Road biking

It has been a superb day of sunshine and blue skies. I started the day a bit miserable that with a throat infection and dripping nose, I couldn't go climbing with friends, but despite being still bunged up I went out this evening for a bike ride. It just seemed to good a day to miss. I might moan about the length of my commute into the city, but the plus side is that I can be out in the countryside immediately. I haven't ridden my road bike yet this year, and it feels so strange to start with - wobbly and insecure on those skinny wheels. But after a few kilometres the old feeling comes back, and you can enjoy the speed and ease of acceleration that only road bikes have. Despite the crappy cold and drippy nose I still nipped round a 25 km circuit averaging just over 30 kmph.

I've seen more road bikers this summer than before I think. It seems to be becoming more popular than in the past. I think the rural areas just beyond Helsinki's outer ring road are one of the capital region's best kept secrets - and absolutely perfect to explore on a road bike. There is very little traffic because virtually all traffic leaving the city uses the four motor ways that spread out from the ring road. Still not too far from the civilization of the biggest city, even the minor roads are surfaced (unlike in much of rural Finland), hence skinny road tires cruise along noiselessly and speedily. The land is heavily farmed meaning the fields you ride amongst give you a feel of open space, yet of course being Finland the forests are always there at the edge of the farmer's realm. Currently the crops are sprouting, so most of the fields are a lurid green of first shoots, but later many will turn a vibrant yellow under the flower of oil-seed rape or the golden with corn. There are no huge hills, but neither is the land tediously flat, and small brown rivers often snake between the fields. The Finnish summer is also perfect for the evening cyclist, the sun was still bright when I left at 8 pm, although lower in the sky making the newly leafed birches golden and capturing the tree pollen blowing in the wind.

To the north of the city you are not far from the airport, and oddly as I cruised along one quiet road north towards Klaukkala, a Finnair Airbus A340 was climbing maybe a kilometre away to my right. At that distance it oddly felt that I was going at about the same speed as the huge plane. It was so quiet and gentle to watch, notthe feeling you get on board with all the engines at full throttle pushing all that mass into the air. Soon enough the plane climbed up and turned lazily in front of me, white in the blue sky, heading eastward for probably Beijing or Tokyo.

Funny things on the Radio

It shouldn't really be that funny but I heard Senator Orrin Hatch on the NPR breakfast news say "crap" on Friday. It's not that rude, but not what you normally here on NPR news. There was a split second after where you could just hear his brain processing: "oh crap, I just said crap on national radio. Do I apologise? Do I plough on and hope no one noticed?" He ploughed on manfully, but we did notice Senator. We just like you more now for speaking your mind. Is Senator Hatch often this plain spoken.

Even more delicious than that was the BBC FiveLive news reader who on earlier in the week announced to a shocked nation that North Yorkshire had tested a nuclear weapon. You can hear the announcement here. The confusing thing is for anyone who remembers the 80s, is that it was always the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire.

Americans buying more bikes than cars!

That's it really. From the Huffington Post via the Outside blog:

Americans bought more new bicycles than they did cars in the first quarter of 2009, suggesting that the economic recession may altering fundamental facets of the American lifestyle. Bicycle sales were still down 30% from last year, but eked out car sales by about 100,000 for a total of 2.6 million.

For one prominent American who really needs a new bike, see here (scroll down).

Thanks to Opotopo via Twitter.

Dumb Helsinki cycle paths #3

If you can't find anywhere else to park, or are just too lazy to walk from a parking spot a bit further away, there is lots of space to leave your car or truck on the cycle path system of greater Helsinki! It's easy - just park in the middle of the cycle path and totally ignore any feelings of being an anti-social and selfish dickwad who puts other people's safety at risk! Presumably you're too thick to have much of conscience anyway?

If you have a big enough truck you can score the double whammy of making both cyclists AND pedestrians walk in the traffic! Score triple if the pedestrian is parent pushing a pram!

This truck is blocking both the cycle path and the view of people waiting at the tram stop making them walk into the street to see if the tram is coming. Well done - you are a jerk of the highest order! (We will get on to the brightness of putting trams stops on cycle paths at a later date...)

If you had parked a bit further over mate, you could have covered the cycle path markings, and this photo wouldn't have been nearly as good!

European Cooperation - isn't it nice that we all get along?

It's a funny thing, but until yesterday I don't think I had heard of the Czech nationalist political party Národni Strana, and then they're suddenly popping up everywhere. In Finland today it is reported that the slightly odd, but quite successful, Finnish heavy metal cello band Apocalyptica (yes - cellos!) are going to take Národni Strana to court. The Czech nationalists had, without permission or payment, been using some Apocalyptica music in their adverts. Apocalyptica - despite the slightly dodgy heavy metal look - are obviously sound lads and put out the following statement:

This is an official statement by the band about the illegal use of our song 'Path' in a tv and internet commercial in the Czech Republic. Apocalyptica always supports minorities, stands up for human rights, respects every human being, no matter their colour, ethnic background or religion, worldwide. Apocalyptica also supports the idea of a united Europe and the European Union. We hope it is a clear statement that we would never allow the Czech Republican party Národni Strana to use any of our music.

Having your music nicked must be annoying, but the band is particularly narked that the music was used in a now infamous advert by the party where they call for the "Final Solution" to the Czech Republic's gypsy problem. The final solution turns out to be 'only' the deportation of all Czech gypsies to India. The leader of the party is Petra Edelmannova; here she is in the picture below with Nick Griffin leader of the BNP. She was going to come and enjoy some good ole' English hospitality at the BNP's Red, White and Blue festival last summer, but unfortunately it seems couldn't make it in the end. But there is lots of news and pic about her friends in the UK on the Národni Strana website.


She did though make it to Cologne recently, for the Pro-Köln get-together. Here she is with Filip Dewinter of Vlaams Belang and Markus Beisicht of Pro-Köln.

Petra and Filip seem to be good mates, as Dewinter has a different picture of them holding hands on his own website:


She's young, she's smart - what's not to love (beyond the expulsion of people who don't fit your sense of ethnic purity obviously)? To quote one commentator: "the young party leader is seen as one of the future hopes for a modern patriotic party with a European orientation." Presumably, she just didn't tell Vlaams Belang about her final solution for the 'blacks' because they wouldn't want anything to do with those type of nasty race-based politics. Oh, hang on a minute...

Getting sidetracked is not a crime

I was meant to be researching the about to be released European Commission position paper on future financial regulation structures for the EU. But I ended up watching this:



It is easily done.

If the BNP weren't a bunch of liars...

<--- this is what their election flyer would say.

I was tickled the other week to see that the BNP's flyer was rather easily shown to be deceptive and stuffed full of photos taken from photo agencies, rather than of British people who really are voting for the BNP. The one real Brit featured, a former soldier, in a photo on the flyer said he was outraged that they used his picture and that "they are scumbags and I'd never vote for them in a million years."

I'm not quite sure who came up with this wonderfully amended and rather more accurate version on the left - I saw it on Pickled Politics - but big up to whoever did the original art work; it is a work of art indeed. Click on the flyer to read it in full size.

UKIP - dodgy buggers

Westminster is still wallowing in its own do-do, but don't vote for UKIP in the Euro elections as a better alternative!

"The leader of the UK Independence party (Ukip), which wants to lead Britain out of the EU, has taken £2m of taxpayers' money in expenses and allowances as a member of the European Parliament, on top of his £64,000 a year salary."

Thanks to Nosemonkey via Twitter.