Bikepacking in the far north.

[Bearbonesnorm]

I reckon there'll be some love for this.

https://www.bikeland.fi/en/arcticbycycl ... pHDfyK1VXw

[faustus]

Hell yeah!

Sign me up for the Artic Post road route..!

[Moder-dye]

Heart says wow! But not likely

[whitestone]

Oh, yes

Having been to Rovaniemi twice I'd love to go again. I think the Arctic Post route might be a little "challenging" in winter

Edit: Well lined pockets are essential as well - once you start getting in the far north things get expensive very quickly. Big distances and not a lot of people = spenny!

[faustus]

Short 'dry' season for sure...and you have all night sunshine (and lots of midges too). The natural beauty and isolation looks fantastic though

[The Cumbrian]

Those lean-to shelters are great too. I've stayed in a few of them in Sweden, and even when I was sleeping in my hammock they were really useful for cooking and lounging about in, especially as most of them had fire places.

[fatbikephil]

Looks good that. I said after the Rovaniemi I'd like to go back for some touring aboot. I wonder if they will maintain any of these routes in the winter for some fat biking?

[whitestone]

Looks good that. I said after the Rovaniemi I'd like to go back for some touring aboot. I wonder if they will maintain any of these routes in the winter for some fat biking?

Looks like some trails are used - https://www.bikeland.fi/en/talvipolut (but the info boxes are all in Finnish) also the blurb for the Arctic Post route says that it's reckoned to be one of the best ski tours in the world. I suspect that there's quite a bit that could be done - on our first trip we went for an Arctic bivy and there were snow-mobile tracks all over the place so it's quite possible that most Laavus near towns/villages get visited but really you need some local knowledge.

Just looked at flights to Kittila - £500 and takes nearly a day or £580 but just seven hours. No guarantee on the last leg that a bike bag would fit on the plane - we had "fun" getting back one time as the airline had swapped out the stated plane for a smaller one. The head baggage handler headed out to measure the plane's cargo door to check that our bike bags would fit and only then could we check-in!

[voodoo_simon]

Looks good that. I said after the Rovaniemi I'd like to go back for some touring aboot. I wonder if they will maintain any of these routes in the winter for some fat biking?

Have you seen https://instagram.com/rolloutdoors?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

[fatbikephil]

Yep definitely something I'd like to have a go at probably year after next. I know somebody who lives in Oulu so will probably combine bike trip with seeing them.

[Alpinum]

Thanks for sharing Stu

The land up there is well used in winter, more so than in summer for obvious reasons.
There's a helpful online map on which you can have winter tracks on display. Will look it up once infront of the desktop pc as I can't find it on my mobile.
Also various papermaps that show winter routes are available.
With this you can quite easily plan a trip without much/any local knowledge. Of course heavy snowfall will make things interesting once out there.
Eg. a late winter trip to Halti must be a grand fatbiking trip.
Must go to Finland again...

[Dakkar]

Bet the mossis are a bugger.

But Europe's own Alaska

[jay91]

Looks/sounds great