bretti_kivi
Member
Hello,
Ever wanted to walk on water?
How about driving on water?
My now-traditional Icetrack in incarnation number 6 happened this winter and although midsummer isn't here yet, the track for Icetrack 7 has been booked for the last weekend in January 2016.
On a frozen lake in central Finland. Seriously. It's all legal, above board and a professionally-run and snowploughed track.
IT 6 was a bit of a washout, with two and a half feet of ice topped with snow and slush, so 7 is quite possibly going to be the last one. If you wanted to do this, the time is now.
That location is both reasonably accurate and around 6 hours drive north of Helsinki, which should be enough to see serious winter and yet it's possible to get back down for the late ferries out to Germany or Sweden on your departure day. If you want to watch the northern lights, this is a good jump-off point, but they're unlikely to be visible this far south. For those, drive up to Kuusamo to the arctic circle or over to Oulu.
Costs for track are relatively simple; €150 for track per car and €40 per person per night in reasonable accomodation. Luxury has a real meaning at Tahko, so we're sticking to the "nicer" end of the market, but still reasonably priced. That translates at the moment to around £110 for track and £30 per night per head.
You'll also need to get yourself to at least Helsinki. Consider Dover - Calais - Gent - Antwerp - Eindhoven - Dortmund - Bielefeld - Hannover - Hamburg - Lübeck for the long ferry which leaves at 3 am and gets you in at 9 am the next morning. 30 hours of relaxation to start your trip. Driving Denmark and Sweden is also possible but not much faster. Aim to arrive on Friday morning 29th January, so leave Wednesday 27th early to catch the chunnel and be at the port in Lübeck by 0200 on Thursday morning. You could be back in Germany at 2100 on Tuesday evening; stay overnight in Hamburg and be back a week or so after you left.
Friday we drive up; Friday night is Sauna, food and beer and not much else.
Saturday morning we start with simple stuff on the track, and then it gets more complex. We'll probably go somewhere directly near for food, let's see how the weather is. Close of play is 1700, we must be off the ice before 1800.
Evening is food, beer, sauna, board or card games, music, chat in several different languages, snow angels, midnight torch tests in the serious darkness...
Sunday is a repeat of Saturday, but with more knowledge. Alternative pastimes can be organized for Sunday morning, too. Sunday pm the locals will probably leave again; I will leave early Monday morning.
One thing in advance: you must have winter tyres. All-season "all weather tyres" will not cut it and you will be able to see and feel the difference between what I can do with spikes, others with Nordic rubber can do and central European winter tyres.
Temperatures may reach -30 or even colder, though that is unlikely. -15 or so is far more common. We will not be allowed to drive on the lake unless the ice thickness is >30cm / 12". Since this is normally the case in December, I don't see it being an issue, but it may be. However, the guys around Trackmeister were very, very creative this winter when faced with potential weather issues, so I do not see a problem there at all.
The track will be ploughed such that there will be no walls. We will have access to a long runway and a track, so we can run all sorts of exercises at the same time, which is what we'll do. Other activities outside the car are possible; there are multiple ski lifts starting directly from the lake. You can also do skidooing, reindeer sledding, and I can probably find pretty much anything else if there's some advance notice. We will have two days of track time, from Saturday 9 to 5 and the same on Sunday.
To get a vague idea of what I'm talking about, you can check out the "tripup" video on my youtube channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oeSXD9UFnY - there's quite a bit of footage from a trip up in the middle of February to an Audi meet. With A2s it doesn't look quite the same, but the condition of the roads was accurate and will probably be similar in Jan 2016.
If you want to learn how capable the A2 is in extreme conditions, this is the place to be. If you are scared to drive on ice, then this is probably not the right place for you, unless you want to get over your phobia by doing it as much as possible in a very short space of time....
If you're interested, please let me know.
- Bret
Ever wanted to walk on water?
How about driving on water?
My now-traditional Icetrack in incarnation number 6 happened this winter and although midsummer isn't here yet, the track for Icetrack 7 has been booked for the last weekend in January 2016.
On a frozen lake in central Finland. Seriously. It's all legal, above board and a professionally-run and snowploughed track.
IT 6 was a bit of a washout, with two and a half feet of ice topped with snow and slush, so 7 is quite possibly going to be the last one. If you wanted to do this, the time is now.
That location is both reasonably accurate and around 6 hours drive north of Helsinki, which should be enough to see serious winter and yet it's possible to get back down for the late ferries out to Germany or Sweden on your departure day. If you want to watch the northern lights, this is a good jump-off point, but they're unlikely to be visible this far south. For those, drive up to Kuusamo to the arctic circle or over to Oulu.
Costs for track are relatively simple; €150 for track per car and €40 per person per night in reasonable accomodation. Luxury has a real meaning at Tahko, so we're sticking to the "nicer" end of the market, but still reasonably priced. That translates at the moment to around £110 for track and £30 per night per head.
You'll also need to get yourself to at least Helsinki. Consider Dover - Calais - Gent - Antwerp - Eindhoven - Dortmund - Bielefeld - Hannover - Hamburg - Lübeck for the long ferry which leaves at 3 am and gets you in at 9 am the next morning. 30 hours of relaxation to start your trip. Driving Denmark and Sweden is also possible but not much faster. Aim to arrive on Friday morning 29th January, so leave Wednesday 27th early to catch the chunnel and be at the port in Lübeck by 0200 on Thursday morning. You could be back in Germany at 2100 on Tuesday evening; stay overnight in Hamburg and be back a week or so after you left.
Friday we drive up; Friday night is Sauna, food and beer and not much else.
Saturday morning we start with simple stuff on the track, and then it gets more complex. We'll probably go somewhere directly near for food, let's see how the weather is. Close of play is 1700, we must be off the ice before 1800.
Evening is food, beer, sauna, board or card games, music, chat in several different languages, snow angels, midnight torch tests in the serious darkness...
Sunday is a repeat of Saturday, but with more knowledge. Alternative pastimes can be organized for Sunday morning, too. Sunday pm the locals will probably leave again; I will leave early Monday morning.
One thing in advance: you must have winter tyres. All-season "all weather tyres" will not cut it and you will be able to see and feel the difference between what I can do with spikes, others with Nordic rubber can do and central European winter tyres.
Temperatures may reach -30 or even colder, though that is unlikely. -15 or so is far more common. We will not be allowed to drive on the lake unless the ice thickness is >30cm / 12". Since this is normally the case in December, I don't see it being an issue, but it may be. However, the guys around Trackmeister were very, very creative this winter when faced with potential weather issues, so I do not see a problem there at all.
The track will be ploughed such that there will be no walls. We will have access to a long runway and a track, so we can run all sorts of exercises at the same time, which is what we'll do. Other activities outside the car are possible; there are multiple ski lifts starting directly from the lake. You can also do skidooing, reindeer sledding, and I can probably find pretty much anything else if there's some advance notice. We will have two days of track time, from Saturday 9 to 5 and the same on Sunday.
To get a vague idea of what I'm talking about, you can check out the "tripup" video on my youtube channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oeSXD9UFnY - there's quite a bit of footage from a trip up in the middle of February to an Audi meet. With A2s it doesn't look quite the same, but the condition of the roads was accurate and will probably be similar in Jan 2016.
If you want to learn how capable the A2 is in extreme conditions, this is the place to be. If you are scared to drive on ice, then this is probably not the right place for you, unless you want to get over your phobia by doing it as much as possible in a very short space of time....
If you're interested, please let me know.
- Bret
