June 24, 2025 to July 1, 2025
Steve: Day 265-271: Warsaw to Helsinki
I had a WarmShowers host in Warsaw. Which was great, because I met a couple of Poles, had an incentive to move fast to get there and then was forced to have a half day visiting the city. It was interesting to meet a couple of Google software engineers and talk for a while.
Unfortunately, the north of Poland didn’t throw me the best set of weather. I had a day of tail wind – but the scenery was pretty ordinary. I was aiming for a fast route through Poland and ended up on the service road for the main highway going north. It was direct, but a little dull. Lots of good camping options in the forest though. Next day was cold and wet. Boo. Not much fun riding in proper downpour. Especially when I’m trying to make distance! Rain on the bike is never great fun. Even with the best breathable fabric, you have two options. Stop or get wet. Either you get wet from sweat or wet from the rain. My rain gear is much older than it should be, and I didn’t want to stop, so I got wet. And then cold. Miserable. The best way out is to stop in a supermarket, eat as many carbs as you can carry, and as a last ditched effort: use the hand dryer to warm up a little and phone for help. Cath took a few minutes out of her galivanting around Italy to help me find a place to stay, and I ended up with a very welcome warm shower with Vito in the far north of Poland. It would have been a miserable night in the tent without that help!
Next couple of days was getting through Lithuania. Both long days. First was pleasant enough, second – you might have guessed – more rain. What’s going on here? This is summer! I should be getting sunburned, not frozen! Determined not to be as miserable as the last day in Poland, I sat in a ruin (that still had most of a roof) for 5 hours waiting for the rain to stop. This was a bit hard to do – I’ve turned this trip alone north almost into a race against myself heading north, so it was tough to add 5 hours standing time. I avoided getting soaked, but the dirt roads I was on did get soaked. Thank goodness for the fat tyres!
Latvia and Estonia were a bit of a blur. I’d organised a place to stay in Helsinki, but Markus (my host) had to start work really early in the morning, so I didn’t want to arrive late in the day. This gave me another target – get to Tallin in time to get the ferry and not arrive too late. The daily distances started to stretch – I had my first day on this trip of over 200 km (almost 12 hours riding time!).
There’s not a lot to say about the country I was riding through. Doesn’t really matter how fast you go on a bike, you can’t help but notice, but I was focussed on getting north asap. And doing battle with the weather (I’m trying not to complain about the headwind as well as the rain). There was plenty of forest. It was generally flat. The roads around Riga stand out as being very painful to negotiate on the bike (found myself on main roads more that I would have liked). The EuroVelo route in the south of Estonia was very pretty – forest on one side, and the sea on the other. The sea looked like a huge lake.
I have been going faster than my stretch target and decided a day off was a good idea. I used the time to look around Helsinki for some better rain gear. I got some neoprene gloves but couldn’t find a decent selection of raincoats / pants. It’s summer. Why would you need to buy rain gear in summer? I’m sure if I looked harder, I could have got something, but I decided I would survive with what I have and left it. It didn’t help that it was a glorious day in Helsinki – the misery of being drenched and frozen only a few days ago felt like a distant dream while I was standing in the sunshine. Had a good few hours wandering around Helsinki. And then Markus took me to a Finnish sauna. Get very hot and sweaty, then jump in the sea. It was hot. And the sea very cold. Easy in summer - no need to chip a hole in the sea ice in summer. Cath is still swanning around Germany and Italy.
Today's ride: 1,058 km (657 miles)
Total: 14,971 km (9,297 miles)
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