i think we like to keep it fresh and lighthearted here on the blog. and it’s true that even the more difficult periods of ecotopia are aften funny or at least make a good story when you look back at them. to quote a good ol‘ proverb: bad news make a good story.
but let’s not make it sound prettier than it was this time. the first two cycling days were HARD, chaotic and utterly exhausting.
one person had a bad bicycle accident in helsinki on the day before we started and looked r o u g h, wounds and bruises covering their face, arms and legs. they still decided to cycle slow and steady and made it to camp every night!
due to miscommunication a person was left behind on the first day. moreover, this person had said the night before that they don’t want to cycle alone and was new to biketouring. AND they were very unreachable because of having no simcard. (our communal phones were not set up yet because of time lacking)
without knowing this, the scouts (who had been scouting for almost 12 hours at this point) decided to find a campspot 8km before the original idea of a campspot, which made the person camp alone that night and also the following one because we didn’t manage to catch up with one another (they thought they were behind us and we thought we were behind them, communication was sparsely possible and then not clear enough).
wind and elevation were much stronger than expected and with this the kilometers were too much. there were also quite a few of us who were new to cycling tours, had knee or back problems, trouble sleeping or problems with their bikes. suddenly more than 50km a day was a lot.
we managed to take a rest day and reunite with the lost person on day 3 of cycling. this also meant missing an opportunity to be hosted by a friend of our friends from solis who we had wanted to meet at their cabin.
almost everyone was super exhausted and then it rained half of the day. but the resting helped and the circle we finally managed to have too. we decided to postpone our arrival to turku by one day and to take a more direct route than the eurovelo for the next two days of cycling.
this gave us one day of big-road-cycling. a new excercise for some of us and an annoying way to travel for all – except frederik, our dog companion who enjoyed the well-paved road and steady speed in their box and was finally able to nap as much as they wanted.
many cars passed nicely, slowing down and leaving distance between us and them, some were of course horrible, honking at us, screaming out of their windows or passing super fast super close to us.
in the end we made it and we all arrived safe, sound, exhausted and reunited in turku.
and of course it wasn’t all bad either.
we had beauuuutiful campsites; we went swimming every day; the weather was incredibly good (many of us had expected rain, rain and some more rain in finland); there were few malfunctions on our bikes (except one day 3 tubes exploded which usually happens very rarely) and we ate nice dumpsterstuff plus proteins in every dinner.
we were a nice group, growing closer and stronger with the difficulties we faced; on the rainy day some of us hung out and talked with five people in a two person tent; we met mike and haidi who were so incredibly welcoming and generous that they cooked dinner for all of us on our first evening. more people showed us the way, gave us water and recommended possible campspots.
we saw beautiful sunsets and ate a lot of blueberries that grow everywhere here.
we learned, we fixed, we laughed, we circled, we took breaks and arrived late, we lost track of time and struggled to do our tasks, helped each other out, got to know each other better.
helsinki to turku was a difficult time and we’re making a note for next year’s orga to plan less daily distances for the first week of cycling. but i think it did make us stronger!
