Studs

The template on my blog host page says at the top, “Add a Catchy Title.” No, this isn’t a post about male strip clubs in Finland. It’s not a post on salacious nude-firemen-for-a-good-cause calendars the Finns sell to raise money. It’s not about the dreamy, square-jawed NHL star, Teemu Selanne, or other strapping Finnish hockey players who grab headlines in the nations tabloids.

This is about winter tires.

We woke up yesterday to the first white on the ground. It wasn’t a lot—just a dusting that stayed in the grass and trees to actually settle for any disbelievers that winter is actually here. It delighted Christmas-crazy Iita to no end. She asked if we could start playing Christmas music.

Two days ago, my brother-in-law sent photos from Luosto where we’d been just last Tuesday. He was shoveling out from 43 centimeters of snow; that’s nearly a foot-and-a-half for you Americans, who like me, have brains that go to mush when metric measurements get spewed. It was instant winter for him.

We kind of have two cars here. “Mummo,” Mimmu’s mom, needed a new car a couple years ago. We helped her get what she needed in the form of a 2005 Honda Jazz, which is the European name for the Fit. Mummo makes our trips to Finland absolutely special. She fills our bellies with the tastiest of food and treats, loves us unconditionally, and spoils the kids. She tries to spoil me too but I work hard to be a wall lest I put on 15 lbs. of goodies weight. Her “munnki’s” (homemade donuts) are my kryptonite. She makes Finland home to us.

We felt getting her a high quality, safe, used car was a small price for all Mummo does and has done for us over the years, and the upside on the car has been that when we’ve needed wheels in Finland, Mummo’s car has been available to us, not that she wouldn’t give us the car off her back anyway. Once our summer trip extended this fall, we couldn’t just take Mummo’s car though.

Through a friend, we found their neighbor selling a 2002 Toyota Yaris, that was an incredibly good deal for the shape the car was in. We do musical cars now with Mummo, mostly because she makes it so easy to do. We use the Jazz—or as we say in the Finnish way “Jazzi” (pronounced Yahtzee—which always makes me think of Ruff Patterson)—around town to lug hockey bags and sticks and such, because exactly unlike the Yaris, the Jazzi is way bigger than it looks. But for road trips, the even-smaller-than-it-looks Yaris gets incredible gas mileage and has half the miles on it compared to Jazzi. Both cars pushing 20 years old, we feel our chances of being marooned in the dark on a desolate road in Lapland, much lower in the Yaris. The kids just have to sit with half our luggage on their laps. It brings a whole different meaning to taking a car trip to Lapland.

The Yaris getting studs

Finnish law requires cars have studded tires in winter. It’s wasn’t readily clear to us how the law works. Does that mean by first snow? (It doesn’t) Is there a date at which they need to be on? (There is: December 1).

This system has led to Finland being synonymous with producing the the best snow tires on earth. Nokia Hakkapelitta are the gold standard of snow tires. No discussion of winter tires would be complete without Nokia. Hakkapeltitta tires have for decades been what the industry aspires to in a snow tire. If they weren't so hard for non-Finns to pronounce, I think snow tires might have evolved like Kleenex for facial tissue, or Jello-O for gelatin desert, or Coke, for a southern US soft drink of any brand. So good are the Hakkapelitta's that by a catchier name, like, simply "Hakka," we might all be calling our snow tires by Firestone, Bridgestone, Michelin, and the like, Hakka's by now. They're expensive, but they're probably worth it. I had a set on my front wheel drive VW Fox years ago. I felt like I could drive up a tree in the winter on those tires. Now most tire companies have snow tires though, and some are quite good. And while they've all challenged Nokia on price, only Bridgestone Blizzak has dented the reputation in any meaningful popular sense on actual performance.

With the two cars and snow coming all over the forecast, we started pulling together the studded snow wheels from storage that both cars naturally came with. No all-season option here. All Finns change their tires twice a year. They have to. It’s pretty much universally a wheel change too, not just tires. Being in Finland means having both winter and summer wheels for every car. I already used this system in Duluth with our cars, so it’s not a new thing for us, but the mandate is.

Finland clearly shows its commie side on this. Long before they took away the civil liberty of being free to spread a deadly global virus at will, they took away the individual citizen’s right to slide their moving automobile on icy roads into other unsuspecting motorists or pedestrians. They also took away the right to a rusty car. Bastards!

The rusty car is where it gets more pinko-lib though. Salt used to melt road snow is bad for the environment. Finland tries to use less of it, even though the broader use of gravel and sand has its own challenges. More important to Finland than the convenience of a single set of all-season tires that never need to be changed; more important than the breakdown and rebuilding of their roads; is the health of their people and their land. The theme finds its way into so much, including car tires and road prep.

With snow bearing down in the forecast, we rallied to a friend of “Pappa’s,” Mimmu’s dad, who did quick turnaround wheel changes on both cars. Done in about 20 minutes.

Now our cars both sound like ATVs rolling down the road with the buzz of the carbide steel studs overpowering our weak sound system's radio volume. The next morning with first snow, we couldn’t tell if we needed them because we park in the garage below our apartment. The road actually looked wet as the temps were just under freezing. Not a salting truck seen. I didn’t sense at all that the glisten on the road might be ice, but when Iita got out of the car at school, she almost slipped onto her butt on the parking lot. I guess the studs work!

Not all cars are there yet because after the fact, I realized we’re “allowed” to put our snow tires on November 1st. Oops. Don’t tell anyone… Actually, I think we’re ok. The crackling of studded snow tires is all around so we’re clearly not the only ones to jump the gun. Plus, it can’t be a hard rule as Luosto would be a bad place to drive right now if they couldn’t have their studs on. As with anything in Finland, rules are rules but common sense prevails. They do need to stay on the cars until at least the last day of February and are required to be off April 20th.

I know what’s on the minds of tax policy wonks. What about the roads?!

As with most Finland v. United States comparisons, I don’t know, nor will I assert that this is a better way of handling driving in winter. Sweden and Norway have nearly identical laws to Finland’s, so that grows the cross section a bit. But the arguments for and against are pretty simple. It’s environment v. road destruction. Wherever you land on that tug of war is your business. I’m describing the horse I’m riding on this one.

Roads here are generally very good—better by a stretch than most places I’ve lived in the United States. Fixes are constant like in Minnesota, but I don’t feel they are quite as prevalent. That might be the quality of the initial infrastructure talking--the depth and quality of road bed. I know Germany's construction processes are impressive and massive by comparison to American practices by researching rollerski loop construction years ago. The actual surface and sub-surfaces of common practice may be the difference.

I’ve not experienced in ten years of visiting Finland, the road construction mess that is now commonplace between Duluth and Minneapolis on I-35 in the summer. For a training skier's perspective, almost every road here is a good roller skiing road, even though you’d never need to go on them with all the bike paths that are equally in good surface shape. I have noticed in places where two slight troughs are developing from wear and tear of the studded winter tires, but compared to I-35 in the summer, its far from as annoying or in your face as a motorist.

I feel the level to which I could ascertain with any accuracy the practical value differences between requisite studded winter tires and non-studded tires, would need a much longer and deeper dive into it all than I have the time nor care to attempt. I’m doing the breast stroke on the surface here, and my report is; you can have nice roads in a northern climate, with required studded tires, less salt, and not be saddled with endless road construction. It’s not a fantasy. It might take a shift in where we put our tax priorities though. This is mostly a report for my friends in Duluth and Minnesota in general. I don’t know where the magic door is between what we’re accustomed to and what Finland has, but they are miles apart, literally and figuratively.