Notices by Pekka Tahkola (pekkatahkola@mas.to)

Sunday weather in Oulu, Finland 🥰 April 7th, 2024.
#MeanwhileInOulu

Ahh lovely weather today here in #Oulu 🇫🇮🥰🥰
#MeanwhileInOulu

Suddenly.
#MeanwhileInOulu

Words from a friend. She moved to #Finland and #Oulu from another country in the 2000's. She barely knew how to cycle, but our infrastructure and maintenance enabled her to rediscover the joy of cycling and active commuting ❤️

@ned 🤯 🤯 🤦

You'll see all possible types of bikes. Regular upright single speeds, granny bikes, mountain bikes, even an occasional fatbike and an e-bike. Anything that moves, works. There's absolutely no need for any special gear. It's quite rare to even see any studded tires. That's because snow inherently isn't really that slippery (ice is) and the maintenance here works really well.
4/

This will be really interesting to me and Tom as well, as we both score each city individually, not knowing how the other person scores them. I haven't seen Tom's video, and he hasn't seen mine yet either!

Premiere of our collab videos with Shifter / Tom Babin tomorrow Wed at 19:00 EET (GMT+2). We're playing the famous bicycle friendliness game of Plus 1 Minus 2 - Urban Cycling Edition, but in Winter! How will the two cities of #Calgary and #Oulu score from a task of 10 km ride through the city center to a hardware store in winter? 👇
https://youtu.be/ABV7WUJl6fU

This school has been so immensely popular that they've had to expand it many times. Naturally with bike parking. A lot of it. Winter and weather are not the issues. Kids will cycle and walk when you give them safe opportunity to do so.
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Safe infrastructure means you can safely approach a school from all possible directions. On dedicated, segregated paths and you almost never need to cross a street. Thus, we obviously need bike parking in every direction, around the school at separate entrances.
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This is Metsokangas elementary school in the far suburbs of Oulu 🇫🇮. It was -31°C in the morning (-40° windchill). What you see here is just 1 of the 4 parking lots for students. It's not about the cold, it's the safe infrastructure & excellent maintenance. No rocket science.
#MeanwhileInOulu #Oulu #BikeTooter
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We found an abandoned, beaten and bent frozen #piano in the forest 🤯 And decided to give it one last concert, before it slowly freezed to death 😢

https://youtu.be/nkXYaYFhrrg

A little bit frost on the face but it otherwise it was almost sweaty to ride today. -26, feels like -31. Envying the temperatures @harrivaarala gets to experience in the south 🤩 Oulu 🇫🇮 seems to be a some kind of beach holiday destination these days 🤷♂️🏖️

Again a new daily 2024 record on this counter. 1730 ppl on bikes on this single path by 9:07 pm. Weather today here in Oulu: From -2°C to +4°C 🥵 to -5°C.
#Oulu 🇫🇮 #MeanwhileInOulu

As you all know, cycling is a fair weather activity. And we can prove it. Right now it's -28°C in Oulu, and we've had almost 1300 ppl cycle today on this path alone 👌🫡☃️🚲💨
#Oulu 🇫🇮 #MeanwhileInOulu

First aid responders in Helsinki 🇫🇮 with their first aid e-bikes, on which paramedics can reach people in need in large groups of people better than with ambulances. Naturally also in winter. Bikes are equipped with almost the same equipment as ambulances. Photo by Helsingin kaupungin pelastuslaitos / Stadinbrankkari
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Quite challenging conditions today. It's been about +2°C for a while with a lot of rain, wind, ice, sleet and slush, and this is how a random schoolyard looked like today here in #Oulu. Both photos from same school.
So wet. I'm totally soaked 😅🌊🚲

Remember #OucaBikes? The amazing upcoming heavy duty (870L or 8 kids!) E-Cargobike from #Oulu, #Finland. Yes, also manufactured in Finland. I just got my hands on a production version, and I'm going to do a thorough review video. What would you be interested in hearing & knowing? What aspects should I discuss in the review?

On Tuesday, we had about 80-90 mm of new snowfall between 7am -> 3am. Part of this precipitation was rainfall. During that time, every part of our 168 km priority 🚶♀️🚲 network was plowed a minimum of 6 times, and a maximum of over 20 times, depending on the path section and width. 1/3

Just regular people, with their regular bikes, with regular winter clothes, on their regular daily commutes and errands in Oulu, Finland 🇫🇮, in today's regular winter temperatures of -23°C (and regular wind chill of ~-32°C)
#MeanwhileInOulu 1/2