My name is Mikael and I am just an average guy with a big passion for road cycling. As a kid I lived in the Finnish countryside, so cycling was the way to get from one place to another. It all begun the day I learned to ride my bike without those training wheels. The feeling, when you had full control of the bike, and that freedom it provided the young kid with - wow! I could now go anywhere! And that's pretty much what I did. Summer, winter, rain or shine, ride I did. But that was all just having fun, I never trained or even thought about being competitive in cycling. Well, at least not more than being faster than my cousin or my friends. I usually did visualize them as my opponents, riding in front of me, making me pedal harder and harder. And often times I could leave them behind me. I wasn't being competitive at all....

Together with Kjell Carlström at the finish line in Tour de Helsinki 2011

During my years at the university I found road cycling. I had been dreaming about a road bike for years, and in the spring of 2009, I finally bought my first road bike, a Bianchi 1885. That same year I moved to Italy for a year, and grabbed my bike with me. And that's pretty much where I lost control of it all. Cycling the perfect roads, passing wine yards and hills, having the sea breeze from the Adriatic Sea pushing you forward. There was no returning to a world without cycling and Italy. In 2011 I upgraded to a full carbon bike, a Canyon Ultimate CF 8.0, and from there on I have been focusing on quality in my training as well as equipment.

Exhausted after an all out 40 km tempo in 2012

Cycling is more than just a hobby for me, it's a passion and a lifestyle. This road cycling website started off reflecting my interest in the world of cycling, from my saddle and from my couch and it still is a big part of the site. Today I'm exploring the world with my Canyon Ultimate CF SLX 8.0 Di2 (2016) road bike, and I will share the stories from along the roads we travel, the joy and the pain we share together, with you. The site really is all about my everyday life around cycling, but I might also write about other stuff related to cycling such as events, gadgets and people. I’ve also been involved in the early years of the Fincycling project, and even though not being an active member for past years, I still follow the project and write about it when I can. I worked at Canyon between 2015 - 2017, where I gained some very interesting knowledge about bikes and the cycling industry.

In my old blog I wrote "This blog is nothing serious, it’s all just about having fun and enjoying cycling!". That is not completely true today. Because sometimes, it’s not about riding because it feels good now. But more about training because I have a picture of where I want to be as a cyclist. And that requires training on days you lack the motivation to it. Since Zwift arrived in 2014, I’ve been training indoors during winter. And to be honest, it's often not that fun at all, even though the hardest part is usually the "getting out". I do train for a purpose, mostly to beat myself. I've had a couple of "tough" years, where I lost a lot of what I had spent years to build. For 2018, my main goal was just to get back to training and making cycling a part of my daily routine. I managed to do that, and try to follow on that path. 2019 marked my 10-year road cycling anniversary. I wanted to make it special, so i participated in Haute Route Dolomites 2019. That had been a dream for many years, and was an amazing experience.

At the finish line of Haute Route 2019 with Haute Route speaker Fergus Grant

Cycling is also much more than being competitive. It's the perfect getaway from stress and the place where you most often get the best ideas. It will help you discover yourself, awake thoughts you never would have time for otherwise, in a good way. Cycling makes you explore roads and usually takes you to places you otherwise would have missed, often beautiful landscapes, even close to your home. You might even get lost sometimes, but as they say, that's often when you discover something new. Cycling really is the best way of keeping myself both sane and fit and maybe giving me more years to live. And living a longer life, where I can stay healthy and keep on turning the pedals, that's a life I am happy to live.

After completing the Rapha Festive 500 in 2013 I wrote down my thoughts about cycling and what cycling means to me:

I've learned a lot about cycling and I learned a lot from cycling. You can’t explain cycling, you've gotta feel it. You live it, you breathe it you feel it with all your senses. It’s about overcoming your pain, your doubts your fears and desperation. It’s about taking that next pedal stroke. It’s about feeling, seeing and visioning you completing whatever you seek to complete, whether it’s holding on to that wheel in front of you or being first on top of that hill. You need to feel it, that second you complete whatever it is you want to win, you need to see it, feel it, long before it’s done.

It’s about determination. It’s about believing you can do it. It’s something you are never able to explain to someone who doesn't share your passion. It is inside of you. It’s imagining, believing, dreaming, picturing, feeling, being defeated and getting back up, defeating, executing, breathing, pushing your limits, finding yourself, your fears and winning them. It’s going to hurt.

Nothing less. It’s cycling.

You can follow me on various social channels: