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Thanks for useful route insights, and it would be great to get a shout on the way out of Helsinki!
At the moment I'm waiting to see if it is going to happen and if UK-based riders can take part. The organisers are optimistic - they're saying 99%, although I think it is more like 60-70%. It's probably more likely to run than TCR, despite 9 borders vs 2, as I think they will be less concerned than Anna about making it a fair race.
I know the Poprad area from a tour, and I dotwatched the TCR in 2017 when it went there. I was Bjorn's dotwatcher and could see @skinny reeling him in slowly but surely as they approached. Then Bjorn got caught trying to find a way out of Banska Bystrica without using the motorway - and I knew that there wasn't one as I'd tried all the options when I was touring there (before taking the motorway for a few hundred yards as actually it's pretty quiet - but Bjorn couldn't do that!). That was real dotwatching excitement as well as great touring terrain, so I'm looking forward to going through the Tatras again.
There is talk of them tweaking to use some quieter roads around Riga to potentially avoid a bit more or all of the E67, which, based on streetview, would be good. After the Baltics they've gone further East this year so I expect the route is different from what you did on NC-Tarifa.
How is the ferry? My plan was to stop maybe 100km short of Talinn and make a call on which one I'm likley to catch and book it then. Or is it easy to just rock up and get on the first one? Have you done it going north? If so, anything of note about how it works in Talinn?
frank9755-
Yeah it's different from NCT, but I've done other rides around Riga and Tallinn, on some of those roads. And all around Finland obviously and crossed the border to Norway on that same road last summer on a tour.
Before covid, there was ferries from three or four different companies, so there was one leaving every hour or so, though you had to buy the ticket an hour before it left at the latest. But at least for a while all of the ferries were canceled and there's probably still not that many of them, better check that.
Samuli
That does look fun, good luck.
I live just a few kms from the route in Helsinki, might be there to cheer.
Nice that the route avoids most of the busy Via Baltica/E67. The smaller roads are mostly very quiet. Looks like there's some gravel roads too, they're usually pretty easy there but very slow and soft if it's raining.
In Finland, the part from Helsinki to Lahti is pretty easy-going and fast, if not the most interesting. North from that, the road next to the lake Päijänne is pretty nice curvy quiet road. The drinking water to most of the southern Finland comes from that big lake, through a long tunnel. Then between Jyväskylä and Oulu the roure is on the road number 4 or E75 isn't what I'd choose to ride, though it's probably fine that far from the south coast that has the most traffic. After Oulu there's a nice smaller road, not much services or anything there, and then after Rovaniemi on the road 4 again, but that far up, it's pretty much the only road in that direction and rather quiet as there's only a few small towns after that. From there on the scenery changes, less trees, fells, reindeer, Lapland. And mountains after you cross the border to Norway.
In Slovakia that route passes just by the start of the climb to where there was a CP in TCR in 2017 near Poprad. Proper mountain scenery.
The area around the border of Poland and Lithuania is nice, small winding roads. In the middle of hilly fields, hope there's a tailwind.