinking beer in every small town's service station in Finland. This one gave a lesson about practising running downhills. Then he pulled his mobile phone out from his pocket, and placed it on the table like waiting an important call. After the lunch it was easy to make a conclusion, that the tire needs to be fixed. It was flat again. Timo told that tyre weld spray sometimes helps, and these desperate young men tried to save their fingers from freezing, and just emptied one spray bottle to the tire. But when Timo fully emptied the tyre for the spray, he forgot the valve needle off, and when he sprayed the foam in, it came all out immediately. New bottle, valve needle back, new try, and the air seemed to stay in the tyre, so they continued hoping. After you ride in the snow, the whiteness of your surroundings sometimes make you go bananas, and so did Timo. He tested the thick-snow abilities of his Super Tenere, took a turn, speeded up a little, and there he went stuck to the unbeaten thick snow. After seeing that, Marko tried also, little faster, and few meters deeper. Again the guys warmed up digging the bikes back to the road laughing. In this city of famous annual opera festivals: Savonlinna, they stopped for a cup of coffee, where Jussi bought some instant glue to fix his electrically heated visor, since it's cord was loose. It didn't work with the cold uneven wet surface (even after warming and drying it), but it worked well with the fingerskin. Once again the duct tape was the solution. Because of some lakes in between, the rest 70 km (44 miles) they had to use the big paved main road, with salt-melted surface. To save the spiked tires, they had to ride in the icy uneven shoulder of the road. Straight road, tired men riding close to the treacherous deep snow, they got themselves totally bored, and finally reached the rally place at 9:00 in the evening. After camping themselves (yes in this rally people sleep in tents !!!) they noticed that Jussi's rear tire looked round everywhere else, but underneath. With the help of the rally organizers, they got someone open the local bike shop, and they got a new tube changed to Jussi's tire in the morning. The mileage was 450 km (280 miles), ant it took 13 hours to do it, so the average speed was... Then someone called them to get some food, and they finally got asleep in the army tent close to a warm stove.
Feb 16th -97 Sunday. The temperature was still the same freezing 16 C below zero (3.2 F). In the daylight they looked around the rally area, and noticed that the annual German visitors had again lifted the stove out of their tent. Then they looked the Germans' old, everything seen BMW:s with sidecars and self-made interesting accessories. After that sight they felt like owning brand new sportbikes instead of their dented off-road mammoths.
After breakfast they went to the bike shop to change the tube. They were happy, since the price was cheap despite of getting someone to open the shop in Sunday morning. After the tyre was replaced they began the starting rituals. First they dug out the spare batteries, and the Suzukis started like in midsummer. Timo did not use any spare battery. He had a kinda gas torch to warm his sump and engine block.
Marko let his Suzuki run idle all the time they were packing, but the temperature changes were too much for his "epoxy-welded" shifter case. It started to leak oil, and they couldn't prevent the smiles coming out their faces. What else will go wrong? A quick fix with some silicon-based (???) stuff didn't convince the guys, and they stopped to yet another service station, where Marko disassembled the case and repaired it once again with some epoxy-based stuff. They ate something while waiting the epoxy to harden. One guy stopped by, whose DR 500 had broken down in the rally, and had it in his trailer. Timo claimed himself to be so busy, that he decided to continue without the others. "To get home before dawn", as he said. You could get that as a vote of no cofidence to the two Suzukis. After Timo left, Marko reassembled his bike, and pushed it out of the service hall. BUT... there was a flat front tire in Marko's Suzuki. They started laughing, and pushed the bike back to the hall. Fortunately they found a suitable tube for Marko, so they didn't have to start the patch-and-glue job this time either. Always so optimistic, they rode on. Timo and Jussi had already disconnected their speedos. No it was Marko's time. The gears inside the speedo were dead. Anyway, the speedo was from different bike, and did never point the right speed, but the lack of odometer of any kind, made the orienteering little more complicated. Back in Savonlinna they stopped for checking, if Marko's oil leak problems were over. Marko laid down to see better the shifter case, took some support from the bike just getting the bike falling down all over himself. The kids who had stopped around were having fun, and our heroes could also do nothing but laugh. The damages were quite minor. The spherical end of his clutch lever was cut, and his shifter pedal was bent... But what most important, the oil leak was gone. So they kept on going. The troubles started again little before Juva, when Marko lost his low beam. They guessed, that the lamps do not stand this kind of backroad driving, and frost. But the lamp was OK, and the missing piece of wire was somewhere else. After a while they were again in one of those, now so familiar, places: a garage. They suspected that Marko's self-made light switch (taken from Russian made Lada or VAZ automobile) would have been broken, but such Russian parts are made to stand hard Siberian conditions. Normal Finnish winter couldn't harm that part. One wire was just loose. Later while drinking coffee, marko found that the key of his already-so-famous top box was missing. It had got off its key ring, and now somewhere in eastern Finland. But learnt from last time (yepp! no kidding, these guys screw up all their good tours) he had a spare key with him. Last time he lost his only one in Estonia. In the evening close to Kangasniemi they found that Jussi's Suzuki was making a huge cloud of smoke. When removing the oil cap, they found out, that there was quite a pressure inside the case, and the oil level was dangerously low. But this can be common problem in freezing environment also with cars, that it was easy to guess, that the oil breather tube was frozen and blocked. They stopped to the nearest farmhouse, and got in to their garage. They took the tank off, and confirmed their suspicions. They defrosted the tube, added some oil, and continued to Kangasniemi, where they bought more oil. When Jussi started to add the oil, he found that the oil cap was missing. This time it was a bad joke by Marko, who had the cap in his pocket. Jussi did not laugh. It started to get late. Timo was wise leaving these two warriors struggling alone since he had some serious work to do next morning. In Korpilahti, they crossed a lake with a small open car ferry, and gave a performance to the ferry skipper. Two bikers midnight in mid-february ride on the ferry, and start jumping and waving their hands to keep warm. There were no more open restaurants or service stations in Korpilahti, so instead of getting somewhere warm inside, they again jumped and ran around to survive. In Koskenpää, Marko got into reserve, and the local service station didn't have any 24 hour credit-card or bill automat. The crazy men got a bit worried, so they kept the speed down (boring!) up to Mänttä, where they knew would be a 24h service. From Vilppula to Tammikoski they raced each other. Curvy village road, midnight, nobody out there, side by side, full throttle... They laughed aloud. Just to be mentioned, Jussi's high-beam indicator light went black. 2:00 Monday morning. Home at last. When taking his boots off, Jussi noticed that the felt linings of the boots were frozen. No wonder, why his toes felt like frozen too. The hometrip took about 15 hours, and the average speed was.. They fell asleep and slept till next afternoon. Tired but happy.
Wintermotorcycling is a pleasant and mind-control developing hobby.
Since the tourers fingers were frozen, they were able to make only the Finnish version. Translation is done by
a third party, |
