Fell biking without electrical assistance

For the autumn colours holiday, we packed our own mountain bikes with. The idea was to utilise your own bikes and see if we could drive with them on the challenging routes of Äkäslompolo.

We knew in advance that the autumn holiday week would be broken for hiking and cycling, as we also worked remotely at the same time. Especially when it comes to bike rental, remote working would be a challenge, as the rental bike would have to be returned in the evening and we could able to bike the late afternoon at the earliest. We would have to pay a daily price for two bikes and, however, there would only be few hours of biking time. So it made more sense to use our own bikes.

Our first bike ride was on a familiar route towards a Fell Kukastunturi. First we biked along the road past Ylläshumina, and a short time later we turned on a road towards the Navetta Gallery. After that, we were on a familiar ski route and biked along it without any problems. We turned left towards the Fell Kukastunturi and closer to the Fell the cycling was much harder and we had to push bikes, because the path up was too steep and rocky for biking.  After huffing and puffing, we were on top of Kukastunturi and continued down from there towards Kotamaja. This path has improved during summer but it still quite narrow. As the weather was sunny, there were plenty of cyclists and walkers on the same route. The landing from Kukastunturi had to be done carefully, braking and cautioning of fellow travelers. We got down without any problems and quite easy all the way to Kotamaja.

From the Kotamaja we decided to continue our biking towards Hangaskuru, even though we knew it was steep and very rocky. After the first larger pushing phase, we kept biking and it went surprisingly lightly when using smaller gears. Again, we were quickly at the Hangaskuru lean and from there we continued biking towards Nilivaara, first uphill and then downhill. It was a very good biking, the manual mountain bike worked surpricingly well on this route.

The second day's bike ride started from Äkäslomplo along the ski trails towards the rise of Isometsä. That rise has got our feet on lactic acids in winter skiing and this happened again by pushing bikes as well. After two kilometres pushing the real biking started. We biked along the ski track to Tunturijärvi and had a small drinking break there. From Tunturijärvi, the biking continued along a route in good condition to the south side of the Fell Ylläs. There we found an open café, and we thought we'd eat something there. Since we had already biked a while and after breakfast we hadn't eaten anything, we decided to order fries and sausages. We knew that we need power to continue the route ahead on the Fell of Ylläs. The lunch tasted very good - it was not so healthy but very tasty.

After the break, we continued up the Fell Ylläs. We knew that pushing forward will take a short time and luckily, the distance in kilometres was not very long. We got on the Keskinen Laki route quite fast and that route was in a very good condition.

We ended up the Kellostapulinkuru gorge again, but we continued down the renewed cycling route towards Kesänkijärvi and from there along the Hillapolku towards Äkäslompolo. All in all, there were over 28 kilometres with a very good feeling, as the route was absolutely fantastic to cycle, and it was very successful even without the electrical assistance.

Of course, a good and electric Fatbike has its value on challenging routes in the Fells, as a thicker tyre makes driving over the rocks more easily. The weight of the fat bike brings stability to the biking. But this time I calculated the value for my own mountain bike as well, at least the money saving was significant and my own condition testing was very nice, too.