The very beginning

This story begins in the early 90's. Two kids, Ville and Riku riding motocross with high hopes but low speed. Both traveling around Finland with their families, racing, making friends, growing up and enjoying sport-filled pre-teen life.


Fast forward a decade and and half. The kids had taken separate roads a long time ago but ended up on the same trails. Riding motocross didn't turn out to a career to neither one of the kids. Ville kept it as a hobby while Riku ditched the helmet, picked up a set of tools and went wrenching around the world. Years passed by and many things changed and one day Ville, who in the meantime had studied himself to a personal trainer and ridden himself in the top level of finnish mountain bike scene, needed some work done on his MX bike. That's when the paths crossed again. The childhood friends picked slowly up from where they had left off ages ago. The one with the tools dusted off his old bicycle and began to exercise and somewhere along the line the idea of racing (adrenaline & exicetement) crossed his mind again. Not the serious kind of racing, but a mass happenings for people who enjoy mountain biking in general. Good mood, great feeling, teasing yourself -kind of racing once or twice a year seemed to fill both guys urge for competing. But in June of 2009, Ville told Riku, who was just losing a little weight and trying to strengthen himself, about a dream he had had for a while. He was talking about an 8-day stage race over the Alps, Bike Transalp. The idea of something so extreme had a strong appeal on Riku, who asked to give him two years to get fit and they could ride the race together, as a team.
 It's been now a year and a half since that conversation and we've got an entry to the most famous MTB stage race in Europe. 128 days from now, we'll line up with about 1100 other enthusiastic MTB riders in southern Germany, just to finish at a beautiful Lago di Garda in Italy 8 days later.
 Before the start and even more before the finish line we'll have a plenty of work to do, countless kilometres to ride and lots of preparation to be done.

 Already now i'd like to take the chance to shout out a HUGE THANK YOU To YAMAHA and HI5BIKES, for their help and interest in this project.



-riku