A Ride Around Finland
Friday August 2, 2019, Biked 123 km. Warm and partly cloudy all day. Whoa, you probably thought this blog was just about my ride across the US. Well it is focused on that but this ride in Finland was very cool and was an interesting one to compare to my ride across the US, so I decided to make it one of my epilogue blog posts. TLDR: Finland has much better bicycling and transit facilities than any of the cities I visited in the US. On my walk from my hotel to the bike shop where I had a rental bike waiting, the sidewalks were designed for bicyclists and pedestrians. The had little channels carved in them so the rain gutter water could tidily run into the street. I picked up a beautiful light carbon fiber road bike from Bicyclean Helsinki -- a wonderful and highly recommended bicycle rental shop in Helsinki. Super friendly staff and great bicycles from city bikes to performance mountain and road bikes. Off on the road it was a beautiful day with sun shining off t