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 the bay.

The separated bike and walk and drive facilities were fantastic along Helsinki's water front.

I had to sprint to get to meet my son at his new work office. I didn't take any more pictures along the way because my bike route kept getting blocked by major construction at several locations and it was difficult to find my way around it all.

I finally made it to his new workplace to see his new office :-)

Then off I went again past his new apartment. This is a view of the Ainoa shopping mall and some construction above the Tapiola Metro station that is near his new home.

Just about every road in this area has a broad wide smooth shared use path for bicyclists and pedestrians. Bicyclists can ride on the road or they can enjoy these paths and cross with the walk signal.

Notice this crossing with a bike area with no bars and the pedestrian areas with white bars. Where there are no bars the curb is ramped to allow wheels to roll over it whereas there is a low but significant curb to bump over if you are in the pedestrian area when using the crossing. 

Most all pathways are multi-use and signed that way. A few are signed for pedestrians only but it seems ok for bicyclists to use them but just yield to peds when necessary.

The paths are the width of small auto roads and generally very smooth.

The dedicated bridges over high speed multi-lane highways are greatly appreciated.

Even where the roadway is smooth and wide and easy to bicycle, there often are wide ped/bike paths still.

Just a very cool modern house along my route.

My route when past many lakes. Here I was riding on the road.

A bit further I popped back on the bike/ped path.

Here is a farm I passed on a road that changed to a bike/ped only path well paved with firm small gravel -- very bikeable with my road bike if not as smooth as asphalt.

Beautiful path though.

Here is a sign showing this is for bikes and peds.

Biked past a school with a set of large soccer (football) fields.

Alas wheelbender racks are pretty common. I used a serious Abus lock to lock my road bike at the end of the rack while I got lunch.

Across from my lunch spot in this suburban mall was a little library.

Back on the road again I passed a mini golf facility.

Along this higher speed country highway the bike/ped bath was so smooth!

Some interesting artistic graffiti along this unpaved path.

Lots of greenery here but it was much dryer than normal. Looks like we brought some California style weather to Finland for our week here.

One of the VTT office locations. My son works for VTT now but in a different location.

This beautiful path...

...was blocked by some major construction...

...but I was able to find a very nice route around it.

Out in the country there were lots of agricultural fields.

Yet even there were some wide bike/ped paths next to the roads.

But elsewhere it was just pretty empty rural roads.

And lots of fields.

There were many streetlights on many of these roads even in the country side. Probably because of the long dark winters.

So beautiful in Finland though!

What ride is complete without an ice cream stop?

More Finland country side views. Beautiful riding and very few cars!

Even well outside Helsinki there are quite a few bus stops.

By coincidence, my ride took me right by the Ikea where we got most of the furniture to set up my son's new apartment in Espoo.

Gas stations were much more compact here. Just islands with pumps, no bathrooms or store front.

The gas station above partly hid a bicycle route out the back side of it...

...which lead down under a road and across this creek.

A bit further I encountered some sort of historical farm...

...with sheep.

Just an interesting piece of public art.

More off road and unpaved but reasonably smooth trails.

Back in a more urban area, there were a number of bicyclists waiting to cross this intersection in both directions. I think this is what rush hour looks like around Helsinki. No traffic jams I noticed but some more cars on the road and cyclists on the bike paths.

Stopped at my son Tandré's apartment to see how he was getting along unpacking his stuff and refill my water bottle.

The boot scraper outside Tandre's apartment building.

Guess they get a lot of snow during the winter ;-)

Then back on the road.

Past one of the construction sites that stymied me on my ride out. This construction area was very large and blocked off many of the bike paths my route planning tools kept directing me to. Would be nice if Google Maps and the like had a mechanism for cities to report construction zones.

Just amazing how wide many of the biking & walking facilities are in Finland. They definitely prioritize biking and walking and give them first class options (vs the 3rd class options common in much of the US).

The off ramp for this bridge even had a very cool sail like art structure in it.

Nice underpasses to avoid roads too.

Toward the end of my ride I was very hungry so stopped for a quick poke bowl. Yum!

Lots of cobblestones around the older parts of Helsinki.

Quite a few cargo bikes too.

And cool old churches.

And bike parking replacing car parking spots.

Just a view of an inlet while walking back to my hotel.

Back at my hotel I took a quick shower then off to meet my son for dinner.

Nice flowers at the Hakaniemi Metro entrance.

 Trams and buses stop just across from my hotel too.

The integrated bus, tram, metro, and commuter rail systems in and around Helsinki are very well done. Helsinki has a very cool smart phone app called HSL that shows you the system schedule, maps, and plots route options for you showing precise times for each mode of transit, total travel time, departure and arrival times, and how to walk between connections when necessary. You can also purchase your ticket in the app on your smartphone - no need to get a separate pass. Here is a snapshot from my phone of what a day ticket looks like.

The Metro is very convenient, frequent, and speedy. 

I had a simple dinner that night with my son -- just bread and perch soup for me.

 Hope you enjoyed this extra day of riding post. Finland has very impressive bicycle and transit systems!

If you have not yet, there is still time to donate to my Climate Ride to help save our world for our kids! To donate, please visit Save Our Seas Climate Ride. Thanks!