Sub35?

What a stupid idea!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Just came back from the September edition of the Sub24. Here's what we can report.

The Good

• The turn-out. Six of us rode there together and two people joined later. Strong work!

• Three new faces:

Dima

Noora

Tim, on his fixie!

• The forest, as enjoyable as ever on a Friday night

• Saucisson

The Bad

• The weather on our way out, although it wasn't as bad as expected.

•  The smokiness of the lovely little grilling hut we found!

 

• Fashion sense of Xavier (aka "The Boy")

The Ugly

• Florian and Dima

• Charles eating smores

• ...and finally the nasty surprise when literally hundreds of school-kids invaded our forest in the morning

Thanks to everyone for coming and see you in October where we may break with routine and have it on the first Saturday of the month as a one off. Watch this space...

  

Here we go again!

Next sub 24: Friday 2nd September

Last time we had 8 riders. Let's beat our record! I can see already 5 people have voted that they are coming on the poll, which is promising.

So if you've never been with us, here's the gist: Bring yourself and your bicycle to the Shell station in Bemböle on Friday 2nd September at 17:30. If that's too early for you, just contact us (in the comments section, or on Twitter, or on Facebook, so no excuse!) and we'll make sure we wait for you.

What you need:

• A tent
  
• Sleeping bag and mat
• Food to grill
• Drinks (alcoholic or not, that's up to you)
• A willingness to share your food, drinks and life story
• Sub24 tradition encourages you to bring one "luxury item" to share. A bottle of something special, a local delicacy (the stranger, the better), or anything that you'd not usually expect to find on a camping trip.

And here's what you don't need: Coffee pot and coffee (and milk and sugar), loaf of bread and some jam, first aid kit, a lock for all bikes, matches and a night cap for eveyone...

Further packing tips and ideas can be found on this blog post.

This time we've decided to leave our destination open. This way it can be discussed with all participants at the Shell station on the day. We can go as far as people want, but also want to encourage anyone to come so if you're feeling a little nervous, we can easily redirect to a closer camping spot. Ideas so far: Nuuksio, Kaitalampi (via Velskolantie) or Pirttimäki (maybe this type we can actually end up on the lake we were aiming for last time!).

So tell your friends, get yourself motivated, confirm your presence in the poll (on the right-hand side of this blog) and see you in a week or so!

Breaking boundaries

When Lee and I first decided to start this sub24 tradition, we had been hoping that the idea would catch on and so we were delighted to leave from our usual Bemböle meeting point with 8 riders! Oh was that 7? No Lee in sight, where could the co-founder be? It turned out his trusty Crescent had decided to get the mother of all punctures merely 200 meters from the Shell station and so he had to go home and pick up his mountain bike instead. Little did he know then how useful that would turn out to be...

Kunnarlantie 

We actually caused traffic to have to seriously slow down to overtake all 8 of us. Bike power! 

Turning off the road at Pirttimäki 

"Here, turn! Turn!" 

Simo's already had enough ;-) 

Florian "The Beast"

At the water filling station, a kind soul accepted to take a picture of the whole group. 

Florian, Nico, and Charles' helmet 

Simo seems to have recovered now! 

"Are you sure we're going the right way Lee?"

We were not and so thanks to some creative map-reading led by Florian, we redirected to a smaller lake that involved pushing the bikes on the narrowest of trails. Xavier amazed us by actually riding long portions of it on his 23mm wheeled racing bike, Charles discovered the limitations of pulling a trailer, but in the end we all got our just reward with a lovely camping site and the warmest of waters to go and jump into at the end.

So many of us that all our tents didn't even fit on a picture! 

A common Sub24 sight!

For those that stayed up for the after-party, a rather uncommon site was seem in the sky - northern lights! You're not supposed to see them in the summer, right? Well, we did. Anyone get a good photo?! If you did, please do email us at sub24helsinki@gmail.com so we can put it up.

The morning after the night before. If only we were all in good enough condition to appreciate the beauty. And the ride home.

Thanks to Lee, Charles, Zuzanna, Xavier, Jussi, Simo, Florian and Nico for making this a memorable sub24 and we hope to see you again on the first Friday of September.

Friday 5th August 2011

Soooo, just to confirm the details about Friday. We'll meet at the usual meeting point at the Bemböle Shell station at 17:30.

At the time of typing, four of us are definitely going and it would be great to see some new faces too. If you intend to come and we don't know you yet, please drop us a line in the comments section so we can exchange phone numbers in case of delay etc...

Here's what you need:

• A bike
• A tent
  
• Sleeping bag and mat
• Food to grill
• Drinks (alcoholic or not, that's up to you)
• A willingness to share your food, drinks and life story

Further packing tips and ideas can be found on this blog post.

We will head to Pirttimäki to find our camping site, 6,5 kms away from Bemböle.

Please post any other question you may have in the comments section and see you on the 5th August!

***

I've been trying to leave this as a comment, but it won't let me. Anyway...
 

Here's what I'll bring so you don't have to:

Coffee pot and coffee (and milk and sugar), loaf of bread and some jam, a pump, some tools, spare inner tubes (26" and 28"/700c), first aid kit, a lock for all bikes, matches and a night cap for eveyone...

This is Lee.

Back to work and in need of a holiday

I thought I'd better write something here.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Last month's solo effort has beefed up the constitution of the sub-24 gods. The next one will be bigger and better, I can feel it in my waters.

Friday 5th August, Bemböle 17:30; heading in a general north-westerly Espoo foresty kind of direction. Unless someone has a better idea about where and when.

I shall miss the loneliness...

There will always be a sub-24

After hanging around at Bemböle petrol station (sorry for not waiting, I'm sure there were many of you planning to come but just running late), I decided to try a new camp site in Luukkaa. As there was no one to argue with, I started riding north past Oittaa, past Pirttimäki and then along the nicest biking road in the capital region, Velskolantie, which runs from Kunnarla to Vihdintie. I was greeted by many lycra lads, all astounded by the load my little old bike was carrying.

 

Velskolantie, 6pm, the time a thunder storm was due

Oh, there's the storm cloud. Looks innocent enough.

There was some climbing. But not much.

Kaitalampi. Washed the sweat off rather nicely.

I managed to squeeze in my 4-person tent (4.5kg!) next to the lake.

Art. The inevitable result of boredom.

I was absolutely happy to ride and camp alone (Charles just spent two weeks doing the same thing). But I do hope that this sub-24 idea catches on a bit and I'll get some company on the next ride. I enjoyed the exercise, the sense of getting away, the nature. But I think the point of sub-24 is probably social more than any other single factor.

So, Friday August 5th, rain or shine. The peace broken by the sound of multiple freewheels buzzing...