Bike hiking takes you to the ends of the world - jumping on the Curious Pedals!

Bike hiking is a popular sport that takes you to interesting places. The Finnish Curious Pedals team took a bigger goal at one time and talked from Helsinki to Singapore. A total of 21 countries consisted of a bike route. The two treaded the whole trip North Outdoor sea wool wool on. Read about the ferocious adventure and the acid test where merino clothing was put!

Curious Pedals

The bike hiking team behind Curious Pedals is a duo Valtteri Heinilä and Alvari Poikola, who met at Aalto University. Both have traveled a lot during their lives, but both burned the desire to see more, get to know the better and experience the world from a different perspective. A bike trip from Helsinki to Singapore offered a revolutionary adventure that Alvari and Valtteri had dreamed of.

The 21 -country bike trip is demanding for anyone. As a downset, we didn't go on a trip. Alvari had cycled from Finland to France in his exchange year. A great experience sowed the seed of enthusiasm. As a result, the idea of ​​a longer trip, which Valtteri also enrolled. Together, the duo selected the Singapore Peninsula and began planning the route towards it.

Curious Pedals treaded on average 120 kilometers per day. As the roads weakened and the terrain became mountainous, the pace slowed down considerably. The body adapted to cycling per week. It took a little more that the stomach got used to receiving 5000+ calories a day.

As a sponsor North Outdoor

Curious Pedals got a merino wool brand on their way To North Outdoor. It fits perfectly into a bike trip in terms of properties, quality and grams.

“Merino clothing literally went through hell. We pedaled in all possible imaginable environments and weather conditions: hot, cold, wind and wet, ”says Alvari.

Equipment and clothing design is part of the success of the bike trip, with a lot of travel and, above all, rising. Then each gram matters.

“The big advantage of merino clothing was their lightness because we really pedaled up a lot. There should be a total of about 100,000 meters throughout the trip. We wanted to minimize the amount of load. We had lightweight wheels and a really light tent. We tried to file the grams of everything we could. That's why it would have been a molten madness to carry heavy clothes, ”says Valtteri.

The most impressive destination from Valtter was Tajikistan. He glows with its incredible nature, culture and people: “It felt like being on another planet. There was a genuine adventure. The biggest setbacks also occurred there. There I learned most about myself and Alvar. ”

15,400 kilometers, 245 days and 21 countries

The trip to the Curious Pedals eventually took eight months, during which they treaded 15400 kilometers by bike. The final destination, or Singapore, was clear from the start. Otherwise, the route was very rough and left room for both spontaneity and unfortunate surprises.

“We had a rough estimate of the countries we wanted to cross. Otherwise, we planned the day's route during breakfast, ”says Valtteri.

The route had to be changed several times during the trip, as continuous setbacks came due to interest rates, challenging visa situations, and the wars of Ukraine and Myanmar.

The cycling team eventually trampled through these countries: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, India, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malays and Singapore.

"Although clothing They were light, they still kept us warm. It made the trip a lot more enjoyable, ”says Valtteri.

For days without washing

Bike hiking is not a sensitive species of a delicate. For a month, in the same clothes without proper wash, many people accustomed to comforting could be a tough place. Merino wool brought surprising help to the odor. Merino did not become too tight thanks to Merino.

“We went between days with the same in merino shirts Without washing them for weeks, ”Valtteri sums up.

“We were able to sweat for hours on the bike's back. But merino Put for the night to ventilate, it was fresh and ready to use again in the morning, ”Alvari continues.

The shower was often not possible. The two washed how Valtter and Alvar called the water bottle washing. In most cases, this meant that water was poured on a liter of bottles. It was often the only opportunity to treat hygiene, even somehow.

Thanks to North Outdoor merino wool, Valtter and Alvar didn't have to think about what to put on every morning. Valtteri says that they wanted simple and quality clothing: “If we hadn't had North Outdoor's sea wool, the nights would surely have been much worse in our small tent. Now the hygiene level was surprisingly good and odorless. ”

The merino wool also came to the fact that the duo could trust that the clothes were working anyway, no matter the weather.

"Yes, it is nice for us to be odorless and look nice, even if we are outdoors," Valtteri sums up.

“Would have really been able to work in order to merino would have become soiled and started to smell. Yes, it was a person who starts smell rather than merino clothing, ”says Alvari.

Setbacks and exciting encounters

A long bike trip served the two surprises after another. One of the most nerve -ranging moments on the trip was experienced in Romania, where bears were encountered. The two were cycling down the mountain slate in the Transylvanian Alps as the oncoming cars began to work for them.

“We were already used to this because in Europe many greeted us, working kindly. Now the difference was that no one smiled. Fortunately, one of the car drivers pointed to stop and told us that there was a group of three bears ahead of us, ”says Valtteri for an exciting moment.

After a moment of the situation, the car driver agreed to turn around and drive the duo as a shield between the wheels and the bears. Quite quickly, Valtteri and Alvari realized that the car was not a strange protection against a big bear.

“The massive mother -in -law and two of its sons were lying along the road. When Mother's Bear saw us approaching, it rose to its hind legs, reaching high above the car and took a step forward to protect her puppies. When we hit the bears, the mother was just a few meters away from us. We would shoot a hundred in a glass down the hill, hoping that the bear would stay behind. Fortunately, it missed. ”

It is good to remember that you can also get sick on a long round trip. The most serious moment of the trip was experienced when Alvari became ill during the trip to Dengue fever.

Insights from bike hiking- Keep it simple

On the way, the doctrine, if any, grabbed the doctrine. However, one was above the others.

"Keep it simple," Alvari sums up.

When you travel and, above all, you can do with little equipment, you understand that less is often more. The choices are important.

“The most important doctrine of a bike trip was to simplify life. For us, it meant empty calendars, clear goals, limiting concentration on only a few things, and owning life to the thing that really feels meaningful. From the point of view of clothing, it meant a simple wardrobe that worked in all circumstances, ”says Valtteri.

Merino wool proved to be surprisingly meaningful during the trip. Alvari says, “We slept many times during the trip as guests in the homes of strangers. One host even said we didn't smell like two previous cycling guests ”

“If we had had traditional cycling clothes, they would have started to smell really fast. The fact that the sweaty clothes could not have been washed for weeks would have been really annoying, ”adds Valtteri.

Alvari says that without merino wool, they would have had to buy more clothes during the trip, because the clothes would have worn so soon: "Now I had the same merino hoodie from start to finish."

“I still have the same merino clothing I used for an 8 -month bike trip. They are so high. If the material had been something other than merino wool, we would hardly even dare to wear the same clothes anymore, ”Valtteri concludes.

Valtter also has a great tip for those who dream of a trip: “Going! It is like to explore the local or distant world on the back of the bike instead of looking for reasons why it would be a bad idea. The journey does not kill, the pace kills. The basic fitness can do well. There is no need to invest in the equipment. The worse the wheel, the more the adventure spirit! ”.

The journey of Curious Pedals consisted of dozens of erupted rubber, broken chains and a single broken bike track. Alvari got a whole new Tarakka in a small tajikistan village for € 8. Cycling shoes were also stolen once, when the duo talked to Southeast Asia in the shoes. However, the two always survived somehow when the bike failed.