The radial tyre creates palpable comfort. The tyre is gentle to the driver, who no longer has to feel every stub or bounce in his/her spine.
Marko Rajala is a forestry machine operator at Suupohjan Konehakkuu Oy, a company operating in the forests of southern Osthrobotnia in western Finland. He praises the radial Nokian Forest Rider:
- It is much softer to drive on and offers a more stable ride than cross-ply tyres. I definitely recommend it!
Rajala operates a Logset 5F forwarder that was equipped with Forest Rider tyres in December 2007. By early April 2008, the tyres have completed nearly 1,400 hours of operation.
- No durability problems, the operator assures.
The Suupohja terrain mainly consists of dry peaty forest with occasional pine swamp areas. The predominant tree is pine.
Rajala is happy with the tyres that are easy on the driver.
- The tyres don't generate a beating response on an uneven surface. Bouncing down from a stub, the elastic tyre dampens the blow, he says, comparing the response with the banging effect of hard tyres.
- I wouldn't change it for any other tyre, he confirms.
Impressive traction
Raimo Leikas, the owner of Suupohjan Konehakkuu, is positively surprised after four months of trying out the tyres. When he purchased a forwarder, the local Nokian Tyres sales team offered him Nokian Forest Rider tyres for a trial.
- I agreed to test them. We agreed on a trial period of 5,000 hours, after which I could decide what to do about the tyres. To my surprise, I noticed that the tyres have such great traction ability that no chains were needed even in the winter.
Unlike many Finnish forest areas, the Suupohja forests are free of big rocks. The terrain is even; it is a former swamp transformed into a forest by means of ditching. Such circumstances require tyres with good traction and load-carrying capacity.
Reijo Rintaluoma also operates a Logset for Suupohjan Konehakkuu. This operator, with more than 30 years of experience with forestry machines, states that the shape of the Nokian Forest Rider keeps the soil under the tyre and prevents the tyre from squeezing the ground like bias-ply tyres do.
- Clean tyres offer better traction.
Comprehensive harvesting
Raimo Leikas purchased his first harvester when Suupohjan Konehakkuu started operating in November 1988.
- That was the start from where we've expanded. At the beginning, the forestry business was practiced on the side of farming, but now Leikas has given up farming altogether.
Suupohjan Konehakkuu became a joint stock company in 1995. As of January 2008, it has been a regional subcontractor for the Metsäliitto Group.
The Suupohja region - the municipalities of Jurva, Teuva, Karijoki, Kauhajoki and Isojoki - is the main region of the company's comprehensive forestry business, comprising timber logging and collection all the way to stub removal. Suupohjan Konehakkuu also saws energy wood. The company employs four to five subcontractor harvesters and forwarders; its own resources comprise three machines and five employees.
Keeping an eye on development
Raimo Leikas says that a forestry contractor must always stay alert.
- You must be ready to adopt novelties to a certain degree, however not too enthusiastically.
Leikas firmly believes that the contractor operation models in the industry will change in the near future.
- The business will include much more than wood processing; it will increasingly focus on organising entities. Furthermore, machines and tyres are developing, and we must keep an eye on that development.
- I have submitted a suggestion that it would be nice to have corresponding tyres in the 800 size category, wider. If we could also equip the trailer with the same tyres that function without tracks or chains, the machine would run even more softly.
The entrepreneur thinks that tracks can be saved by not using them on unfrozen ground. He estimates that in this way only one set of tracks would be needed per operating cycle of the machine. This would add up to a savings of ten thousand Euros.
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Nokian Forest Rider >>
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