The Year in Review

The outdoor year 2014 started miserably. There was still no sign of winter, but that suddenly changed about a week into the new year. The temperature fell rapidly and the sea ice started to grow in thickness. While the lack of snow didn't allow any skiing, the skating was great and culminated with the Vigu Nordic Skating 1 course.

Winter Solstice and the End of a Season

The winter solstice is actually on Monday, but I chose to celebrate it on today on Sunday, since Monday is a workday for me. The days will now start to get longer again. This is worth celebrating because currently the time between sunrise and sunset is only 5 h and 44 minutes, which does limit you a bit on workdays. A good way to celebrate the solstice is to do something outside.

Waiting for the winter

We are now well into December and there is still no winter in sight in the weather forecasts. Two weeks ago we at least had snow for a few days, which was really nice in the middle of the November misery (November had only 5.1 h of sunlight in Turku).

Sixth Annual Vajosuo Beer Ride

November means mostly depressing weather and darkness in Southern Finland, in addition to the annual beer ride to Vajosuo. This mountain biking event was now to take place for the sixthtime. The concept is still simple: Ride the bikes for a few hours on very demanding trails, stay at the Vajosuo shelter for the night drinking beer and eating and then ride for another few hours in the morning after a few hours of sleep.