Lowride -09 is a Finnish recumbent event that was held in the city of Kokkola 13.-16.8.2009. The event gathered Finnish recumbent riders and enthusiasts from every part of the country to celebrate recumbent cycling and to cruise and race recumbents in the beautiful settings of our country´s west coast.

This is the story of the event. To find out about the next years event visit the official site.

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LowRide -09 was officially started  13th of August in the marketplace of Kokkola…

It was still a early morning when the participants started slowly to arrive from all over the Finland excluding the ones that had arrived a day or two beforehand. Some local citizens  gathered also to witness the start of the event and there was even a recumbent dealer showing his line of bikes and offering test drives.

The producer Olli Lehtonen held the first speech and welcomed all the cyclists to the event. He passed the microphone to the representative of the city of Kokkola  Timo Mämmi who as a cyclist himself gave warm welcome to the event in whole. Timo would be doing some cycling with us in the coming days.

At the scene were also reporters from the local newspapers interviewing the cyclist and organizers. Latter gave also interviews to the national radio and television so the start of the event appeared to be a bigger than it really was. Slowly the group was getting ready to begin the journey that was going to last for 4 days with lots of kilometres and memorable moments.

Rolling hills and beautiful scenery…

Thursdays route headed for the recreation center of Seljes and the road there was filled with considerable hills leading to a curvy road along a beautiful natural ridge.

Photos © Keijo Kansonen ja © Timo Lehtonen

Lunch was had in the recreation center and some siesta was held before continuing back towards Kokkola. Now there was a good time to greet the old and the new faces. A positive thing was that the  renewed event was succesfully attracted many new faces in addition to the veterans coming back every year.

This video from the official reporter of the event Letim gives the clue how things looked on thrusday. You can see everybody are anxious about the first day:

Villa Elba – the base next to the primitive Baltic Sea…

On the way back the cyclist drove through the city and continued along the cost to the nearby Villa Elba that offered among others things accommodation and breakfast. Some had already came to the Elba the day or two before and settled in to the beautiful cabins that were reserved for the event. For the evening program a playful balance competition was held which was followed by the sauna located above the sea in the end of a wharf.

Friday had a distance of 110 kilometres to travel for filled with beautiful seaside scenery…

Timo Mämmi from the city of Kokkola drove with us the first part of Friday´s journey. It was he´s first time on a recumbent bike and in the end it was difficult to get him off from it. Central Ostrobothnia is well known for it´s long traditions with cycling and this was clearly to be seen in the way people accepted recumbents open-mindedly. There is not many recumbents in the region yet but this is surely to be changed in the coming years. All in all there is estimated to be about 2000 recumbent cyclist in Finland.

Next stop was held in the nearby schoolyard to introduce recumbents and velomobiles to the kids from elementary school. It was a joy to watch kids exploring and enjoying the bikes. Velomobiles like Mango and Leitra were the most popular amongst the kids, many of the young ones test seating the bikes and grapping firmly on the handlebars – only the pedals were too far away.

Next stop was the island of Ohtakari…

…and the road leading there was a nice quiet one. When the Baltic Sea finally opened in front of us we knew we had arrived to the destination. After the lunch we were given a small introduction to the island´s history. It was an eventful one including seal hunting, surviving the tough nordic weather and of course lots of fishing. Some of us dared to go to swim and, atleast according to them, the sea was warm.

In the evening a forum about the future of Finish recumbent cycling was held…

Finish recumbent scene is a small one but pretty active. It´s filled with interesting and one might say even controversial persons. The community is held together with annual meetings and with the webmagazine lowride.info and it´s online forums. The most important thing is still that the community is a growing one, attracting new people to give their investment to the sport.

In the evening there was also an competition organized to find the driver with the best balance and bike handling skills. Jori Montonen won the thing and with the win gained in yesterdays balance competiton Jori was leading the cup that was going to culminate in tomorrows Sprint competition.

After the sauna everyone was feeling sleepy from the long and rewarding day.

Saturnday was going to be a busy day with lots of organized program…

The route from Kokkola to Pietarsaari is famous for going over 7 bridges. Recumbent riders were to meet almost 100 women cyclist on a date organized beforehand. Ladies were having their own cycling event but were more than happy to host a short break for the´bent riders. After the coffee and bun we were ready to continue.

Pietarsaari was only 20 kilometres away but one stop was had in between to taste the traditional smoked whitefish from a local fisherman. It was very good indeed.

After reaching Pietarsaari everybody headed to their own direction though many ended up dining in the legendary Korvgöran which is famous for it´s super sized kebab plates. The monster sized meal was very welcome to keep everybody off their bikes for awhile and gave time to explore the city which is one of the most beautiful in Finland.

Sprint race was the culmination of the event…

The race was held back in Kokkola.  In addition to almost every recumbent rider, the best road cyclist of the area took part in it and there was also a lot of crowd that had came to see the speedy event. The track was 1,7 kilometres long with many tight curves and two longer straights. A strong rider could take the corners with considerable speed and accelerate their bike close to 60 km/h in the straights. So it was going to be a tough competition between the uprights and recumbents.

Of course many of the recumbent riders were feeling a bit tired for the hundreds of kilometres already cycled throughout the days including about 90 km for the race day itself. In the end the uprights occupied almost all of the top ranks. But it must be remembered that these racers were among the best in Finland so it was really unfair to place them in the same categorie with less competive recumbent cyclist. Nevertheless a top Finnish recumbent driver Olli Lehtonen took the 2. place in the race leaving behind him much sronger upright riders.

Markku Lahtinen with his Mango velomobile hit the top speed in the  final straight which was pushed against a strong headwind. So after all the race wasn´t so bad for the recumbents.

© Clas-Olav Slotte

All in all the race was a good example how it is possible to combine the two worlds of recumbents and uprights. They don´t have to exclude each other. Hopefully we see more competitions like this in the future.

After the race recumbent cyclists headed back to Villa Elba where they continued to the city centrum to have a dinner. It was the last night together so everyone was feeling a mix of emotions. On the other hand it was sad to leave home but then again it was relieving to be at the end of the journey.

Sunday had a short prize giving ceremony…

The winner of the Lowride -09 Cup was Jori Montonen. He showed  all-round control in almost every aspect of recumbent cycling. The 2. place was taken by Mika Korhonen and the 3. by Arja Vaismaa-Lehtonen.

During the award ceremony videos and photos of the past few days were shown and after that people started to back their things and slowly to leave for their homes.  There was still an organized introduction to the history of Kokkola available but majority of participants started the journey back home.

Lowride -09 had come to it´s end…

With 4 days full of program and a great number of kilometres, all spent in a great weather and beautiful settings, Lowride -09 left everyone yearning more.

Next year the event expands to an international level and takes place in the hilly roads of Central Finland.   It will continue the same format combining touring and racing with the local culture.

Visit www.lowride.info/lowride2010 for more information!

Thanks for all of you seen in Kokkola, we´ll see again in Jyväskylä 2010!

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You can watch more pictures from the event in lowride.info´s gallery.