First stage: Näkkälä to Norwegian border, then Sihccajavri Mountain cabin - 21 km

A very nice stage. Easy terrain and not very technical. Quite a lot of sand but it was moistened, hence it was good grip and no problems with getting sand in the chain. Including a lot of stops to adjust clothing, looking at the view and some grouses, and having nice talks. We used 2 hour 20 minutes on this stage.

This was the unknown part of this route were none of us had been before. The trail varied a lot, muddy slow-going parts, fast flow trails, easy uphill and downhills. In general fun biking that creates smiles. On the other hand, we had 17 swamps to cross and approximately 5-10 small rivers, none of them were dangerous, but time consuming and physically demanding. The trail is basically formed by ATVs which make deep wheel tracks, and if it rains, it takes some time for them to dry out. In our case it had been raining and they were filled with water or wet mud.

When driving home after the cycling, we had a fantastic northern lights. Those were easily seen from the front window. That leads us to the conclusion. This is an epic adventure tour that might be combined with northern light hunting. You need a mountain bike or a fatbike. It is time consuming and therefor more than a day tour for most people. It is possible to stay overnight at Sihccajavri mountain cabin, but this need to be booked in advance and it is unfortunately not in the middle between start and end point. Bikepackers will love doing the route. Experienced cyclist will have now problems doing it, and our test indicate that even inexperienced cyclist can do it. The uncertain factor is the weather on the day of the tour and how much rain it has been in the period before the tour.

Participants of the test trip

Hannah (20), is from the south of Germany and currently helping on Anna’s farm as an intern. She really likes being outside on her Mountain bike or to go hiking so when Anna invited her to join a mountain biking trip on her day off, she immediately agreed - expecting a lovely little ride around the Finnish woods. Hannah said: ‘’The tracks were definitely wetter and muddier than I expected but apart from the passage in the middle where the wheels of the bike literally got stuck every ten meters, I really enjoyed the trip and the beautiful landscape we biked through’’.

Anna McCormack, (51) A long long time ago Anna was a professional endurance athlete and participated in multisport races around the world. These days, she sits mostly at a desk running Hetta Huskies in Enontekiö, enabling adventures for others. She is still called to the wilderness in her heart but no longer has the power or endurance needed to go play at the level she enjoys under her own steam. Using an E-bike means that she can say yes to rides that she would have enjoyed long ago but which she would now, otherwise, be too daunted to undertake, for fear of impacting too much on the group. Anna said: ‘I was pleasantly surprised by the track. There was a lot less pushing / carrying the bike through marshes than on the route between Hetta and Näkkälä and there were a lot of fun trail sections that were really bike-able as well as a couple of nice downhills. I particularly liked the open plateau scenery both at the border and towards the end.

Eliel Ikonen (12) is from Enontekiö and started biking on the tracks around Ullatieva and Jpyyryä on his little Islabike at c. the age of 5. He loves mountain biking. Midway, when asked about his hand, he quoted back what Arild had said to him in the car: ‘Pain only makes you stronger’. He was a bit daunted when he realized the distance, but he managed very fine, (despite a basketball injury having taken him to the emergency doctor the previous day with a badly swollen hand).

Taneli Roininen (35) is an adventurer and has cycled around the world. He is very experienced in all parts of cycling. His current work is mapping of trails for Packbiking.

Ida Grubben (34) has fulfilled the Offroad Finnmark 700 what is maybe the most extreme mountain bike race in the world. She works as a mountain bike guide at Glød Explorer Alta. She said: The rail had many surprises both positive and negative. Overall easy and fun exept for the swamps. A long but nice day.

Jan Roger Eriksen (52) work at the Northern Norway tourism board. He has done some Mountain biking but are not very experienced. He said: It was really an experience for me to participate on this test route. I was not sure if i was fit enough. It was kind of hard, but a perfect day.

Arild Røkenes, (60) is a researcher and experienced mountain biker but physically “over the top”. I had a great day with nice people on trails that had everything, flow, surprises, challenges, and fun.

Timo Veijalainen (39). He is an experienced cyclist, and work as a trail developer in Levi.

Author: Arild Røkenes
email: arild.rokenes@uit.no
photos: Anna McCormack