To be honest by the time I ride to Hull from Norfolk on Sunday and then sit on a boat all night to get to Holland Monday morning it doesn't cut the mileage much. By doing it the way we are we will already be into Sweden by the time the ferry docks at Rotterdam and only cuts the mileage by a few hundred which is fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of the total we will do but costs more in time and money for the crossing...... 344 quid return on saver ticket (looking tonight) as opposed to 75 for the tunnel and a couple of tanks of fuel .... I cant see any reason for using the boat apart from having a couple of overpriced drinks on the way and a kip when I can do that having arrived and set up at a Danish campsite by the time the boat sails on Sunday night To say we had months of looking at all the possible options is an understatement and were even hanging onto the hopes of the Newcastle route being reinstated which never appeared beyond press releases I am meant to be working Saturday till 6pm and leaving at 4am Sunday so packing might be a tad last minute as I use the bike as a commuter as well unless I can blag some time off ....to add to the 3 weeks I already have
I don't know how the hell you bring yourself to jump off a cliff, ive not climbed any 'big walls' but I'm in awe of the free base climbers/ jumpers and wing suit thing. Have you watched 'valley uprising'? It's available on Netflix at moment. Great watch.
No not watched it but will now. I've been jumping for years, just got onto wingsuits. BASE was next but had an operation in December on my shoulder and osteoarthritis has put paid to skydiving now. My rigs up for sale if you want to buy it?
This place is amazing to take a bike and every view is a postcard image so much you can hurt your neck trying to take it all in. I also found out how to ride off road in Enduro mode for 30 mile sections at a time of gravel roads .. up to about 100 miles of proper gravel riding so far.. add that to 3000 miles of the narrowest, tightest hairpins and roads done so far in a week, tunnels, more tunnels, bridges, fast sweeping open roads with no traffic on them and on some its like having the roads closed to play on .......... 3000 more to go next week sheer drop down to the valley below on the other side of the barrier Garnie Strynfjell Road ...27 miles approx Ausjrovegen Mountain Road ....31 miles approx.
That was the plan but we got eaten alive by mossies over 2 nights and even the high level wild camp sites we intended to use were swarming. we are experiencing the assortment of hyttes and the varying sixe and quality. Its also helped dry out the kit when we got soaked a few times and the next 3 days are forecast rain as well unfortunatly
Bit of a drama today as I ended up needing a new rear tyre as mine was down to the wear indicators and still with 2500 miles to do so had to detour 60K to an industrial estate in Otta where I managed to source a Continental Road Attack in the right size as long as I gave them a loose wheel. Good job I packed the nut and a huge breaker bar and managed to get the nut off by standing on it (both feet) and using 16 stone weight to shift it. I expected a huge price as its Norway but fitted and balanced with new valve ...£164 ...result. I was then putting everything back together and noticed this No idea when it snapped but we have been riding some amazingly bumpy roads and loads of gravel roads as well so any could have been the culprit. Managed to explain the problem to a Volvo garage near the tyre place and within 20 minutes they had drilled out the snapped one and sourced a replacement bolt to re attach the subframe ....the lad who did it ran to a local factors to get the bolt ass they didn't have any to fit.... £14 charge Off we went to ride more gravel
Home safe and well after approximately 6000 miles in just over 2 weeks. The trawl back through Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France is mind numbingly boring although having been split from my riding mate near Hamburg and him having the only working sat nav made my return a tad more interesting riding alone and using the iPhone map to find my way By Belgium the scattered thunderstorms had vanished after a few soakings and it was now 25 degrees and sunshine In total I went through about 700 quids worth of fuel which fitted my pre trip estimates but mpg figures in the 50's in Norway due to the tight roads and lower speeds helped the consumption. Apart from the snapped bolt (£1.42 to replace with Ducati ordered part) the bike never missed a beat and handled really well despite the heavy luggage it was carrying. The autobahns were done at a steady 110mph and also managed to get on the chunnel train a day early for no extra charge To say the biker needed cleaned is an understatement ..... and the pics are after the rain washed a lot of the dirt and mud off And we are now back to almost shiny again although there are bits I need to get a small brush into to get clean looking at it as I put it back in the garage Fantastic trip, everywhere is a postcard image and the scenery is astounding in places. I have ridden roads and rock strewn gravel climbs to remote viewpoints I wouldn't have tackled before unless I was on a trail bike and the Multistrada coped with it complete with full luggage. The scenery also changes completely within 20 minutes and a few thousand feet climb out of the valleys up to the high passes
And I challenge anyone to find a cooler roundabout anywhere in the world ....found this at the middle of a massive long tunnel (12km I think)
Not a bad video of one of the hairpin roads at Dalsnibba above the tourist port of Geiranger hence the many coach loads up and down from the cruise ships that stop in
fantastic trip,, great roads , super videos,,,,,,, bike looks new again !! prob forgoten already tho i bet you will not for a while, vids to remind you ...few things,,, i see on your friends " dash board ", the sat nav up front then the bike dash, then , what is that other screen ,is it his phone or what and what purpose , just phone , or perhaps monitor for camera ??,,, i see his camera is helmet mounted for good landscape , it is not a go pro , what is it ?
Cheers His you tube account has all the vids but the best one is an hour long and covers the first real dirt/gravel road (Aursjovegen) we did which was over 30 miles long and lots of stops for photos and stuff and gives views from both bikes i haven't linked them here in case it bores the arse off people but will do if anyone is interested to skim through them The last screen on his bike is his iPhone in a mount for local trips but it also charges his phone off a 12v socket in the dash as he rides so left it on for the trip. I had to run an iPhone lead from the DIN sockets on the Ducati near the pillion hangers to keep mine alive iPhone 6 | Handlebar Mount | Bicycles The cameras we used were both his. The one used mainly on his bike was the Drift HD Ghost which is bigger than the Drift Stealth used on my bike. I couldn't get a perfectly flat mounting surface on the Tour X so I didn't use the head mount available to me in case it fell off and damaged his camera. The ride back down Dalsnibba I gave him the Stealth to helmet mount it for a different view from the trip up so all the videos are a combination of both cameras. The only issue was wind noise on the cameras so the Stealth had a towelling wrist band on it which worked well and the Ghost had an external mike attached with some foam on it to kill the wind noise
thank you,, will have to investigate the Ghost, i have seen them mentioned before but never really ( before ) considered it... already watched some of your vids ,, all good
Its on the National Route 13 in the south of the country in Hordaland just after we crossed the Hardangar Bridge which is a new one as the old route would have needed another ferry
Nice write-up! Did a vaguely similar trip two years ago after Assen MotoGP. Multi electronics blew up in Hamburg so ended up on a rental (Also a Multi!) for the whole trip. Up through Denmark, Sweden then across to Norway and back down. Missed a few places as short of time but still a great trip. Norway is gorgeous! Will have to go back!
Yes, Norway is a cracking place and I only wish our weather was better as we had a few days where we got soaked which meant riding through cloud cover and high winds on some of the exposed mountain passes. Also completing 300 mile days takes a lot out of you on the technically challenging roads, yet 300 mile days here are a piece of piss This was one of the most challenging....did I mention I don't like heights ...its a long vis so the end will give a huge idea of why it was a big challenge....oh, yeah its covered in gravel and loose rocks too I missed out loads from the trip as I only intended to post a few pics and some details I haven't even mentioned yet I arrived at the channel tunnel on day one of the trip with my wife's passport, not mine Spot the sheepish looking idiot holding the wrong passport
Talked my way through UK exit on a driving license....... blagged through France entry on a sob story and a promise to be out of France in 40 minutes north to which the nice lady said "au revoir, I ave not seen you" ....no checks at Belgium, Holland or Germany. Got to Danish border and met a checkpoint but the ropey Polish plate car in front got pulled and we got waved through. At the Swedish border met by a gorgeous blonde female armed copper who asked for passport, I showed driving license and she smiled and sent me on my way. Got to the Norwegian border by which time it was torrential rain and the border guards just waved through the 2 soaked bikers Fortunately my riding partners wife had booked a fjord cruise months before with her mum before we even set our dates for our trip and our route passed by her dockings so after a week we met her and my missus posted the passport to her which she delivered to me ....this photo shows why I wear a full face lid with black visor normally I then managed to go all the way back through Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France without needing the passport until I got to the UK border check at Calais and I am fairly confidant I could have blagged my way back in on a sob story as the guys on the post were chatty and in a good mood but the correct passport was finally shown at the 15th border crossing
