Day 1 – Tour de Laponie 2013: Ivalo – Inari

So, where were we? It’s been some time, hasn’t it? To be precise, something like three years.

For those of you who don’t understand what I am talking about, it must be said that during the summer 2010 I used to have an alter ego who liked to write a daily blog of my entire summer on a bicycle; to have the full background, you should check my Tour de Finlande 2010.

This year, as the name of the tour suggests, I’ll be focusing only on Lapland which can be, needless to say, big enough. But one thing for sure: I won’t beat the road for three months. I’d be extremely happy if I could write in a couple of two months time: “Remember when I wrote the first entry of this journey? I said I would have cycled for just a few days and still here I am”. No, this time it won’t happen.

Anyway, let’s get to the point: the tour.

As time is not on my side, I decided to get ahead using a combination of train+bus+bike to get from Oulu to Inari in one day. The distance is a bit less than 600 km, so it’s comparable to Oulu-Helsinki. And it took the whole day.

Packing this time wasn’t that difficult, as I remember more or less what I took the last time I left for a long journey: a lot of stuff. I have five bags, but it seems to fit pretty well on my bike.

I left in the morning at 8 from Oulu to Rovaniemi by train, then jumped on a bus to Ivalo, getting there at about four in the afternoon. I could of course get directly to Inari by bus, but since I’m supposed to cycle, I thought it’d be a good idea to do a soft start by cycling a bit also on the transfer day.

And it was worth it. The weather today has been very mild, going well above 20 degrees, so it was fun to cycle. It was the same route from Ivalo to Inari I did three years ago and, as I often tell when talking about cycling trips, it’s amazing how you can remember so much from things you’ve done years back. Cycling is a slow process, especially if you’ve got over 20 kilos of stuff on your bike, so you have plenty of time to look around and see things.

I reached Inari in the evening, put the tent in the wood, and had dinner. In Oulu it starts to get a bit dark in the night, so I was wondering how the situation is in the real north. Well, no problem: in Inari the first time the sun goes below the horizon is the 27th of July and, as I’m heading north, I guess I won’t see any darkness for some time on…

So, what’s next? Well, it’ll be a surprise (also for me, as I haven’t decided yet…).

 

Day 1 – Tour de Laponie 2013 – Ivalo – Inari

Trip distance: 50 km
Actual trip time: 3 h 35 m


Näytä suurempi kartta

One comment

  1. Obbravo! In facts I bought an e-bike to cover the 10 km, 500 m uphill to my place outside Florence. Nice pic of the not sunset.

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