Hi guys,
It’s been a while since I last wrote, so I thought I’d bring you up to date with conditions here.
Last week was still mild, with +6 C or more, a good 10 degrees warmer than we’d expect for southern Finland at this time of year. We’d been having rain, and I had to visit the customer’s office in it (I braved the weather on my Trice!). The front tyres pick up the grit and take it round under the mudguards, and it flies all over the place! Good job I wear those goggles (described below). When I stop and get up, there’s a little pile of it on the seat!
Last Friday night we had some snow, and minus 6 on Saturday! I triked to a sports centre in the local ‘park’. They call it Keskuspuisto (keskus = centre, puisto = park, so it’s like ‘central park’), but it’s basically forest with many paths for walkers, joggers bikes and trikes. There’s a café there, an artificial hill (Finland’s rather short of them so they’ve made a couple at least here in the south) for sledging, ski tracks go in all directions (on the same paths used by bikers in the summer – and winter, sometimes) and an indoor ice rink recently built, with its own café. It’s a nice shortish trip, probably about half an hour. But before I got there my fingers and toes were beginning to feel the cold! Nice to stop for coffee and something with it, and warm up before heading for home.
On Monday morning we had minus 14, but with suitable clothing to keep out the wind, double mittens, balaclava and woolly hat, I was warm enough to make it to work. I’ve also got a pair of old skydiving goggles, which keep the cold wind out of my eyes (I did 13 parachute jumps, before Richie was born). Sometimes they’re more trouble than they’re worth, either because when they get wet on the outside, the moisture diffuses the car headlights, or then they mist up on the inside, and I can’t see!
The pavements were pretty well cleared by the snow ploughs before people get up, so the going wasn’t too bad. In places where there’s hard-packed snow from dozens of pedestrians, it feels like riding on cobbles. Then it’s preferable to use the street itself.
It definitely takes me longer than in the autumn, with the chunkier tyres and the snowy paths slowing me down, and uphills are certainly harder going.
It’s blowing a real snowstorm now, with gusty winds. I’m glad I don’t need to drive my car in that weather! Attached is a view from a road camera, about 35 miles north of Helsinki. It’s often interesting to take a look at a few such cameras here:
http://alk.tiehallinto.fi/alk/english/frames/kelikamerat-frame.html
You can click on the camera icons on the map, or to change maps click on the green map of Finland.
It’s still snowing, been snowing pretty much all day. It was quite an effort to trike home, but I just about made it without having to get off and push, right down to the last 50 yards, then I got off, it was just too much, and I was quite tired.
Cheers,
Phill
