ROVANIEMI........

"Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very 
May; but at length the season of summer does come"...................Thomas Carlyle.

"Lake in May". Finland, 2013.

May, 2010. Memphis, Tennessee.

May 2011, Baja, Mexico.

May 2012, the Netherlands.

May, 2013, Finland.

May 2013, Lumberjacks Candle Bridge, Rovaniemi, Finland.

Lumberjacks Candle Bridge in March, the Kemi river a solid sheet of ice.

Sunsets, a misnomer in these parts, in May in Rovaniemi.

12:15 am, May 23, 2013. Rovaniemi, Finland.

"Sleep......I.......need.......to.........sleep". 

Please, someone turn off the sun. Or at least turn it down a little.

The days are getting longer here at the Arctic Circle. 

Now, it never gets dark. A little dull by 2 or 3am, but still bright out. No sign of nighttime anywhere over the horizon. My body's natural clock is finding it difficult to adjust to this midnight sun, this continuous 24 hours of light, not wanting to lie down or sleep at all. 

I find myself, at 2am, still wide awake, finally starting to feel signs of energy leaving my shell by 3. The elusive comfort of dreamland, drifting off into a temporary coma, are scarce for me these days nights. 

A land of enchantment in Winter, with not much daylight, is also of extremes in summer, with no night to speak of. 

I am in the land of the midnight sun.

Rovaniemi Church, Rovaniemi, Finland.

11:55 pm.

A ride today with Pepe and Matti, Karu MC, Rovaniemi, Finland.

Holding a D700 with a 24-300 lens while riding is not easy.

A cafe local with a T-shirt with a special message.

Sometimes, you just meet the nicest people when you ride a BMW sidecar.

This is Irina, who hails from Moldova, a wee little landlocked country nestled between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south.

Irina and her friend Katja were passing by my bike last week here in Rovaniemi, stopped to look at it, so of course being the friendly traveller that I am, I started chatting with them. Katja had some great tips for me for Russia, confirming to me about the road conditions. Abysmal. 

The videos about the Russian drivers on Youtube are correct and accurate.

I'm glad to have met Irina also because Moldova is a country I would have never of thought about visiting, since it's tucked away down there, minding it's own business. You really never here about Moldova that much, which I suppose is more of a good thing than anything else. Wonder what else they're hiding down in Moldova besides Irina?. So that's where all the beautiful women come from. Hmmm.

Moldova used to be part of the Soviet Union, but in 1991 declared itself an independent state. The Moldavian SSR or Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union back in those days , and was officially referred to as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. Upon gaining independence, it became the Republic of Moldova. 

If you're really interested to find out more, here's the Wikipedia link to do some research on Moldova.

And while we're on the subject of the former Soviet Union, while I was working on this article at City Hotel this past weekend, Victor (I hope that's the right spelling) arrived as a guest of the hotel for Saturday night stay. I noticed the GS embossed on the pannier he carried in that evening upon check-in, but didn't pay it that much attention. Finally, I went outside to take a peek, as curiosity got the better of me. A brand spanking new 2013 BMW GS Watercooled bike with a Russian plate.

Not such a big deal here in Rovaniemi as Russia is not too far from here, only a 600 km ride from here to Murmansk where Victor is from, a place that I had intended to visit, so we had a great chat that morning before he left. As is with most Russian motorcyclists that I meet on the road, Victor knows everybody, the BMW guys, the "other" guys, all the guys really, so when I go there, I believe I'll be well connected. I still have to make it to Yaroslavl to the Black Bears MC Winter Rally in December.

Рады приветствовать вас Виктор, надеюсь, что ваша поездка назад в Мурманске является безопасным. Увидимся скоро, я надеюсь.

Timo and his daughter were out last week for a photoshoot.

Timo had the local newspaper, Lapin Kansa, do an article about him, so they needed some photos for that day. Out came the '34 and off we went.

  

Work and projects are still progressing on my outfit at the school Timo teaches at here in Rovaniemi.

 This is a footbox and protector I designed to try to help keep my feet dry and warm in winter. The thinking behind it is that it should keep the rain and water from spraying up from the big 195/75-17 tires that I now run on the outfit, and also direct the heat from the exhaust pipe and cylinder head to my foot. I'll let you know how it works next December.

Another project that I've been wanting to do was either get a pair of Gerbings Heated Pants, OR, put a heating pad in the seat. Well, Raimo is helping me with putting a heating pad in that he had left over from an upholstery job on a car. 

A broken wire just had to be repaired in the pad and it was good to go.

While I was at it I got Raimo to cut out a 2" section of foam in the seat, as it was always a little to high for me. Now it gives me a nice little indented place to comfortably sit in.

A little spray glue and the pad was in place, ready for the new seat cover that Raimo is going to make.

I've also been reminded that Mosquito season is here, and the Mosquito's up here this far north are huge. They make Florida mosquitos look like tiny specks of dust, so I've been told. I've already seen a few and they are huge, and this is only the beginning of the season.

One of my many, many dreaded gas station stops.

Gas, fuel, is killing me here. I have a 44 litre tank, here it took a little over 40 litres, 10 gls, and got me for 72 Euros which is about $93. 

I know, on a motorbike !!. It's just un-American dammit.

You can help to support me by spreading the word and buying my decal sets.

It's a 7 piece set, 3 postcards and 4 stickers. And mailed to you from Finland.

Just click on the BUY NOW button above the WARN logo up on the right column, OR just click here.

If you would like to leave more than the cost of a decal set then do not click the BUY NOW, click on the DONATE button, leave your amount and leave a note in the message box as to how many sets your donation is for.

The RideAwayCancer decals are also available for sale too.

The cost on these is $15 which includes shipping and handling from Finland and 3 postcards also. These are available at a multiple discount for orders over  decals. A 5 decal set with 5 postcards is $40 + shipping, as the extra weight adds more to the postage from here.

Thank you all again for all your continued views, support and comments of encouragement, I appreciate them all.

If you haven't already, please take a moment and "Join This Blog" up by the Followers section.

Murph.

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ROVANIEMI, FINLAND.....Pt V

AURORA BOREALIS

The Northern Lights

Click here for my recommended musical accompaniment to these images.

It only took me three and a half months to finally get up close and personal with my very own display of the oft elusive but absolutely stunning and trippy aurora borealis, or northern lights. People come from all over the world just to catch a glimpse of this natural phenomenon. Some succeed, some don't. And as I have found out over the course of that three and half months, just because you are IN the aurora borealis belt, the region where the magnetic disturbance displays are most likely to occur, doesn't always mean that they WILL occur.

It's southern counterpart, the aurora australis or southern lights has almost identical features to the aurora borealis and is visible from high southern latitudes in Antarctica, South America, New Zealand and Australia.

I was sitting in Karu MC here in Rovaniemi, Finland, all comfy and warm in a chair editing photos. It was pretty cold out. Well, not really that cold, only about -12° or so,  when I get a phone call from the president of the club, Heikki. "I'm looking out at the sky from my house and there seems to be very good aurora tonight" he said. 

"Oh yeah"?. "Where do you think I should ride to, which direction"? I replied, "toward Sinettä"?. 

"Yes, that would probably be a good place to head to" he said.

So I packed up the cameras, my tripod, some extra batteries and CF Cards and I was downstairs and started up the bike to warm it up for 10 minutes before I headed out toward Sinettä.

Now, not only was I comfy, cosy and warm in Karu MC that evening, but the day before I removed the handlebar muffs, the wind protectors for my hands, from the bike to give them to Raimo, a member of Karu MC and an upholsterer, to make a new pattern for a better and warmer set. The ones I had weren't made right to begin with back in Holland, but I had no time to fix them before I left for Denmark and points north so they had to make do. But there were gaps in them that let cold air in, very cold air that over a 300 km ride in -20° and below was enough to make my hands painfully numb, even with heated grips. So when I got the chance I knew I had to get a better pair of handlebar muffs made by a good upholsterer wherever and whenever I could.

So, heading out to chase the elusive aurora that evening, the fact that I had no handlebar wind protectors didn't seem like a big deal at the time, but about 10 kilometers later with the wind rushing across my hands and nothing to protect them they started to get really really cold. The heated grips were no match for a -20° wind chill, none whatsoever.

About 12 km out of Rovaniemi I was far enough from the ambient lights of the town when I started to see it, that sort of shimmering in the sky ahead. Faint at first, but the further away from Rovaniemi I got the stronger the aurora got. But my hands at this point were painfully cold and even tough Sinetta was only another 10 km further on, I was afraid that if I kept going that they would disappear. Aurora are very unpredictable, they can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, and I couldn't let this one slip away like that. Besides, my hands were begging me to stop, so I pulled over to a car parking area right on the side of the road. First order of business was get the tripod set up and a camera on top of it, take a few test shots, figure out what I needed my settings to be and lo and behold I was looking at my first capture of aurora borealis.

This particular display had been already going on for an hour or so I guess before I got there, and continued on for about another forty minutes before it started to dim. That was about it for me. By that time I and my hands were freezing cold. I have a hard time shooting and adjusting the settings on my camera with gloves on. The camera adjustment levers, buttons and dials are not really made for gloved fingers. So my bare hands, exposed to -17° air temperatures and playing with a freezing cold camera body had had enough. And I knew I had a 20 minute ride back without handlebar muffs so I figured I'd call it a night and quit while I still didn't have frostbite.
I was cold but happy that I finally got to see my very own Northern Lights.

I shot all of the images on a Nikon D3s with a 14-24 2.8 lens.
All the images were 2.5 second exposures @ 2.8, focal length was between 17-24mm. ISO on all shots was 1000.
Not much processing went into these shots in LR4, just some sharpening and noise reduction.

Any images you see here can be purchased as High Resolution prints. 
Until my SmugMug account is up and running, just contact me for details and pricing at Wheresmurph@gmail.com

Meanwhile back at Karu MC here in Rovaniemi, just because it's -15° outside doesn't mean that life stops. Oh no. Life goes on. Stuff needs to get done. Bikes need to get worked on and finished for the spring and summer riding season fast approaching here in Finland.
The morning after my Aurora Borealis encounter Jari was out sanding down the frame of his chopper to be repainted. This year it's going to be black instead of red. Powerplant is an '80's Evo motor.

Long and low, the Finnish way.

Pepe decided to take out his Ice Speedway bike for a spin around the ice this particular morning too. A 500cc Jawa engined death machine if you get caught under the wheels. It'll slice off an arm in no time.

Click the image for my first Downshift video.

Meanwhile, the other huge news, for me anyway, is that MotorTrend flew a film crew over here to Finland from the U.S. to shoot a Pt II to the first video they made about me back in April of last year, which you can watch by clicking the Down Shift logo above.

Mike Wilson is a great filmmaker who shot Pt I in the canyons of Malibu, California last year. This year Mike came with Mark to shoot in the cold Arctic winter of Finland. It's not too often that you get a film crew flown over to another continent just to make a video about you, I really feel quite honored that Mike Wilson & MotorTrend thought so much of me to do so.
More on the shoot in next weeks post.

In other news I also received a special delivery from Andy Lilienthal at WARN in the U.S., a new WARN XT17 Portable Motorcycle Winch. Since I sometimes get into situations that calling AAA or calling anybody really is just not possible, I had been thinking about installing a winch for quite some time now, and the WARN Portable Winch is really the smallest, lightest and best product out there for any  serious adventure motorcyclist. I will have a complete review of the installation procedure in the next post.


That's it for this week, I hope that you all enjoy this Sunday morning post and please leave me a comment if you have the time.

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Thank you all for your continued support.

Murph.