Finland

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Арктический велонавт – на русском языке

Урпо Таскинен, который живет над Полярным кругом, продал свою машину и решил никогда не летать на самолете и не ездить на машине, чтобы не загрязнять окружающую среду, показывая миру, что даже в одиночку можно уменьшить выбросы углекислого газа.
Он отправляется в Париж на мировую встречу по климату (COP21) на своем веломобиле на 3000 км.

 

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Arctic velonaut – Arktisk velonaut

A documentary made by Tamara Souchko. Here is the English version, with English subtitles. Released the 7th of October 2017.
En dokumentär gjord av Tamara Souchko. Här den engelska versionen. Släppt den 7 oktober 2017.
Links to all versions / Ссылки на все версии / Collegamenti a tutte le versioni / 所有版本的链接

🇬🇧 English – https://lessco2.wordpress.com/2017/11/21/arktisk-velonaut-arctic-velonaut/
🇷🇺 Русский – https://lessco2.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/arctic-velonaut-russian/
🇮🇹 Italiana – https://lessco2.wordpress.com/2018/04/16/la-versione-italiana-the-italian-version/
🇨🇳 中文 – https://lessco2.wordpress.com/2018/02/27/the-chinese-version/

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On the road again


The ”Market Police” in Oulu. The most famous of the statues in Oulu.

So now we are on the road together again. We started from Juoksengi in the afternoon on Wednesday of 14th of June. First stop was in Ylitornio in a petrol station where we had dinner and also for the first time used the special suitcase with all the charging equipment. And yes, it looks very suspicious when you walk with it into a restaurant and put it up on the table.

In Ylitornio we also visited our good friends Jouko Tiihonen and Leena Pohjolainen. They served some ”fika” and let us charge the batteries one more time.

The biking to Tornio – Haparanda was very beautiful. We started late in the evening and arrived around 3 in the morning. We made a stop at the rapids in Kukkola, maybe the most famous rapids in the longest free running river in Europe – The Torne River.

Tarja needed to visit the police station in Tornio for passport at 10 in the morning of Thursday. Our idea of getting a hotel in the mid of the night was without success, no open hotels and the one we phoned was fully occupied. So sitting in one more gas station for several hours gave us the possibility to charge the batteries for some hours.
After the visit to the police station we biked to a cousins place in Tornio where we could sleep for some hours and get a late breakfast in the afternoon. We also got help to fix a tyre in the Quattro Velo. What a relief when the right front tyre stopped to say bump-bump-bump when biking!

The next stop was in the petrol station south of Kemi. There we found out that the second, and newer battery had stopped of charging! A very big problem as Tarjas Mango and her biking in normal speed with the trailer is depending on the second battery. With the two batteries we can make 100 km a day, but with the old battery only some +35 km a day. Wrote to Denmark and asked what to do. The answer came next morning when we had reached Timo and Heli Haapaniemi in Ii. They will send a new battery from Denmark. So just to wait for some days in Oulu then.

In Ii we gave an interview for the local newspaper. The reporter was working as a summer reporter for the newspaper that we not at this moment remember the name off 🙂

After two nights in Ii we headed for Oulu. But before biking from Ii we passed a local bicycle-event in Ii.

Only 35 km to Oulu, in reach for one battery.

So now we have some lazy days waiting for a battery here.

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The last of Strada

Sitting on the ferry in the Stockholm archipelago. Some hours from now my Strada will have a new owner. It will move to Tullinge, south suburbs of Stockholm. She has served me well. And yes, it must be a ”she” because the name ends in an ”a” :-)… Or maybe a ”hän” (Finnish neutral expressing both genders) or a ”hen” (the new word in Swedish expressing gender-neutrality). What ever, she will have a great new home!

Enjoy some of the last pics. From Juoksengi, Övertorneå-Aavasaksa (the border Sweden-Finland) and Helsinki. 

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Two years and 15000 km later

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Yes, 15000 km is a quite long distance.

I was thinking about it earlier – what distance will I reach on the two year anniversary of driving a velomobile? The answer was in the evening of the 30th of April 2016 a very simple amount of kilometers to remember – 15000 km.
It was the 1:th of May 2014 when Tarja Leinonen and I drove over the bridge between Aavasaksa in Finland and Övertorneå in Sweden. Those two velomobiles were the two first velomobiles in Norrbotten county.

My first thought when writing about this anniversary was to think about the savings of CO2-emissions.
From ECF (European Cyclists´ Federation) I found this calculation about quantifying CO2 savings of cycling. There is also a clearer article in Swedish by Klas Elm.
Not going into all details but just writing down the estimated numbers:
• Biking creates 21 gram CO2 per kilometer (21 g CO2/km)
• Driving a car creates 271 gram CO2 per kilometer (271 g CO2/km)
This would mean that every biked kilometer saves 250 gram CO2 compared to driving a car.
Then 15000 km would save 3750 kg of CO2 compared to driving a car. There is this term CO2e that means all greenhouse (GH) gases that are emitted in the calculation, but just to make the text clearer I only write CO2.

How much is that saving?
The total emissions in the World 2014 was 35,9 GtCO2 [Gigaton CO2] per year according to Global Carbon Project.
Writing that to kilograms makes a very long number 35 900 000 000 000 kilogram [kg].
So, my yearly saving then is 0.00000000522284% of the global emissions. Counted on my yearly emission savings of 1875 kg.
If all the people on the earth, 7 424 720 000 [at this moment 25:th of May 2016] would save the same amount of CO2 every year then the total savings would be 13 921 350 000 000 kg or 13,9 GtCO2 [Gigaton CO2]. Ok, that would not stop the Climate Change, but it would make a difference. The rest has the to be done through other means…
And yes, my driving with a velomobile is symbolic in this scale. But very much fun!

How much is 15000 km?
The amount of transportation by biking that I made during these two years is 7500 km per year.
That can be compared to yearly average travel with car for a person in
• Sweden – 6620 km
• Norrbotten County – 7580 km
• Övertorneå eco-municipality [where I live] – 8730 km
The numbers from Miljömål by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency [Naturvårdsverket].

I think that we all have to do what we are able to. It is my Earth and it is yours equally. It is ours. And we are in much of hurry to stop the destruction – the emissions should have stopped already, we have only years left to avoid the 2 degrees threshold.
A person that takes a flight from Sweden to Thailand and back home will emit 6 times more than I have achieved in saving during a year.
A average person in my own municipality, the eco-municipality of Övertorneå, is emitting almost 0,5 ton more CO2 from car-driving than I achieve in saving during a year. To just catch up one of my fellow citizens I would need to bike an additional 2000 km.
Well, I have to admit that it would actually be fun to bike those additional kilometers – but that will not solve the global problem.

Two years is 730 days. If I take an average, that will be 20,5 km/day.

It is really as mentioned a symbolic thing, but it has been so much fun!

And the place where these magic kilometers come on the display was very near home here in Juoksengi. On the photos below you´ll see the crossing to Vyöni and also Misha in front of the village´s church.

 

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3434 km

  
I had to count… The direct bike distance Juoksengi – Paris is the shortest way 2978 km. Google maps says that. As I took train and ferry in some parts and also biked a week around in Helsinki and two weeks around in Paris my trip was cut off some distances and added some. Start the 8th of November and return home the 21th of December. 

But, ok, I’m satisfied with the 3434 km. And for everyone who thinks it was hard – sorry to make you disappointed – it is much easier than you can imagine. 

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Home in Juoksengi

  On Monday the 21th of December 2015 at 11.00 I arrived to Juoksengi at the Arctic Circle in Sweden. My start from Paris was on Sunday the 13th, around the same time on the day. It takes therefore eight days to travel from Paris with a bicycle. Of course I have been cheating – ferry over a German river, ferry from Travemünde to Helsinki (two nights) and train Helsinki-Ylitornio (one night). But it is actually easier to make the travel with bicycle than I myself thought.