Local biking association Jyväskylän Pyöräilyseura (JYPS) arranged a biking picture orienteering event as a part of the biking week, a series of events that are held yearly in the city of Jyväskylä. These events promote biking all year around and for everyone.

JYPS is a cycling association founded in 1935. We operate in Central Finland, organizing group rides, cycling tours, excursions, events, races, training sessions and other activities related to cycling. – https://www.jyps.fi/jyps-in-english

The picture orienteering event has been held at least since 2007, since the record of most participants is from that year: 542. This year there were 342 people who returned the participation card.

Links for the event and result info are only in finnish…
 – https://www.pyorailyviikko.fi/ohjelma/kuvasuunnistus/ (the event)
 – https://www.pyorailyviikko.fi/kuvasuunnistuksen-2020-tulokset/ (results)

The rules are as follows:
 – At the morning of the event day JYPS releases a card of 12 pictures taken around Jyväskylä on their website and in a local news paper.
 – One needs to identify the locations, with or without help, and to plot a route through them all.
 – One is qualified to enter the prize raffle if one locates and visits 6 of the checkpoints.
 – For those completing all of the 12 checkpoints there will be extra prizes in the raffle, including a new bike from the Ride Cycle Store.

From all of the 342 participants 119 completed all of the 12 checkpoints. The whole route was over 40 km and one had 4 hours of time to complete all the checkpoints. I ended my ride in Säynätsalo and didn’t drive back from there, so my effort was about 30 kms and all of the 12 checkpoints in 4 hours.

I started my ride a bit before 12 o’clock so I would arrive to the 1st checkpoint at 1200 when the event officially started.

I had identified all but one of the locations so I plotted a 11 checkpoint route on the map and thought I could find out the location of the last missing checkpoint on the way from checkpoint judges or from other riders and then incorporate that into my route plan. I had quite strong feeling about the missing one that it wasn’t very far off from the others checkpoints so I thought it would be easy to incorporate into the route on the fly.

…and yes, I’m still analog in the age of digital… *smile*

I also refer to the checkpoint numbers by the order I rode them through, not by the numbers on the original picture card by JYPS at the start of this post.

The 1st checkpoint on my route was at the university campus area near the city swimmimg hall.

The checkpoint is in the university campus area and in the pic below one can also see the university main building on the far right. Many of the buildings in the campus area are designed by Alvar Aalto.

The 2nd checkpoint was just couple hundred of meters away in the front of the university student union‘s building.

The 3rd checkpoint was at the shore of the lake Jyväsjärvi and on the Rantaraitti and more specifically at the new outdoor gym that the city had just built. Actually there are three or four of those outdoor gyms on the Rantaraitti that goes around the lake Jyväsjärvi.

4th checkpoint was at the city harbor…

For the 5th checkpoint I headed to the city center and to the church park. It was also a nice one as the checkpoint judge was a person who rides an ice-cream sales cargo bike around Jyväskylä center, harbor and beaches during the summer months and of course sells ice-cream to the people.

Here I also met two cyclist police officers from Jyväskylä PD who were also participating the event and chatted about their job and using bicycle as a way to move around the city area.

6th checkpoint was a bit more further away and one of the harder ones to recognize but I managed to find the store by it’s name partly visible in the picture.

7th checkpoint was behind a super marked in an old factory area that is now been rebuild as a housing area…

8th checkpoint was the mystery-one that I figured out from the other riders and checkpoint judges. It was in a quite familiar place and included a hint about the route known as Green Loop that goes around the city. I spotted the Green Loop’s info post at the picture, but didn’t recognize the stone ball behind of it what is a part of an art sculpture. So I was able to guesstimate the approx location of the check point, but had to verify and ask from people to be sure.

I also drove a small detour to avoid some steeper hills on the way to the next checkpoint and still had to search a bit to find the right location… Now later I think I should have taken the route via Kankaankatu -> Rajakatu, but no harm done and the lake shore view was nice.

9th checkpoint was the last one in the city itself and was located in the “Kortex” university housing village.

On my way to the university housing village it started to rain some, so I took shelter in an underpass with couple other riders…

It was only a small summer shower and it was over in couple minutes so onward I rode…

Between 9th and 10th checkpoints I took a break and went to eat some as I had spent over an hour and a half to ride through these 9 checkpoints and the first one of the last three checkpoints was over 7,5 kms away.

…

10th checkpoint was in a skate-park place in Keljonkangas and Keljonkangas is over 7 km from Jyväskylä and the best part of it is that it’s on a quite a huge climb. I think I spent like an hour with my slow-rider to get to the 10th checkpoint as the climb from the Keljo markets is about 1,5 km quite steep uphill. I didn’t realize this beforehand and I was so broken after this climb…

On my way I met the local biking police who have participated this event almost every year. They were already coming back from Säynätsalo, where I was going. I saw them already at the church park checkpoint with the ice-cream man. I might assume that they had already ridden all the checkpoints and were coming back, but can’t be sure as anyone can drive the checkpoints in any order they choose.

About an hour and 7,5 km later I arrived to the checkpoint.

But the fun did not stop there. The 11th checkpoint was in Säynätsalo, actually both of the last two were in there and from Keljonkangas it is over 8,5 km to the old Säynätsalo city hall.

I finally made my way to the old Säynätsalo town hall that is actually also a building designed by Alvar Aalto.

The 12th checkpoint was just downhill from the old town-hall and at the old plywood factory that was established in 1913 and shut down now about two months ago in 2020.

After this I was done.

Over 30 km within 4 hours and the nasty climb to the top of Keljonkangas was enough for me. I parked my bike at the small boat harbor next to the last checkpoint and called a car ride to pick me and my ride back to Jyväskylä. I just didn’t have the energy to drive that last 15 km back to the city so I called the quits, but I did complete all of the 12 checkpoints and was happy about it, even thou I almost ran out of time.

The bike I ride is a slow cruiser and not a speeder nor electrically assisted bike, so it takes time or effort if one has no time, to get around. …and yes, I’m in a bad shape also. *smile*

End note: About all the pics in this post are screen captures from a set of videos that I recorded while biking (720p/60fps). I’m not sure if or when I’m going to upload the video of the ride into anywhere, but we’ll see what the future beholds.

(Maps by Jyväskylän Karttapalvelu a map service of the city of Jyväskylä.)