Promo

My tournee in schools continues. Today I had just an great day with visitng one more school with my RedLine bike, Fox race jersey and photos and video, all about BMX racing. Students were paying attention for my "show", because they were truly interested to hear. Almost right after I started one small boy lift his hand up, eyes wide open he asked: can I have your autograft? Ofcourse, I answered :)

I was spending the art lesson with the kids. So after I finished I gave students instructions. They were meant to plan their dream sport area. Ofcourse almost half of them draw a BMX track :) You wouldn't need to do much before going to have some kind lecture about BMX racing in school.. I find this really important. Atleast here in Finland! I hope everyone could go and do the same in their local schools!!

One man gate

Wuhuu! I stink so I got to write fast :) I just came back from icehockey practices.. so that causes the smell..

I got finished my one man gate. That is the first automatic gate in Finland!! And I made it by myself :) Total costs were about 360 euros. And it works like dream.. well it depends what are you dreams about..

Like you can see from the video, the gate doesn't talk. That's because it's a cheap version. Sound when the gate is peeping faster is replaces talking. Saving is about 1000euros between talking and peeping gate!

Building the gate:
1. Drawings :) and welding were shown in earlier posting.
2. Automatism in the gate is really simple. I ordered the machine from Great Britain. It can be used with air ram or with magnet. I decided magnet, because:

- It's REALLY much cheaper
- That's how you are able to use gate without electricity, I mean with battery, so you can have it everywhere (like tracks in Finland doesn't normally have electricity)
- It was much easier to build
- I don't think air ram would have make gate any better (spring can pull gate down cos one man gate is so light)

Gate up side down, you can see magnet and spring

Battery and the brains (automatism is build inside the lights)

magnet had to be attached to the gate (with screws) and the brains had to be connected to magnet (two wires, that you can't connect wrongly) 

Our youngest rider at weekend :)

One other thing. Strider things in Finland are rolling out perfectly! Last weekend I was having Strider track in my home town. Right in the middle of the center. Weather wasn't that good, but there was really many people checking out the Striders! You can help me by going to check out Strider Finland facebook site. www.facebook.com/stridersuomi. I truly belive that this is what BMX race needs to be able to build up the sport. And Strider just are so super cool!!

In between

Season ended and the next one started. The most important thing in this is that my rush ended too. It's interesting, because I still have to do all same "works", but the everlasting rush-hour is history now.

At the moment the story with training is just basic fitness exercises, so there is not much more to tell. But today and yesterday I have been working with sponsoring things, new websites, also some new coaching things.. Setting up new websites is pain in the ass (if I may say the truth). But at least I have got flyer for next season. I got to do it also in english, but for now this is in Finnish:

Turku/Åbo

Finally I have got myself back to road after race weekend in Turku. Few words about weekend wouldn't be too much I guess..

Last Thursday I was having hard time with deciding should I race or not. I hadn't signed in for race till midnight, so that means that I can't race. It would have been nice racing with two tuff women.

Anyway I rode to Turku, because I wanted to see the happening and there was Strider Cup to run. Few times I had to help people to understand why I'm not racing.. Saturday comes and I keep myself busy with working on Strider Cup. I don't even go to look for warm-ups cos that makes me to want to race..

Some kid comes to ask me that who was taken with ambulance. I haven't seen any, I think no-one, I answer. Then I hear that it was one of the ladies. She is DH rider and this would have been her first BMX race, but she got broken collarbone. I'm very sorry for her, but at the same time I see girls' moto missing one rider.

I end up pulling gears on and heading to the track. Saturday was pretty much warm-up, second day was better, until after 1,5 heats I was too tired to pedal no-more.

I can't say that racing wouldn't be fun! And again whole race were organized well..thanks toTurku!

My season has been ended, but let's talk more about that on the following week :)

Racing or not?

After the Nordic Champion I was totally ready to get some rest. Season in Finland was just about to start. I told my coach that I really would need a rest, that my body can't take this much longer.. Somehow I was feeling little bit stupid to not race in Finland. Like I would be too proud to compete in Finland. So I signed in. Same feelings for next races. My legs have been unrecovered since Birmingham Worlds, so there is not much what I can do in those races.

It was APRIL, when I got my highest point with training. Since that it has felt kind of dragging myself to do more and more. In any given moment I might split in to parts.. probably my legs are dropping out. There is one more weekend to go, obs, actually two. Can I do it? I really don't know. Yesterday I went to have massage, it helped a bit, so I'm gonna have new anohter today..

My week has been full of nice BMX things: On Tuesday we had the first practices on new track in Helsinki. There were some new beginners and also some experienced riders getting know the new track.

Top point of the week was probably when I visited the first grade class to talk about BMX racing. I was holding their lesson of Finnish language with theme: listening and asking questions. So I told them about BMX racing. Teacher told that it was the first time that the class remained in order for whole lesson. I had my bike and some photos with me. That was good experience for me too!!

(T)raining

I was listening one song about summer turning to spring. I realized that it has been pretty long time sinze I have been laying on beach, or hanging out with my friends without schedule. Too long time! 

It has been raining a lot in two days. It was also sleeting on one day.. Once I'm freezing in my trailer, I look to the track and there is water every where. I'm find it pretty hard to go to practice. But then comes this voice saying in my head; "now we see who is gonna get some progress.." And I start to put on riding gear..

I painted these lines on asfalt to practice manuals.. nicer to practice when you see yourself getting better!

Jumping

OMG, jumps are my new ???. Manual is still not perfect, but I'm not having hard feelings of it.. but now jumps have started to be problem!

Yesterday I tryed to solve the problem with boys. On track I really wasn't able to do anything. Best practice was to do bunnyhop before small jump (or I would describe it as pump) and land on landing of the pump.

After the practice we went to practice on one small jump outside from track.. Little screaming.. and then I got it! Getting my weight more forward was the key.

Today I read some tips from book (bmx bible = pro bmx skills). Actually I was finishing my beginners manual for bmx racing and I needed some new thinking.. At evening I went to practice. Jumps weren't working that well. Suddenly I remembered tip: when you jump keep your eyes on landing, when you fly look alredy to next obsticle. It sounded crazy to not look at the jump, but I had to try it...

WUHUU, it was awesome!! It really worked.. Everytime I look to landing I got it. Jump was more relaxed. It just happened.. and when you fly you automatically start to look forward. It's worth to read, books :)

Malta

I got message to my old blog, it was from Malta:

"You should come here to Malta island.
Boys have build their own track:
http://www.maltabmx.com/MaltaBMX/maltaBMX-video-stickingtoourroots.html"


From that website you can also find BMX-blog in English. You should go check it out. Atleast check out websites, if you are not able to visit Malta.. Well, if you want to take little vacation to Malta, I might be interested too.. Anyone?

VACATION

Track designers have left Finland. My own project are pretty much finished. There is still some time left that we are able to practice BMX here in Finland. I feel like that my vacation is about to start.

New track in Finland is made of rocks. That's for two reasons. Rocks helps track to stay dry, and also here is not easy to get sand (dirt) so we can't make whole track from it. We still have to wait until next summer to get asfalt on turns, so right now riding is challenging. But I took some dirt and made my own practice place. I wish to get everyone here to practice with me :) :)

Also today I went do some shopping with my bike, ilmari. We had fun!! :)