Starting in the Sunday morning the 20th of June was a little bit hard, yes, we woke up (too late 🙂 ) to the sound of rain on the tent roof. Well, now we are just training, so it was good that we actually got the possibility to train rain. After breakfast we started to train ups and downs. Yes, the road number 870 between Kajaani and Rautavaara is very much ups and downs. The downs are nice, the ups also because one get the opportunity to train changing the gears on the bike to mainly 1-1.

… and yes, of course a good headwind, especially blowing when you got some nice downslopes, that limits your speed and makes you not go too fast downwards…

Then there are straights. Some of them like 8 km or so. Very encouraging to know that the road does not dissapear. 🙂

And yes, there are some nice views also along the road, here one from a forest lake.

After lot of kilometres, maybe not so many actually we came to the municipality and village Rautavaara. This is in a new county, Pohjois-Savo, Northern Savo. The name is associated to that here ones people took iron from the bottom of the lakes. Some notes in Wikpedia about Rautavaara.

The time we arrived to the village was about 19.30 in the evening and there was not so many people on the streets of the village. But couple of ladies walked a dog and we stoped to ask if they knew a place to eat. As usually I gave my card and told about this blog. Surprice, surprice – the lady told that her name is Riitta Taskinen! Well we are relatives, that is sure. We don´t know yeat how, but even she has been active in the Taskinen-Taskila genealogical association, Sukuseura Taskinen-Taskila.

Well, this nice lady did not only offer us some food, but also when we realized the distance to Nilsiä, about 50 km, also offered us a place to sleep.

Thanks for the hospitality and welcome to visit us in Kajaani or Juoksengi! Kiitos vieraanvaraisuudesta ja tervetuloa käymään kylässä pohjoisessa.

Todays achievement with the bike computer:
Time biked: 4 hours 42 min
Distance: 67,4 km
Average speed: 14,34 km/h

With Everytrail http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=672405
Time: 5 h 49 minutes
Distance: 50,3 km (battery stoped before Rautavaara)
Average speed: 8,7 km/h