INT. EXTREMELY WINDBLOWN TENT IN A FINNISH CAMPGROUND - DAY
No one told me how freakin' windy it was going to be in Finland. Seriously. This stuff puts the Santa Anas to shame... I'm pretty certain that at some point this evening, or in the middle of the night (night being used very loosely as I've not seen a moment of actual darkness for a good many days now) my tent, my gear, and myself are going to wind up blown straight into the river... or maybe into Oz, I'm not sure. Anyway, so far my little tent has held up like a champ, even when I left it to shower and do laundry, and then again to go have a couple beers at the campground bar which, like the rest of this place, was eerily empty. There's a good number of motorhomes around (I appear to be the only crazy one in a tent), but very few actual people to go with them. I suppose they're all inside staying out of the wind!
I'm now 83km north of Lahti, having finally left that godforsaken city after one false start due to a near knee blowout about 20km in that sent me straight back into town in a frustrated huff, determined to chop the bike up into a million tiny pieces and hurl them into the nearest river... Amazingly enough, I'm still on the bike (surprise, surprise!) and I'm still in one functioning piece (even bigger surprise!). As it turns out, doing 40-45km a day as opposed to the 90 I cranked out on day 1 is a much more reasonable task, and while I still am not anywhere remotely near the point where I would claim to enjoy cycling, I MIGHT have found a point at which I can tolerate it. Plus, I was mostly off of the main roads so any anxiety about falling (or being windblown) into traffic was greatly reduced. I still hurt a lot more than I'd like to, and I still kind of want to cry every time I see a hill crop up in the road in front of me, but all in all my spirits over the last two days have been... stable. I even managed to pop off a couple photos of the scenery along the way:
No one told me how freakin' windy it was going to be in Finland. Seriously. This stuff puts the Santa Anas to shame... I'm pretty certain that at some point this evening, or in the middle of the night (night being used very loosely as I've not seen a moment of actual darkness for a good many days now) my tent, my gear, and myself are going to wind up blown straight into the river... or maybe into Oz, I'm not sure. Anyway, so far my little tent has held up like a champ, even when I left it to shower and do laundry, and then again to go have a couple beers at the campground bar which, like the rest of this place, was eerily empty. There's a good number of motorhomes around (I appear to be the only crazy one in a tent), but very few actual people to go with them. I suppose they're all inside staying out of the wind!
I'm now 83km north of Lahti, having finally left that godforsaken city after one false start due to a near knee blowout about 20km in that sent me straight back into town in a frustrated huff, determined to chop the bike up into a million tiny pieces and hurl them into the nearest river... Amazingly enough, I'm still on the bike (surprise, surprise!) and I'm still in one functioning piece (even bigger surprise!). As it turns out, doing 40-45km a day as opposed to the 90 I cranked out on day 1 is a much more reasonable task, and while I still am not anywhere remotely near the point where I would claim to enjoy cycling, I MIGHT have found a point at which I can tolerate it. Plus, I was mostly off of the main roads so any anxiety about falling (or being windblown) into traffic was greatly reduced. I still hurt a lot more than I'd like to, and I still kind of want to cry every time I see a hill crop up in the road in front of me, but all in all my spirits over the last two days have been... stable. I even managed to pop off a couple photos of the scenery along the way:
Now here's where it all still goes to pot...40-45km, while being completely doable in a day without hitting a wall of agony and frustration, is not going to get me where I need to get when I need to get there. Not by a long shot. Even if I took complete leave of my senses and decided that CycleTour Scandinavia was back in business, I would HAVE to rely on public transport at certain points to make up the kilometers that I'm not covering on the bike. Trouble is, finding points at which I can get on public transport and get to where I need to be next, can be few and far between when I'm out in the middle of nowhere Lapland, for example. In short, I need structure. I've spent all kinds of hours online looking up all kinds of scenarios by which this trip could continue, and I think I've come up with a few different ones that stand a chance of putting me back on track. All I need is a local to bounce them off of, to see which one sticks!
To that end, I've lined up my next couchsurfing host in the city of Oulu, and as I have a strict date on which I need to be there (and as the roads between here and there are brutally hilly and heavily trafficked) I've decided to spend a couple days here at the campground and then hop a bus straight there. I'm retiring the bike for at least a few days... after that, only time will tell!
Glad to see that you're still hanging in there home girl. Hope the new plan is awesome and allows you to enjoy the trip more.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you decided to keep on cycling. Taking a bus every now and then sounds like a good solution.
ReplyDeleteIt's not always this windy here :) This has been exceptional weather for us.
Mervi
Mervi, that's what everyone keeps saying about the wind. Guess I'm just lucky that way!
ReplyDelete