Must do rides out of Helsinki?

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spartacus
Posts: 1049
Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2011 6:53 pm

by spartacus

Does anyone here have experience or suggestions? I'm bringing a road bike with 32c tires and would be interested in road rides as well as "gravel" riding in the forest.

by Weenie


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anzi
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 10:11 am

by anzi

I don't have any gpx files to share since I don't use them, but I'd say Central Park is a good option to start gravel rides, just head away from the city center. If you want to stay more on asphalt, follow the shore line either to eat or west from the city. I think those are a good way to get to see nice views of Helsinki if it is not familiar to you.

spartacus
Posts: 1049
Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2011 6:53 pm

by spartacus

anzi wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:46 pm
I don't have any gpx files to share since I don't use them, but I'd say Central Park is a good option to start gravel rides, just head away from the city center. If you want to stay more on asphalt, follow the shore line either to eat or west from the city. I think those are a good way to get to see nice views of Helsinki if it is not familiar to you.
Thanks for the suggestions, it's a start! I've never been there before so I'm interested in the scenery for sure.

Woland
Posts: 86
Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2017 8:28 pm
Location: HEL

by Woland

spartacus wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:26 pm
Does anyone here have experience or suggestions? I'm bringing a road bike with 32c tires and would be interested in road rides as well as "gravel" riding in the forest.
The quickest way out from the city centre is through the central park, which is approx. 10km in length (from south to north). The trails are hard-packed gravel, just watch out for the occasional sand pits. You can make it 20-30km of easy riding in the park and some people are known to ride a metric century there. From there you can extend it to Reitti 2000 ("Route 2000"), which is a 100km trail ride but I wouldn't recommend it on 32mm tyres, although it's doable. You can rent nice gravel bikes from breakaway.cc if you're interested.

For road riding, a classic ride to the east is to the town of Porvoo. It's a +100km ride there and back. There's a nice old town in Porvoo with some really nice cafes. The roads take you through the countryside on some quiet and flowy roads (as long as you don't take the shortest route that mostly follows a bike path).

My favourite direction to ride is out west, for both road and gravel. For gravel, I'd recommend something chunkier than 32mm tyres for some of the roads and trails, although you can definitely get away with them as long as you stay on the bigger gravel roads. For both kinds of riding, there are a lot of possible routes of varying distances. You can keep it to 60-80km or go +200km.

I don't use navigation but can come up with some gpx files if you're interested, just let me know where you'll be starting (just an approximate starting point, if you know that already) and how far you'd like to ride.

spartacus
Posts: 1049
Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2011 6:53 pm

by spartacus

Woland wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 6:08 pm
spartacus wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:26 pm
Does anyone here have experience or suggestions? I'm bringing a road bike with 32c tires and would be interested in road rides as well as "gravel" riding in the forest.
The quickest way out from the city centre is through the central park, which is approx. 10km in length (from south to north). The trails are hard-packed gravel, just watch out for the occasional sand pits. You can make it 20-30km of easy riding in the park and some people are known to ride a metric century there. From there you can extend it to Reitti 2000 ("Route 2000"), which is a 100km trail ride but I wouldn't recommend it on 32mm tyres, although it's doable. You can rent nice gravel bikes from breakaway.cc if you're interested.

For road riding, a classic ride to the east is to the town of Porvoo. It's a +100km ride there and back. There's a nice old town in Porvoo with some really nice cafes. The roads take you through the countryside on some quiet and flowy roads (as long as you don't take the shortest route that mostly follows a bike path).

My favourite direction to ride is out west, for both road and gravel. For gravel, I'd recommend something chunkier than 32mm tyres for some of the roads and trails, although you can definitely get away with them as long as you stay on the bigger gravel roads. For both kinds of riding, there are a lot of possible routes of varying distances. You can keep it to 60-80km or go +200km.

I don't use navigation but can come up with some gpx files if you're interested, just let me know where you'll be starting (just an approximate starting point, if you know that already) and how far you'd like to ride.
Thanks for the information, I really appreciate it!

I'm thinking rides in the 50 to 100km range would be good. I'll be with my SO and both of our travel bikes max out at 32c. I think for the gravel riding we are mostly looking for hardpack or fire road types of things. We're both pretty experienced at gravel riding so hopefully we will be fine, but I don't expect to be able to go full speed all the time on these bikes.

I think we'll have time for 3 good rides at least, so maybe

1 out west gravel
2 ride to Porvoo
3 ?

I also think we should check out this part and ride around it a bit.

kervelo
Posts: 866
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2009 6:58 am
Location: Finland

by kervelo

The gravelmap.com service might be useful when planning gravel rides in Helsinki area.

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Sacke
Posts: 643
Joined: Fri Sep 26, 2008 2:33 pm
Location: South of France

by Sacke

If you follow Sami Lampinen https://www.strava.com/athletes/1644263?oq=sami%20lamp on Strava, you can scroll through his rides. He posts pictures from almost every ride, so you will easily get a bit of a preview of what to expect.

His Instagram is filled with cycling pictures from Finland as well. https://www.instagram.com/pista.conceli/

Woland
Posts: 86
Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2017 8:28 pm
Location: HEL

by Woland

Not really what you're looking for, but in case you'd feel like going for a nice & easy sightseeing ride, I would suggest checking out "Espoon rantaraitti". It's an easy trail that follows the coastline west of Helsinki, just combine these two segments: https://www.komoot.com/highlight/1033957 + https://www.komoot.com/highlight/4302907.

by Weenie


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