Norway - via Motorcycle

Spent 9 days tooling around Norway with several friends on motorcycles. Was a smattering of bikes ranging from an older Honda Hawk to a new R1200GS though the GS type adventure bike was the most common bike. I was on a 2006 VFR which is my primary bike here at home so I was completely comfortable from the first mile.

We had 9 bikes, so we typically broke into groups of 3 or 4 to keep the logistics of staying together easier and would meet up at our destination hotel.

We overnighted in the following cities, a couple of them were two night stops:

Kristiansand
Notodden
Fagernes
Andalsness
Olden
Bergen
Stavanger
Kristiansand

My general observations:
1. Norway is truly a scenic beauty. There was a 12 mile stretch of road where we saw at least 200 waterfalls each between 500 and 1000 feet high. It was the most beautiful stretch of earth I have ever seen. No amount of words and pictures could do it justice, at least not the words at my command.






2. There is little traffic enforcement in Norway, but you need to be aware of the locals.



3. The food is so bland it truly sucks. None of it was worth taking pictures of.

4. The people were incredibly hospitable and helpful - though I wound up being the good Samaritan when I used a water bottle to suck fuel out of my bike and transfer to a Norwegian who had ran out of gas 15km from the nearest "station". By "station" I mean a cargo container that had a self service unmanned atm-like fueling station, which was +/- 150km from the next nearest fueling option.


5. The place is brutally expensive, especially if you are a drinker. No pictures of the cc statement yet, but just take my word for it.

6. Fjords are cold. Brutally cold. But they are suitable for the big boats and the big (dumb) boys. We probably took 6 or 7 ferrys as part of our routes.











7. Having ambient daylight until 1:30 am or later is weird. This picture was taken right around midnight.



8. Driving a motorcycle past an active ski area, with people skiing, is odd. These pictures were taken nearby. Snowbanks were still 12' to 15' high at places.






9. The roads are awesome. A good mix of tight switchbacks over the passes and rolling sweepers.





10. The most important part of a trip is to have a great traveling companion and close friends.





It was a great time. It would have been great in a sporting car as well. Perhaps even better as Norway is wet and cold, even in the summer. We saw 2 Celsius as the low on the trip but most of the time was in the low teens. 9 days on the bike and only 45 SECONDS of rain. We were incredibly lucky.

Tal

 

thanks for sharing, that was awesome!

 

Yep looks like a crazy trip!

 

Now that looks like a blast! Thanks for the pics.

 

Thanks for the compliments guys. It was an awesome trip.

I finally got around to uploading the video of the water bottle gas siphon that I used to get the local to the nearest gas station. Necessity is the mother of all invention, but this episode will lead me to put a section of small hose in my tool kit.

Not that *I* ever plan on running out of gas, but it has happened and thankfully for me I was able to coast into a fire station which liberated some gas out of their lawn mower to get me to the nearest gas station.

I can't figure out how to embed video here, so it is just a link:

 

Same way you embed photos (i know it works for Youtube, at least)
[img][/img]

Great trip, fantastic photos and much !

 

Thanks for sharing such an awesome adventure with the TEAM!!

 

Wow!! Nice trip. Thanks for sharing!!

 

nice trip !
congrats !!!!!!

 

Alexscud - I'll be "close" to your area in late September. We keep a bike in Milan (ST4S) and we will fly over for a couple weeks of touring. We have a villa rented just outside of Montalcino that will serve as home base for the trip. Don't think we'll stray all the way down to Rome on this trip though.

Norway was a great trip. Even though I do not plan to go back, I would recommend the trip and I would recommend "OT" who coordinated our logistics. He has an official tour company ( Nordic Bike Adventure ) but he is in the process of winding down his tour activities. You don't need a guide, just a connection to rent bikes and a route map which I can share.

We did run into a group of Brits on an auto tour. A nice collection of Jaguars (E-types, 120's, 140's and 150's) along with a couple modern Ferrari's.




Which brought me back in memory to a couple other car encounters while on the road.

Rolling out of the Ice House in Telluride - which was designed by one of my friends who was on the trip - on our way to the Hotel Jerome in Aspen we were convinced the day was totally going to suck:


But when we made our first gas stop of the day, things took a turn for the better:

I am scratching my head wondering "is that really" and sure enough it is, a big beautiful 8C



To make a long story short, we had plotted the same route from Telluride to Aspen as a driving club that consisted of +/- 15 pre-war Alfas and probably 10 other assorted cars. They were making the run, in the rain, which totally warmed my heart. The sound of the vintage motors, unmuffled on many cars and running at full boil (the yellow car below was carrying a 70 - 80 mph pace, including the requisite passes of slower traffic) was magical. We had a couple overlapping gas stops and got to chat for a bit with many of the drivers and their spouses.





The amount of funds required to buy and restore/maintain one of these cars is pretty staggering. The fact that these owners were out, in the rain, driving them around was mind boggling. They truly were a group of enthusiasts.

Back in 2006, I happened to be traveling via motorcycle in Italy. We were spending a couple days in Arabba (Cortina's bargain sister town where we have a motorcycle friendly hotel with underground parking and a wicked spa/sauna setup) which as luck would have it was the starting point for the annual Mille Migila re-creation classic car rally. Literally a couple hundred of "I only thought these were in museums" cars rolled by that day and we filtered in and around them in traffic. I don't have any pictures handy, but I'll try to dig them up.

Tal