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Old time kicks

During the autumn season Keposti staff received some snapshots from past decades.

The alumni of the business college Hanken kicked in year 1961 from Helsinki to Vaasa. It took 25 hours and 15 minutes for the delegation to cover the 420 km distance with their scooter.

In year 1964 the scooterists could celebrate the record in a civilized way without sweating.

Approximately in the same era the students of the technical school of Tampere tried to break a world record in scootering. What exactly was the record attempt remains a mystery for our readers.

Excerpts from Slickkedder's Diary in Early Winter 2002

The winter has been exceptionally early and fine for kicksledding. The conditions have varied from superb ice to superb xc.

4.11. 1.15h kicksledding in the approaching dusk on lake Lapinjärvi ice. Near the shore there was a narrow strip not covered by snow. 20 x 200m repeats + 20min running.

6.11. 1.40h kicksledding incl. 10 x 1.50-1.55 tailwind repeats with normal runners on the lake. Now the snow-free strip of ice was bit longer. One had to adjust the course according to the shore, weeds and snow so I got also some technique practice in the meandering curves.

9.11. 2 h kicksledding on small roads. They were like slow, heavy snow porridge in the temperature close to freezing point.

10.11. -4 centigrade, still a bit tardy on the roads. The first uphill repeats of the season in the Teboil hill. 35min warmup + 7 x the 850m course familiar to all participants in Slickedder's Anniversary Race. Now with kicksled the times forked between 2.59 - 3.03, the last repeat with max effort 2.54 + cooldown = 1.40 h.

11.11. -7 C 1.15 h kicksled on a fast road segment 16 x 200m with kick start + TB hill 2.40 so the glide was much swifter now + 35 min circuit training.

12.11. 1 h easy enjoyable kicksledding on the lake with varying snow conditions.

13.11. 1.5 h kicksledding on the lake incl. 6 x (10 +10 kicks max.)

16.11. As member in a two-man team together with Mr Kickbike in X-kaato adventure race in Lohja. We participated with Kickbike XC models that proved to function very well. On our feet we wore studded footwear. We placed tenth among 18 teams that finished the race.

We started out a bit too fast and arrived at the first control point in the lead. It is much easier to carry a Kickbike than a mountain bike in the forest. Shortly thereafter we got the big picture of the event. Long tedious road segments which are clearly faster to pedal than to kick. We might have had some kind of chances with normal tires and footboard height to achieve same kind of speeds as the mountain bikes, though.

We lagged already 15 minutes behind the leaders when starting out to the paddling leg. The couple of kilometres went quite all right with some technique advice from Hannu. Especially the return upstream began feeling better technically for me and we passed the teams close to us. It took almost an hour to warm up the moistened feet by kicking afterwards again on a boring road. We arrived at the start of the orienteering just as the top teams finished the race. Thus we lost about an hour to the winners. After the jogging in the terrain our finish time was 6.20h.

21.11. 25min warmup 10 x TB hill (2.54-3.04), last 2.47 in loose snow + cooldown = 2h

23.11. 1.10 h warmup + 8 x (4.04-3.50) Wasargård-Storholman in tailwind, "swine horse repeats" / starts 11min + cooldown = 3 h

The start was marked on the middle of the ice.

30.11. Ice marathon in Lapinjärvi. Seven men challenged the wind and sub 10 degrees frost: Markus Porthin, Hannu Vierikko, Ville Vickholm, Richard van Camp, Esa Mononen, Jan Elmgren and Alpo Kuusisto who joined the pack after one lap straight from the dentist.

A shivering field of participants gathered on the chilly lake Lapinjärvi.

I started out in the tailwind at full speed and after only two kilometres it was clear that the race will be an affair between only three guys as Hannu fell behind. I held the lead the whole first lap so that there would be no doubt of the route. There was a few millimetres of snow on the ice so that the runners made clear tracks for the following laps.

Alpo joined the pack on the second lap. The second lap was about 20 secs slower than the first one. On almost every lap I kicked very hard from the start to Storholman and I believed that at least Richard would soon lag behind, but he didn't.

On the sixth and last lap that was already almost dark I did no more efforts on the last 2 km straight headwind segment before the finish circuit. About 400 m before the finish I changed my rhythm but both Jan and Richard could accept the bid. Jan passed me 50 m before the finish line and Richard cam in one second afterwards. Hannu arrived boldly to the finish as the fourth man.

Jan won the Lapinjärvi ice marathon and finished second on the Kepo Night 10 km xc race.

John Wallen and Heidi Räihä managed fine to take the times despite stopwatches that didn't behave well in the frost. Only one watch out of four did function until the end, so the percentage of DNF among them was greater than among the competititors.

1.12. 1.15 h easy kicksledding with Heidi on the lake. Fine, sunny, beautiful and almost snowfree circumstances. The hard wind had blown the snow close to the lakesides.

The night of Ketkupolkka gathered also this year tough kickers on the starting line.

5.12. Kepo Night XC 1300 km + 10.5 km. The old equipment master Vierikko won the races on plastic runners.

Hannu called quits his defeat on the previous weekend's ice marathon.

I could not match Jan's speed this time either. Kicking was a bit heavy. The ice marathon felt still in my legs. However, I did beat Alpo who had forgotten the front bar of his kicksled home.

Jan led the pack on the longer distance of Kepoyo after the first lap.

7.12. 3.15 h kicksledding on Church road in tacky weather -15 C tot. 47km, (39km - 44,5km) 5,5km 17.04. Got a mighty blister on my right heel from the unsuitable shoes.

12.12. 40 min warmup. (3 x 6min in tailwind on the icy open Ollas road + 15min hard same segment both ways + the following uphill + cooldown = 2.20 h.

14.12. 2.35 h kicksled 0.40 warmup + 14.40min hard + 0.30 verr. + 8 x Sjögård-Johansson uphill repeats (3.40-3.22)/ start 8min. Tough workout !!! PM 30min run before the sauna.

15.12. -1 C excellent weather 3.10 h on Church Road 55km (27,5km - 33km) 5,5km 15.02. Half of the road segment was mirror ice.

19.12. 2 h kicksledding on the forest roads behind the lake of which 43 min close close to lactate threshold. Mostly quite tacky conditions.

20.12.tot 2 h kicksledding incl 10 x uphill repeats, same as 14.12.02 (3.42-3.25) + 1 x return repeat 2.57. The glide was worse than last time. PM 35min run.

21.12. 2.20 h kicksled incl 10 x 1.10min in hard tailwind.

Plenty of Kicks for the New Year wishes The Slickkedder

Kick news

The latest results and reports from Kick News maintained by Antti Lehtinen partly in English.

Coming events

You can find the most current kick race schedule at Kickbike calendar .

Happy New Year

Renowned kicksledders on the cover of a January 1981 issue of the Finnish Donald Duck magazine as well as the Keposti editorial staff wish all kickers a merrily gliding New Year 2003.

If you feel bored while awaiting for next year's kicks and are interested in something tougher than plain Mickey Mouse kicks you can browse the 100 km statistics compiled by the Slickkedder.