Rovaniemi 2019

[voodoo_simon]

Anyone entering this year?

[whitestone]

Anyone entering this year?

Hope to be. We'll both be doing the 150km if we do.

[Richard G]

I have not yet gained a sufficient amount of balls to try this. One day.

Edit - I love that they have an approved sleeping bag list.

[fatbikephil]

I'm in, once I've paid up.....(and paid for flights, and paid for digs and paid for car hire and paid for kit but what the hey it'll be a laugh)
Currently looking for kit

[Richard G]

I think I'd be forced to try and rent a fat bike if I was going to do it. I neither have the space or the desire to own one.

[whitestone]

I'm in, once I've paid up.....(and paid for flights, and paid for digs and paid for car hire and paid for kit but what the hey it'll be a laugh)
Currently looking for kit

Shouldn't need car hire Phil. Minibus taxi from the airport into town. Getting round town is easy - if you are reasonably close to the town centre you can just walk plus of course you have your bike

It's the kit that most people won't have (OK, I didn't actually have a fat bike when I entered ) particularly the sleeping bag. If you've cash available then Alpkit have 15% off this weekend but it might be worth doing a bit of searching for the various recommended bags to find the cheapest. Alex won't accept layered bags but if you find a bag that isn't on the list you can ask him if it's good enough and he'll add it to the list if he thinks it is. Decent pogies are worth having as well.

Yeah, not cheap but as Ian Barrington said to me, you have to go to the States to do a similar event and that ain't cheap either.

[voodoo_simon]

Just got a reply from Alex and I’m back in. Will be heading out there with Mrs Voodoo to race as a ‘pair’. Exciting times yet again

Rich, one of the girls hired a bike in 2017 as hers was lost somewhere between France/Belgium and Finland! The owner of the rental place was super helpful at the time and couldn’t do enough to help her. Might be worth investigating as a feasible option?

[Richard G]

Yeah, it's almost certainly the way I'm going to go. No need for another bike in my life, at least, not one like that.

[fatbikephil]

Shouldn't need car hire Phil. Minibus taxi from the airport into town. Getting round town is easy - if you are reasonably close to the town centre you can just walk plus of course you have your bike

I think I can only get a flight from Scotland to Helsinki plus a mate lives in Oulu so I will be dropping in - means I get to a bit of a road trip to boot
Bag now bought!

[whitestone]

Shouldn't need car hire Phil. Minibus taxi from the airport into town. Getting round town is easy - if you are reasonably close to the town centre you can just walk plus of course you have your bike

I think I can only get a flight from Scotland to Helsinki plus a mate lives in Oulu so I will be dropping in - means I get to a bit of a road trip to boot
Bag now bought!

Yes, you need an internal connecting flight to Rovaniemi.

We need to get registered and flights and accommodation booked.

[whitestone]

Right, we're in At least this time we don't have to buy a bike to do it

[benp1]

For anyone making a proper holiday of it, I can seriously recommend going to Levi. It's a couple of hours north but there is so much to do there - I went with the family for xmas to do loads of santa related things but the family fun was good too. I'd love to go back to go some snow shoeing, more skiing, XC skiing, snow mobiling etc etc

It was excellent, our best ever holiday

[fatbikephil]

Hmmm. Do I need jaggy tyres??
Got a new lou on the way and a nearly new bud in the shed but debating whether its worth studding them.....

[whitestone]

Hmmm. Do I need jaggy tyres??
Got a new lou on the way and a nearly new bud in the shed but debating whether its worth studding them.....

Certainly didn't need studs last year. The ice on the rivers and lakes is quite rough, there's a few overflows here and there that are sheet ice and there are bits under the main road bridges at Rovaniemi but apart from that a good set of winter oriented tyres will be fine. Not sure if going bigger than 4" on the 150 route is necessary, might be for the 300, but if your frame will take bigger tyres I don't see much disadvantage.

Of course next year they'll have their warmest winter on record then just before the race it will freeze and everything will be sheet ice

[fatbikephil]

Not sure if going bigger than 4" on the 150 route is necessary, might be for the 300, but if your frame will take bigger tyres I don't see much disadvantage.

One of my guiding principals for fat bikes (or any bike for that matter) is that bigger is always better
Seriously if it snows or if (god forbid) it blows a gale and we get windslab, Bud and Lou can't be beaten...
I'll leave the stud question till the week before. I can always take a bag of self tappers with me

[whitestone]

I'm sure someone has mentioned this but I can't find it (might have been a PM).

I've a choice of two flights to Rovaniemi, one with a 75min stopover/connection in Helsinki, one with a five hour stopover. Last year we took the five hour hit, anyone know if the shorter time is practical? Finnair note that check-in must be done 45mins before departure.

We've got our accommodation booked - 2/3rds the price of what we paid last year and this is B&B I now just need to get my Jones Riser Loop bars off Cath's Stooge - she's beginning to like them

[voodoo_simon]

That’s more than do-able, it’s about a 20 min walk from flight to flight though and you need to get through passport control. Can be stressful (I’m the kind of person who arrives at the airport before check in opens!) but it’s so-able. I’ve had a 20 minute turnaround and both myself and bike/luggage have made the transfer.

I’ve done both methods and i personally prefer waiting at the airport for the longer period, no rush and no stress. Can even have a full evening meal etc before the flight to Rovaniemi, so only have to find a pub once landed the other side

[voodoo_simon]

Not sure if going bigger than 4" on the 150 route is necessary, might be for the 300, but if your frame will take bigger tyres I don't see much disadvantage.

One of my guiding principals for fat bikes (or any bike for that matter) is that bigger is always better
Seriously if it snows or if (god forbid) it blows a gale and we get windslab, Bud and Lou can't be beaten...
I'll leave the stud question till the week before. I can always take a bag of self tappers with me

A lot of riders kicked themselves for going with their bigger tyre option in 2017 Conditions were damn near perfect though. However, in 2016 everyone bought new bikes/frames after (well, my friends did) as conditions were so soft, they wanted bigger tyres (from 3.8 to 4.8). Can’t win on the tyre front.

Never felt the need for studds but it’s not a disadvantage to have them

[whitestone]

That’s more than do-able, it’s about a 20 min walk from flight to flight though and you need to get through passport control. Can be stressful (I’m the kind of person who arrives at the airport before check in opens!) but it’s so-able. I’ve had a 20 minute turnaround and both myself and bike/luggage have made the transfer.

I’ve done both methods and i personally prefer waiting at the airport for the longer period, no rush and no stress. Can even have a full evening meal etc before the flight to Rovaniemi, so only have to find a pub once landed the other side

Cheers Simon. From memory passport control was quick but we probably just chose our moment. It's the choice between a relaxed meal at inflated airport prices or a relaxed meal at expensive Rovaniemi prices Will probably go the long stopover and just chill, figuratively.

Yes, 2017 seemed very benign - Alex thought the winning time would be under ten hours, it wasn't quite that fast. I think 2105 was another fast year while this year was a slower one but not as slow as 2016. 4.6" is the limit for my frame but I'm not buying another set of tyres

[fatbikephil]

I'm sure someone has mentioned this but I can't find it (might have been a PM).

I've a choice of two flights to Rovaniemi, one with a 75min stopover/connection in Helsinki, one with a five hour stopover. Last year we took the five hour hit, anyone know if the shorter time is practical? Finnair note that check-in must be done 45mins before departure.

We've got our accommodation booked - 2/3rds the price of what we paid last year and this is B&B I now just need to get my Jones Riser Loop bars off Cath's Stooge - she's beginning to like them

Will be booking flights this weekend - what digs are you in? The hotel linked from the entry page seems affy steep!

[johnnystorm]

The advantage of the suggested hotel is that they let you build/store your bike in a large meeting room upstairs. My hotel made me keep mine in the underground carpark once I'd built it. Not as safe, nor as convenient. Also probably quite good atmosphere if most riders are in one place. As for being steep.....welcome to Finland!

[whitestone]

We built our bikes in the corridor of our "hotel" - more an annex on the way out of town - and kept the bikes in the room We're in a B&B this time and they've secure bike storage (well they say they have).

Yes it's pricey, especially for those of us who don't live in the SE and are used to similar prices, but it's par for the latitude really. A long way from anywhere and not many folk: Lapland is the size of Scotland and Wales combined and has a population a little greater than Dundee, a third of whom live in Rovaniemi.

[voodoo_simon]

Money has been paid this weekend, so just waiting to get our names on the roster

Looking at the roster so far, I can get a podium place...

...but I'm sure that will change as winter approaches

[ssnowman]

Interestingly, a third of entrants are Brits!

[whitestone]

From previous years it seems that about a quarter of the field are Brits.

Just got an accommodation email from the race partner but it reminded me about bike bags.

If you look on the Finnair site it says that they only accept "hard" bike cases but we used the ChainReaction bike bags last year without problem. I suppose they don't want bikes in CTC plastic bags Fill in the form on their website and rather than paying during that process they contact you and confirm your bikes are booked on board and you can either pay then or when you check in. From memory I think it was €60 per bike but can't remember if that was each way or for both the out and return flights together.