Time for another Transcontinental race kit list. In the rare case you’ve missed the earlier they can be found at 2024, 2023, 2022, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014. Or you can just skip to this year’s album.

Repeating myself here, but bike is the Orbea Avant with 50/34 cranks and a 13-29 cassette. SON hub dynamo in the front. Back to Open pro rims as I had trouble inflating the Schwalbe 365 tubes enough for the tires to rise up on RR 411s last year.

Carradice saddlebag, Sea-to-summit pouch, 3 Apidura food pouches, Missgrape frame bag and Topeak&Miss grape top tube bags. Lue loppuun →

Tilaa Randonneurs Finland -ajovaatteita 16.3. kello 24 asti. Tarjolla on tällä kertaa sini-valkoinen design. Tilaukset tehdään Kalaksen verkkokaupassa ja ne toimitetaan kotiin toukokuun aikana.

Order Randonneurs Finland cycling gear until midnight 16.3. This time the blue-white design is available. Orders are made in the Kalas webshop and they will be delivered during May.

Verkkokauppaan / To the webshop

Kysymyksiä / Questions randonneursfi@gmail.com

Talvipäivänseisaus-pyöräilyn ilmoittautuminen on auki 15.12.2024 asti. Tänä vuonna maalipaikkoina jälleen Oulu, Turku ja Tampere.

Ilmoittautuminen ja lisätiedot: https://www.randonneurs.fi/events/talvipaivanseisaus-2024/

(Update: Quiz is over. The controls can now be found on the map.)

Ruska 2025 route will be announced once someone correctly answers the quiz. The hints obviously have plenty of bias towards native Finns, but can with some extra effort be solved by others too.

The #ruska2025quiz hints are published here. The answer still has to be sent in Twitter using #ruska2025quiz. Once someone Tweets the answer with correct start, finish and 3 controls using #ruska2025quiz the route will be announced.

• For a Finn it will be the same whether you finish or not
• The first control is surrounded by water. Just like it once was.
• The second control is the same, but different.
• From the third control you can see something northmost in Finland.
• The final approach to the finish is some 5-6 km of easy gravel.
• The start has burned down.
• The first control parkour is roughly 200 km long and it could be a lot longer, or shorter, but especially longer.
• The second control is an inspiring little tour, but somehow it still feels like a punishment.
• Either before or after the climb and hike to the third control, the participants will have to cover nearly 300 km from or to a another point of interest familiar from a previous Ruska.
• For the finish you will briefly visit something northmost in the world.
• To narrow down possible start locations the next hint is that, as the crow flies, it is more than 15 km to the nearest current VR passenger train station from the start.
• The first control was late to the party and after a era of extraordinary global importance it fell into the dustbins of history.
• While the start, finish, first and third control give you a view to past and present, the second control might just give you a rare view to the future.
• A nearby fell top was used for air surveillance during the 2nd world war. But from the 3rd control we are looking the other way.
• Your way from the third control’s points of interest to finish will have three parkour options to block the shortest path. Two options will be somewhat equal. For the last and shortest option you better check you mail before you proceed.
• People often come to the start to see acknowledged built environment. Yet they can’t avoid seeing something reckoned hard to see.
• The first control lies innocently at the end of parkour, a few kilometers from the town’s old church.
• At the second control there is a small hut next to a spring. From there participants will ride a short parkour loop.
• While the third control’s points of interest are far apart east to west, they are only around 20 kilometers apart north to south. Both points of interest are also within 10 kilometers of Finland’s borders.
• The finish is evergreen.
• The start might have once upon time had something to do with brevet cards.
• On the last quarter of the first control’s parkour participants will visit a piece of Finland’s industrial history that was left behind from a earlier Ruska. The site is the fourth and last one of them.
• From the 2nd control you have a line of sight to the Arctic circle. That means you could see the Arctic circle if Arctic circle was something you could actually see and if vegetation wasn’t potentially obstructing your view.
• At the 3rd control your path in a wilderness is as long as a path to a wilderness from the other point of interest.
• The final approach to the finish starts from the shores of a very long fjord.
• The start was turned into a museum 100 years after it was originally founded.
• The 1st control parkour starts from a home of a highly regarded professional who along with the 1st control itself made its way to the dustbins of history in the same paradigm shift, but for a very different reason.
• A bonus hint for the 1st control. The ruins of the church that was later replaced by the new old church are just about hundred meters from the 1st control.
• The observation plot around the 2nd control was founded over 100 years ago and is still being actively studied.

(9.9.2024 vapaa julkaistavaksi)

Perjantaina 13.9.2024 auringon laskiessa kello 19:46 alkaa Helsingistä Paavo Nurmen patsaalta kahdeksas Ruska-pyöräily. Tänä vuonna Ruskan noin 2100 km reitti seuraa Olympiatulta, 100 vuotta sitten Pariisissa oli viimeiset Olympialaiset ilman Olympiatulta ja Ruskan maaliin Tromssaan Olympiatuli ei koskaan syttynyt.

Helsingistä tapahtuman noin 50 osallistujaa aloittavat matkansa kierroksella tutustumaan Helsingin olympialaisten jälkeensä jättämään rakennusperintöön kuten Olympiaterminaaliin, Lasipalatsiin, Teekkarikylään ja julkisiin käymälöihin ennen kuin jatkavat Tuusulaan Helsingin olympialaisten marathonin kääntöpaikalle, josta alkaa vapaa reitti. Reitin kolme rastia ovat Juha Miedon patsas Kurikassa, Olympiatulen sytytyksen muistomerkki Pallastunturilla ja Pertti Ukkolan olympiagalleria Sodankylässä.

Osallistujilla on reitin ajamiseen aikaa kahdeksan päivää, viisi tuntia ja neljätoista minuuttia eli maalissa Tromssassa pitää olla lauantaina 21.9. keskiyöllä. Päivämatkat ovat minimissään noin 250 km ja lyhyitä ennalta määrättyjä osuuksia lukuun ottamatta osallistujat suunnittelevat itse omat reittinsä. Kello käy koko tapahtuman ajan ja osallistujat saavat käyttää vain kaikille yhtäläisesti saatavilla olevia palveluja, kuten kauppoja ja hotelleja. Kaikki erikseen järjestetty huolto on kielletty ja osallistujat eivät saa auttaa toisiaan, pois lukien parina tapahtumaan ilmoittautuneet, jotka saavat avustaa toisiaan.

Ruskaa voi seurata sekä kartalla että sosiaalisessa mediassa tunnisteella #ruska2024. Seurantasivu osoitteessa https://www.randonneurs.fi/ruska-2024/

Lisätietoja Mikko Mäkipää / +358 505822386 (Saatan olla pyöräilemässä, kun soitat)