Ice fishing coming up

Yes, uippiciaee!!! It's almost easter and we're going to Utsjoki. I'll be driving my snowmobile and doing ice fishing on fell lakes with my family. Some sausage grilling on a stick over a bonfire. Coffee. Air dried reindeer meat. The sun is shining. Kids are laughing. My wife is laughing and I'm laughing. Work is only a word in a distant memory...

When I'm ice fishing it doesn't really even matter too much if I catch something or not. But surely it would crown the day if I'd catch a few nice big arctic chars. Or better yet if my son caught at least one.

Here's a nice video of ice fishing close to Utsjoki. That's what it's like when you are on the right spot at the right time :)
I only wish it was me on the video...sigh.

Price tag of the Lynx 's broken drive shaft

Earlier this week I received a call from Tuovilan Gummi. They had investigated the damage on my snowmobile. I have no idea what all those parts that need to be changed are in english but here's the list partly in Finnish:
- drive shaft
- both drive wheels (only the other was really damaged, but they both are changed)
- seal from the gauge unit end of the drive shaft
- liukukiskot (sliding bars???)
- Chain box oil.

The parts cost ~700 € and the work ~300 €. When I heard this I told the guy from the service company that the warranty of the sled had only expired about a month ago and that it's only been driven for 2400 km. So this should be covered by the warranty. The guy pormised to check if there are any marks of heavy impact on the driving wheels and verify the mileage and come back to me. Then he called me again after a few hours and told the good news - I'd only need to pay for the liukukiskot and chain box oil. Phew...what a relief :)

Now I'm expecting to have my snow ride to be ready well before easter.

Corkscrew

Funny small incident happened to my wife and I last Saturday. We were skiing/snowboarding in Ruka for the weekend. We had a wine bottle that she had gotten as a gift from someone but no corksrew. There was this bar on the same building we were staying in so I thought we could go and borrow a corkscrew from there. But it felt so stupid to go in a bar to ask for a corkscrew so we could go and open our own bottle in our own apartment instead of coming to that bar. So we stood outside of the bar arguing which one of us should go and ask the bartender. Finally I went bravely in and asked the big question - "Ehm...excuse me. I have a rare question. Can I borrow a corkscrew for two minutes?"
No problem there. The nice blond bartender girl smiled and borrowed me the tool. Then we went back into our apartment to open the bottle and guess what...the damn thing had a cap you open by just twisting it :)
When I returned the corkscrew I never mentioned that we didn't need it after all.

Lynx's drive shaft busted

My Lynx X-Trim 600 SDi's drive shaft was broke in two last Thursday. I had no idea that could happen, this is apparently a rather rare defect. Anyway I'm glad I wasn't too far away from the road. Big thanks to Mikko for towing my sled to roadside. We put a tarpaulin under the track of my sled to make it slide better and thus easier to tow (as the track was jammed and didn't roll). Little Ski-doo Tundra had to work hard to drag my quite heavy snowmobile for 1.5 km even though it was mostly downhill :)

Anyway, now I'm waiting for Tuovilan Gummi, the Lynx service in Ivalo, to check the reason for the drive shaft getting broken. If there are no marks for an impact from a rock or something, then this should be covered by the warranty although the sled is already 2 years and one month old. I can't remember hitting any rock like that so this should be a clear case. I just hope they get the sled fixed well in time for easter.

Snowmobiling in Utsjoki

I drove a couple of short legs today in Utsjoki with my kids. There is enough snow now for good old snow fun with a sled. For some reason the snowmobile trail to Utsjoki is still officially closed. There is a sign about 10 km before Utsjoki telling that trail is closed due to trail conditions and that driving is on one's own responsibility. It's nice that the Finnish Forrest and Park Service is active enough to put such a sign there when the conditions are not safe. It would as great if they'd go and take the sign away when the conditions are good again.

Ibiza FR, our new second car...what a fun car!!!

My wife and I bought a new, well actually a used car on Friday. The new family member is 2006 model Seat Ibiza FR 1.8T. The color is red exactly like in the pics below. I love the way this baby looks and I have to say it is one great car to drive. Even though sporty, the chassis is not too hard so the car is very comfortable to drive even on a street with cobblestone pavement. And turbo charged 150 horse power engine on a small car like this is moves it pretty quick. The engine sounds pretty good as well, makes me smile every time I start it :)
Now that I'm in Utsjoki on winter holiday with kids I won't get to drive Ibiza before Saturday. I hope my wife takes a good care of it in the meantime.

Now we have to get rid of the old second car, Renault Clio 1.4 RN, 2000. I placed it on sale on Nettiauto.com, Oikotie.com and Keltainen Pörssi already on Thursday. I hope we get it sold pretty soon because the yard is pretty packed now with three cars.

Snowmobiling in Oulu region

I went snowmobiling on last Sunday. I made a trip from Oulu (Hiukkavaara) to Ylikiiminki and back, althogether about 85 km. 85 km is not much as such but taking into account the bad condition of the trail it was plenty. My muscles are aching a bit after bouncing up and down the moguls on the trail.

This is the standard situation with the snowmobiling trails close to Oulu and I guess all the bigger cities not close to high maintenance trails of skiing resorts. The reason for the bad condition of the trails is simple, way too much traffic compared to the maintenance of the trails. There's no way in the current situation for the maintenance level to be improved...there's just not enough money. I would be ready to pay something like 50-100 €/winter if that would get trails in good enough condition. In my mind good enough trail is something you can drive (quite comfortably) on 45-60 km/h with a touring sled with 2 people on.

Is there any way to collect bigger money from snowmobilers for the maintenance of the trails? If the payment is purely out of freewill, it's not gonna work. Collecting the money as a tax from snowmobile owners is also problematic as it's difficult (read: impossible) to earmark any tax money to certain usage. I have a proposal in mind for this dilemma, but I'll write about that later.