Second moto: KTM 125EXC

There was more of a reason to Deican visit we made on monday then just visit some friends. It was finally time to pick up the fourth member to join our trip; new KTM 125 exc, which was already waiting with a red bow tied to the handle bar. This is why you need a family sized caravan: one needs to be able to fit all the motos in the garage!

Powered by chocolate donuts as additional breakfast the rider has now been testing KTM for two days in "cronos", which is a local name for enduro tracks in for example dry river-beds or unused fields. Video of the second days testing can be found in the link below. The bike has fullfilled all the expectations and now there is a continuous battle of minds on the mornings: is it a day for motocross or for enduro?

We also continued to meet the old friends of the rider and visited Antonio's workshop. The business seemed to be busy with tens of bikes on the yard and in the garage. And as the Spanish way seems to be, there were once again two huge dogs wondering around the yard. Legend tells that entering the gates after sunset is not very pleasant experience!

Finally we also had enought time during the daylight to wash all anti-icing salt and dirt out of our caravan. Now it's not anymore a suicide to touch the handles; the caravan is white and clean again and ready to conquer Spanish roads.

http://vimeo.com/18280731

First ride with Kawasaki

Imagine opening your eyes in your bed on the morning and beeing forced to close them again, just because the sun shining trought the caravans roof window is so bright it makes you eyes water. When stepping outside you can smell the southern humidity and see garden with swimming pool, surrounded with orange trees. If the trees are not yellow with fruits, they are probably olive ones, or then palm trees. Not too bad!

So you could say we have quite perfect place to start the holiday. The place also has one huge dog and one enthusiastic puppy guarding the yard, but considering that the house was robbet only half a year ago, it's probably a good thing. Despite of this fact the opinions of these animals are split.. one likes and other not so much.

After settling down it was time to start the active part of the holiday. Jogging in the sun was as perfect as it sounds, and when the assistant was ready with her exercising it was time to let the rider and Kawa out of their missery. The second time the engine was started definitely differed from the first one, when it was -10 degrees and half a meter of snow. Three months without riding had left it's marks, but after few sets the touch started to come back. It was awesome to ride the first laps on a track, the rider had built him self a year ago. Few pictures of the set can be found in http://picasaweb.google.com/tk2inc/Kawasaki2011#

In the evening we visited KTM shop Deican and saw some friends, but more about that later.

Via Dolorosa to the sun

Umbelievable! We really needed to travel to the Mediterranean before we saw the landscape without snow. The start from Stockholm was smooth; just telling the navigator the ICA we wanted to go to (yes, they did have gingerbread dought), loading the fridge and then we were on the road again. Sweden went by okay... we only paid attention to the fact, that sweds have it better: the Vättern lake was not freezed.

In Denmark the wind was so terrible, that suddenly the motorway turned into a single lane road as the snow blocked the other one. The caravan went on in four wheel slide through Denmark. In the beginning, Germany seemed to be okay. The roads were dry and the joyrney went on smoothly... but we cheered too early. After a while the weather changed and it started to snow. It took only a while before some cars were fighting their life to get up the hills covered by snow. Judging by the looks, it seemed that we had the best tyres on the road! When the snowing ended we tought to be on a better side... but then it turned out that every other north european had decided to spend a christmas holiday at the Alps, especially Dutch people. Traffic jams were endless and with the snow starting to fall out again it didn't make things easier.

When we finally reached the French border, we ones again thought that the worst part was over. Finally it seemed that the amount of snow was decreasing and what more important, the roads were clean and there were no traffic jams. But as before, it turned out to be calm before the storm. When we reached the southern part of France, the weather conditions changed ones again. Wind started to blow heavily.. and not just any kind of breeze but a kind of sudden storm wind, that almost lifted the other side of the caravan up in the air. At least it feeled like it! We were counting the kilometers to the Spanish border and to the final mountains, which would save us and change the climate.

And when we finally did, it was totally worth everything! The sun was shining from the bright blue sky, warming up us and our freezed caravan. You could see the beatiful mountains and turquoise see while enjoying a French chocolate filled croissant as breakfast. This is why it was worth suffering a long travel!

Tomorrow is THE day!

Somehow it seems almost unreal.. but we made it! After months of planning, playing with the ideas, re-planning and arranging, the final version of The winter trip 2011 is about the begin :) It seems that this last day is almost too much to bear.Why can't it be tomorrow already?

Of course we still have to make it to the boat, which can be challenging Thursday being the only day this week, when the temperature is going to drop under -25 degrees. This prevents us for filling the water tank in here, but hopefully we'll find some water along the way. After reaching Sweden, the snow is still going to dare us, apparently through almosth the whole Europe. Fortunately we desided to invest in winter tyres...

For the different kind of christmas eve we have two missions: first find ICA which sells us gingerbread dought, redbull and some real food, and then travel as far south as possible. With the fridge loaded, three computers filled with good music and brand new speakers installed we should be able to make it despite the weather conditions!

Spanish books are packed too. Which would be more appropriate than have a real life language course in the original atmosphere! The Rider is already a pro and only needs some refreshing of the memory, but the assistant instead is badly behind in learning.. however, maybe in 3 months she too will be able to adopt some suitable phrases.

The other escapers were wiser leaving earlier, and they are already in Spain enjoyng the benefits of the south. But now also we are done with work and snow shoveling. It's time to go... to Spain!

Custom graphics

To go fast you need to look good. Last summer selfmade number stickers were falling off from old Kawa while washing the bike. We needed something more cool for new Kawasaki 2011: custom graphics. The procedure is pretty easy. You just choose a firm, tell the company what you want, or send your own desing, and thay make a one of kind graphic kit just for you.

There are some companies in Spain but because couple of new ones had just started in Finland, we choose to ask from them to get the kit ready before trip and to support new business. We had pretty simple kit planned with number plates and asked 2 companies, if they could make it. The first one replied that they are not intrested in a way I never expected from a new company building up new business. The second one was from the different world, so to say, as they really wanted to help customers with graphics projects. After a couple of versions sent to shop and back we were on right track.

After a days of planning and designing, the kit finally arrived and it was time to mount stickers to bike. It took one evening, but the result definitely looks better than last summers attempt! Many thanks to Playbike http://www.playbike.fi/.

Shopping!

What would be more fun then to be forsed to shop! If all the old gears are worn out you just need new ones. And of course, when you start looking through the pages, many other things comes in sight... and you realize there was also many other things you needed.

Of course, everything is about the look. As promised in the last video, a new year means a new gear. The fashion changes and for the 2011 the gears need to fit the new Kawa, so green was the the colour we started with. Luckily, it seems that many of the manufacturers were following our views. One true found was the new Troy Lee Design helmet. The main colour is turquoise, but the graphic snakes are matching the green perfectly (only minus was the snakes, but if you take just a quick overall  look, you don't nessessary notice them..). So, now there are new gears in both green and turquoise to start with.

The other things that came in sight were "small" parts to the bike... such as ProCircuit exhaust. Also we needed some support stuff; new Hero HD helmetcam, moto ramp and lap board. Inspired from the online shopping, the assistant also decided that it was time to support her own sport, and ordered a new heart rate monitor with running pack. Equipments are ready; let's go!

Route planning

It seems that three months actually is a really short time! Or then there are just too many nice looking tracks in southern Europe. Luckily the climate is making the route planning a bit easier, because the point is to head somewhere with less snow and more sun. So the first step is easy: head to the south :)

Fortunately there is lot of information available about the tracks. Finnish Offroad magazine listed some of the tracks. Then we ordered a location quide made by a German magazine MotoX. It was a really good one listing the tracks, locations, opening hours and facilities. And then there is of course the internet. One can only wonder how people got along before it existed! Plenty of information was available in following sites: http://www.mxbrothers.com/, http://www.mxcenter.it/, www.favoritosmx.com/circuitos, http://www.mxcircuit.fr/ and www.motocross.es/circuitos/. And after locating a good looking track it's easy to look for it in the youtube, and see, if the real thing looks as good as the pictures. A Google Earth map listing some of European tracks can be uploaded in http://www.trackinfo.dk/. Our own map is can be seen here: http://tinyurl.com/36eauzq.

Our plan is to relax the first couple of weeks in Murcia region in Spain. The weather there should be perfect for motocross and jogging.. at least compared to Finland. Then we are heading south to conquer MX tracks in Malaga and Sevilla areas. Also a trip to Madrid region is scheduled, if only the weather allows. After that we are going to face the climate and head to Italy through Barcelona, Girona, Montpellier and Nice. Let's see if we are able to make it!

Last year the rider was sick from January to March and then had a quick two weeks training in the beginning of April. The results in motocross were not so great and the speed wasn't there, but 2 hours crosscountry race (with +32 degrees in shadow) went pretty good. So this year looks better starting with three months training for both motocross and enduro.

Can't wait

This seems so unreal! I think we have more than half a meter of snow in Helsinki and our caravan looked very sad buried in the white coat. Spent almost an hour diging it out from the drift today. Unfortunately the weather forecast is anticipating a new snow storm for tomorrow, so it seems that this was not the only diging to be done before we are in December 23rd and heading to Silja Line terminal.

However, at least now we have a caravan and as the owners, it's waiting that these last two weeks will pass and we can finally hit the road!
Almost everything is ready. Well.. still missing the gas for the caravan, but working on it! Definitely it would be unwise to leave without when the weather is like this. Also we had some problems with the electricity cables, but that will be dealed too, sooner or later. And anyway there is no point in stressing too much.. we are nevertheless going for a holiday :)

Brand-new motos are waiting; Kawa in Helsinki, anxious to be placed to the garage and KTM already in Spain ;)

13 days left... Hopefully days will past fast!