Day Zero, Saturday the 2nd of June - from Lincoln, UK to the ferry

I thought i'd do a little write up of my bike trip which I embarked on in the June of 2012.

The plan was to sail from the UK to Norway (Brevik) via the DFDS freight ship, leaving from Immingham at 5.00am on Sunday the 3rd of June.

From Brevik I would explore Norway a bit, then head east through Sweden into Finland, dip into the Arctic Circle at Ronvaniemi in Lapland and then further east into Russia. On entering Russia I would hop south to the cities of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Volgograd, and then on to the Caspian Sea. Here's a rough route of the 'out' leg of the journey ('A' is where the ferry docks at Brevik);





From there i'd move back west to the buddist city of Elista and into the Ukraine and Crimea.

Then after a look around Crimea, i'd head north to Kiev while the Euro 2012 championships are on, a quick look around the Chernobyl zone and then head back west and home. Easy. 7000 miles or so according to a route planner, with the trip lasting around 19 days.


The plan was to camp where necessary and to stay in modest accommodation where I could. The bike is a 2000 ZX7R with pretty much every consumable replaced and tyres that will last an alleged 8000 miles (conti road attack).

All loaded up and ready to roll;



I was provisionally booked on the ferry leaving Immingham the next morning (a concrete booking on the freight ship isn't possible) so in the afternoon I fitted the new tyres to my bike and loaded it up in preparation. It was whilst loading the bike that I suffered the first set back; a phonecall from DFDS informed me that I hadn't got a place on the ferry. Freight drivers get preference for the 12 places on board and as another freight driver had booked in, it was tough luck for me. Oh dear.

I carried on with loading the bike whilst my support crew (Wife) found me an alternative sailing. The Harwich to Esbjerg ferry was fully booked, but there was room on the Harwich to Hook of Holland sailing. With Holland being a fair way from Norway, this would mean an unexpected 1050 mile detour before the 'start' of the trip, so I left earlier then expected at 7.00pm on that night to catch the ferry from Harwich at 10.30pm.

The first mechanical failure was experienced on the outskirts of Lincoln, 2 miles into the journey; the speedo needle dropped to zero on the way into a roundabout, a quick look down at the front wheel confirmed the cable had snapped. I presumably kinked it changing the front tyre earlier in the day. Not particularly reassuring with 6998 miles left to go, but not the end of the world; the sat nav displays the speed also.

I made the ferry in good time, had a few in the bar, went to bed for a bit and arrived in the Hook of Holland the next morning at 8am.

Day 1, June 3rd - Hook of Holland to Sweden

Near misses - 1
Mechanical issues - 1
Crashes - 1
Distance covered - 950 miles

I wanted to get to Norway ASAP and get back on schedule, so the aim was to smash as many miles in on day one as possible. I was greeted in mainland Europe by heavy rain and around an hour into the first day I took a serious wobble on the motorway. Accelerating at around 90mph in poor visibility a sidewind caused me to drift onto what must have been the largest strip of overbanding in Holland, 18" wide and 100' long. Both wheels on the slide on a top heavy ZX7R wasn't a great start but after a tense moment it pulled itself right.

Somewhere around the slide it became clear that my 'winter' gerbing gloves were not waterproof in the slightest. I bought them secondhand, and being heated, assumed they would be waterproof. Whether they ever were or not, i don't know, but they're not now. The bulkyness of them meant i didn't feel the moisture straight away, but once they were saturated....

Around an hour after that it became clear the my HMP waterproof overcoat thing that I borrowed from a friend in the prison service was also not waterproof. Around an hour after that it became clear that my helmet was not waterproof as water was running out of my soaked hair and down my face.

As I headed through northern Germany towards Denmark, after riding for six hours solid in heavy rain I was the world's wettest man. My leather jacket was absolutely saturated, my draggin jeans had wicked water down from the jacket so my bottom half was soaked, my boots and gloves were full of water and although the rain was dying off, my (genuinely waterproof) trousers and sort of waterproof HMP jacket were sealing the water in nicely, keeping my body weight to around one metric tonne.

I'd never been to Denmark but passed through it quickly, spending a relative fortune in the process. £40+ in tolls for two huge bridges, and £10 for a McDonalds and a bottle of water. The landscape was fairly forgettable apart from the view from the bridges, a large number of highly modified American cars, congregated near to Copenhagen being the only other noteworthy sight.

I entered Sweden via the Orsund bridge tunnel around 8pm (not my photo, obviously)


Once in Sweden I turned left and rode around 50 miles north up the west coast, before looking for somewhere to camp. I spotted a unexpected campsite sign on the dual carriageway and turned off the main road to find the site. On a minor road I 'slowed' to read a another sign, but after 950 miles of speed hardening and fatigue, misjudged how much I had (hadn't) slowed down and ending up having to brake harder than expected to avoid overshooting the sign. So keen was I to crane my neck and read the sign, I missed the edge of the road surface with my right foot when I eventually stopped. I gracelessly overbalanced, dropping the bike on its right hand side and rolled around 15' down into a ditch. Bugger.

After dragging myself out of the ditch (desperately hoping nobody had witnessed my misfortune), I assessed the damage to the bike. The 20 year old design of the ZX7R harks back to when sportsbikes could take a knock; the only damage was a crack indicator lens and a slightly dented ego.


After struggling with the heavily laden bike, a passing cyclist gave me a hand and then led me to a (immaculately kept) campsite where I spent the night. I lubed and adjusted the chain, bodged the indicator back together with some tie wraps and instant gasket, spread my clothes out in the hope they might dry a bit and then got some rest. Tomorrow Norway.

Day 2, 4th June - Sweden to Norway

Near misses - 0
Mechanical issues - 1
Crashes - 0
Distance covered - 416 miles
Total distance - 1366 miles

My modus operandi; 45L top box affixed to the pillion seat by some roofing bolts with a slice of oak worktop wedged underneath to get the angle just right. My (friends) tent and sleeping bag were strapped to a small rack (the only luggage accessory you can get for a ZX7R), then a Pacsafe steel mesh was wrapped around the whole lot for security, to sure it all up a bit and to give me somewhere to stuff the rest of my stuff.

(Note yellow tie wrap on front indicator from the previous day's hiccup)




With the top box being as streamline as a house brick it hampered the aerodynamic performance a bit; I took it up to a GPS verified 135mph on the autobahn on day one; the front end was very​ flighty by that speed.


Anyway, I had a crap nights sleep at the Swedish camping partly due to not camping, er, pretty much ever. I'd wanted to go to Norway for a few years; the scenery looks awesome, i've read some great trip reports, but mainly I wanted to do this.........................


...................stand on top of the Kjeragbolten. Its an 1100m straight drop into the water if you wobble off there - looks great. Its well situated near plenty of other decent sights and roads in Southern Norway so the plan was to ride there, hike up to the Kjeragbolten and then see how I was fixed. This was the first planned sight of the trip (the 1050 mile ride to get to Norway was unplanned remember).


I set off from the Swedish campsite at around 10.00am after paying the very nice campsite owner lady the equivalent of E10. When I said I was heading to Norway she laughed and said that everybody heads to Norway but she doesn't know why, its wet and expensive. Later that day I would agree with her.

I headed North up the west coast of Sweden on a dual carriageway noting that 2/3rds of all the cars I passed were SAABs containing well-dressed, middle-class couples, each and every one with a look of serenity on their face. Splendid.


I entered Norway 2 hours later, skirted around Oslo and headed west towards the good bits. I'd heard about the speeding fines in Norway and didn't fancy incurring any, large fines for 2-3km/h over the limit, lube required for 20km/h+ over. Understandably, the pace of traffic was noticeably slower than anywhere else i'd driven.
Driving along a single carriageway road at 40-50mph gets boring quickly though, so I soon opted for normal tactics of making progress with my eyes wide open. After a couple of hours in Norway, the sun came out and I was (briefly, as it turned out) hot for the first time on the trip. I pulled over for a pee and took a couple of photos;


There is nothing particularly good about this photo other than the fact that 24 hours earlier I was on the autobahn in NW Germany getting drenched, and 24 hours before that I was on my driveway fitting a front tyre. NB. i'm no way that rotund, its the perspective (I think).


At a fuel stop a little later I was a little peckish and noticed there was a burger-bar (place with badly taken photos of fast food) type thing attached to the petrol station. I peered throught the window to examine the prices displayed on the backlit, high level menu board; £13 for an unappetizing 200g burger and a few chips, no thanks. Instead I go to look at stuff in the petrol station, thinking i'd get a few bits and bobs to keep me going. Jesus H. Christ its dear! £4.50 for a pack of very ordinary biscuits sticks in my mind. I ended up making do with a connective tissue hotdog of zero nutritional value from the petrol station. I paid £6 and remember being relatively pleased with my 'bargain'.


As I headed further west, the population density started to drop and roads started to get more interesting. By interesting I mean getting bendier, with greater changes in elevation and dotted with 'Caution, Elk' signs. By now I was travelling at what speed I felt comfortable at as it was clear from the terrain there was nowhere for a speed trap to be placed.

I got a reality check a little later when I rounded a corner to find a warning triangle in the middle of the road followed shortly by a car in my lane stopped dead (facing the same way as me). There were two adults comforting a child by the road side and a vehicle coming the other way had stopped. There were no obviously signs of an accident until I rounded the stopped car and saw the evidence. The windscreen of the car was badly smashed, both A-pillars buckled, but with no other visible damage. It had to be an elk which subsequently ran off, and by the state of the car, I wouldn't like to hit one on a bike. I heeded the 'Caution, Elk' signs a bit more after that.

I forget the road designations in Norway, but around 5pm that day I turned onto a 'B' road and the trip really got going, hammering out of hairpins with a little wheelspin here and there, ascend 1000ft or so, and then descend 1000ft or so around plenty more hairpins.

First sight of snow;






About 5 seconds before this there were two elks stood in the road, bold as brass. They buggered off as I got the camera out though;


I've just ran 20m in soggy bike gear here, hence the face;



It was somewhere around here, high in the mountains, that my sat navfuel gauge clicked over 100 miles (tank range is 140-190 miles to dry depending on use), I checked for nearby stations and was told the nearest one was 30 miles away (back the way I came). I assumed this to be incorrect, but decided to coast down the mountain to save fuel (plus its amusing, particularly trying to take the R/H hairpins on a bike with the turning circle of the QE2). As a coasted down towards sea level, the roads became wet and more level. I refired the engine as the roads leveled completely and rode into a small town called Dalen, noting the road spray was boiling off the header pipes as they got back up to operating temperature.

I then noticed the distinctive smell of burning coolant and so pulled over to inspect the bike. By the time i'd put the bike on the stand and taken my gloves off there was a decent size pool of coolant under the bike; a quick look under the fairing at the radiator confirmed it had sprung a serious leak. I limped it to one of two petrol stations in the town (lying sat nav) and went in to see if they had any rad-weld. They did indeed and one of the immaculate teenagers (think of those perfectly behaved, maturely dressed Aryan kids, you'd see in Nazi propaganda) outside the petrol station shop translated the instructions to give me the dosage. I banged it in the radiator along with 1.5L of coolant and after a quick check for leaks, set off to ascend the next mountain.



The colours in this rock face were far more varied than the photo suggests, they looked a bit like that rainbow sheen you sometimes see on sliced meat at a deli counter;



I found myself somewhere to stay around 8pm. I didn't fancy camping again as my gear was still damp from the Holland/Germany drenching and I needed to charge my camera. The second night's accommodation, a 'hytter' costing a mere 40 euros, you'd only get 4 pints for that around here;


Inside;



There was a UK reg'd BMW GS outside another hytter, pressumably another bike tourist, but they had departed by the time i stirred in the morning.


When I say I could charge my camera in the hytter, naturally i'd left the lead at home so a stanley knife and some crocodile clips were required. So the green one is live, so that's red and then the black one is green so that's earth and, er.......;




I knew booze was expensive in Scandanavia, so had taken a bottle of Scotch with me. I'd arrived at the Swedish campsite too late to sample any on the first night so once I satisfied myself that the camera was charged (a bit), I got the Scotch out. I broke the seal of the bottle and then fell asleep.

Day 3, June 5th - Norway and the Kjeragbolten

Near misses - 0
Mechanical issues - 2
Crashes - 0
Distance covered - 253 miles
Total distance - 1619 miles

I set off from the Hytter place and headed towards Kjerag. The road (as are many roads in that area) was a narrow-ish single carriageway, but as you can generally see around the next couple of bends and traffic is light, you could treat it as a one way street most of the time.

Token pics next to huge snow drifts;





I forget what this was called, but it was the summit of the mountain I rode over to get to Lsybotten, loads of piles of small rocks








Video taken on the way to the Kjeragbolten. The weather could be shitty as you can see! I think these roads were only cleared of snow around 3 weeks earlier.


Road to Kjeragbolten - ZX7R onboard - YouTube

The Eagles Nest cafe. I had planned to eat breakfast here before the 5 hour hike up to the Kjeragbolten. Unfortunately as I was out of season it was closed. Thank god for the crushed tracker bar in the bottom of one of my canoe bags. Note the lonely ZX7R in probably one of the greatest designated MC Parking spots in the world

When I looked two minutes later (as long as i could climb for without a defibrillator being required) , it was gone


Here's why i was stopping every two minutes, its was steep, really steep. Its a 500m ascent from the car park, but its up 200m, down 100m, up 200m, down 100m......



I really wish that cafe had been open (Lysbotten visible in the distance, 800m below);

Day 3 Continued...........




On the way up to the Kjeragbolten, the conditions changed rapidly several times, sometimes brilliant sunshine, sometimes wind and rain, sometimes visibility would drop to 10m. The path was marked by red symbols painted on rocks and were easy to find on the steeper bits as the path was logical anyway. As the terrain leveled out, it was more difficult. Large expanses of snow with bad visibility meant there was no obvious route.

There were very few people up there, in 1 1/2 hours I had only seen two groups coming the opposite way and nobody going my way. Then I ran into four well-equipped Norwegian guys who were panicking around a GPS unit and looked relieved to see somebody else. They said the path was impossible to find and I should turn back and return next year. Disappointed, I decided to rest a minute and think on it. After a short conference in their native tongue, the Norwegians (reluctantly, it seemed) left me alone, tracing my tracks in the snow to get back on the trail.

After a few minutes rest the mist cleared a little, a shaft of sunlight revealing a rocky outcrop around 100-150m away on the far side of an open snow-covered expanse. I decided I'd walk there and look for painted symbols, if no joy, i'd retrace my steps. Part ways across the field of snow mist descended and visibility dropped to, er, no idea as I could see nothing. I'd never climbed a mountain, had certainly never been in this situation before and was unprepared for how eerie a feeling it was to see nothing but white, 360 degrees around, up and down. After a tense few minutes of whiteout the mist cleared, revealing the rocky outcrop again. I stole my way across the snow field imagining scenes from various films in which mountaineers fell into crevasses, when I arrived at the rocks there was a familiar red symbol, present, so i was on track.

I employed the stop and wait technique across another two densely misted snow fields, but started thinking that I was pushing my luck a little. I hadn't seen anybody since the panicked Norwegians an hour earlier and I had long since used up the energy from the Tracker bar. I trudged across another snowy expanse and arrived at another symbol-ed rock. From here there was nothing to indicate which way to go. The only pieces of relevant information I had were that i'd been walking for 2 1/2 hours and according to my phone was at the correct altitude for the Kjeragbolten. I sat and waited to see if visibility would improve and could hear some distant panting. I couldn't determine which direction it was coming from, but it was getting slowly louder. After about 20 mins I saw a couple trudge into view. They said we were only about 300m away from the boulder, but they'd just been lost for two hours and had no idea where it was.

This latest piece of news was the final nail in the coffin, I was ravenous at this stage so set off back to the car park followed by the couple. I was disappointed to have missed what i had gone for, but i'd had a little adventure on the way. I got back to the car park 4 1/2 hours after setting off and was shattered; I laid down in the car park next to my bike for a bit, not letting the social norm of not lying down in car parks deter me from my rest.

I needed food badly so with helmet back on, headed down the excellent road into Lysebotn. Lysebotn is a small town at the end of a fjord that is primarily accessed by the ferries which sail into it 'regularly'. Presumably they ferries don't run in early June, because I fell foul of the out-of-season thing again. I couldn't find a single shop, restaurant, bar or hotel that was open for business. I saw a couple of vehicles parked outside houses, but apart from that, the place was a ghost town.

I went into what looked like a hotel which I noticed had several windows open. On entering the lobby I could feel that the heating was on but there was nobody inside. I went upstairs, down corridors, into rooms, through the kitchen and couldn't find a single sign of life, even the fruit in the fruitbowl was plastic. Weird. According to the sat nav the nearest, well, anything, was in Stavanger, about 2 hours west. I didn't want to go further west so I set off back to Dalen where i'd bought the rad weld the night before. This was an enjoyable ride, 2-3 hours going back up and over a couple of mountains.

Funny sign


Boring video, its just to show that it was pleasant when the weather was nice. This is heading down into Dalen.



In Dalen I couldn't find anything resembling a restaurant that was serving food, it seems Norway closes at around 8pm and it was now half past. I ended up buying a few slices of pizza-type cake things in a bar which were reduced to clear and very welcome.


When giving the bike a once over after eating, I noticed a couple of mechanical issues; the temp gauge had stopped working (probably from the rad weld repair the night before) and I had a weeping fork seal. The seals were new for the trip, but were 1500 miles old now and the pitted stanchions must have been causing a small leak. The damping was starting to feel a little soft as a result.



Winding on a little more damping and quick wipe with a rag allowed me to forget about that little issue;





With the bike 'repaired' again I found myself somewhere to stay, the immaculate Dalen B+B;


http://www.dalenbb.com/?lang=en

It was very nicely kept, but a tiny room with no TV cost me a cool ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EUROS!

Day 4, June 6th - Dalen, Norway to Sundsvall, Sweden

Near misses - 0
Mechanical issues - 0
Crashes - 0
Distance covered - 478 miles
Total distance - 2097 miles


I'd planned to see loads of sights in Norway and travel up to the arctic circle, but the changeable weather at this time of year and the terror that accompanied any financial transaction had put me off the place. The scenery was to die for, but once you've seen it, you've seen it.


I needed to be in St.Petersburg on the 9th of June (it was the 6th now) so I decided to head East towards Russia and try and dip into the arctic en route.

The breakfast at the B+B was Scandinavian, so plenty of bread, jam and chocolate spread. I needed to get the best out of my E130 so ate 2/3rds of a loaf of bread's worth of chocolate spread sandwiches, tinkered with the bike and set off.

This is more representative of Norweigan roads, this was taken climbing back out of the far side of Dalen. Looking at the 'nod' of the bike when changing gear, you can tell the front damping is going off a little;




The roads were as before for a bit, but got more level, foresty and Swedish as I headed East. I noticed a pick-up truck in front driving quickly so followed it, thinking any stray elks would get collected by the pick-up rather than by me. Drivers in Norway fit into two categories, folks sticking to the 50mph-ish limits rigidly and folks who go 80mph+ everywhere. This guy was the second type.
As he went straight on at a small roundabout, he made the left round the roundabout with a bit of a slide and then turned right by clipping the apex. Except he didn't clip it, there was a 3-4" drop onto the dirt off the edge of the road and he turned hard enough to lift the inside wheels over the dirt.


The reason i bought a bike camera for the trip was so I could have it filming constantly and then edit the footage down to some kind of time lapse thing, but it turned out the AA batteries in the camera lasted about four seconds, so i've only got a few crappy clips. I got a bit of footage of the pickup guy though. The following is condensed from about 20 minutes of footage.




You could smell the rubber anytime you got close to him, the tyre marks on the way into bends are mainly his


Nothing of particular note happened all day, once you're away from SE Norway the scenery is far less interesting although the roads are still pleasant.


Norwegian wood;






Anecdote 1;

Somewhere around the Norway-Sweden border, after riding through a forest for 100+ miles i needed fuel. There wasn't a lot of life in this area, but the sat nav told me there was a petrol station in 10 miles or so. When I got to what turned out to be a small village the promised petrol station was not present. There was a surfaced area where there could have once been one, but it wasn't there anymore.

The next petrol station on the sat nav was 20 miles further on and I didn't think I had the fuel to get there, so I asked an elderly woman who was using a log splitter in her garden where I could get petrol using my best Norwegian (pointing theatrically to petrol tank, whilst saying 'gas-ol-ine' and grinning like a moron). She said several things none of which I understood and walked off into her house. I wasn't sure if I had offended or scared her, or she had gone to get help, but as I had almost no fuel, I waited.

About 5 minutes later a bloke in his seventies, with mobility issues shuffled into view from behind the house. It took him perhaps a minute or so to cover the 30 yards to the front gate where I was sat, he was carrying a silver petrol can. He was saying lots of stuff I didn't understand but seemed keen to get the fuel into the tank so I opened the filler cap.

I gave him all of my Norwegian money (£6-7 worth) which he took ages to count. I assumed that this as because he was partially sighted, but later realised that I had probably crossed back into Sweden (without seeing any signage) and paid him in unfamiliar Norwegian coins! He seemed happy enough however, and I was on my way once again.

Considering the effort it took the guy to fetch the petrol it was a very generous act and one was that was greatly appreciated. However this kind act wouldn't hold a candle to the generosity of several parties I would meet in Russia some days later.


This was taken after i'd crossed back into Sweden;



Spooky evening mist, the air was starting to get chilly, ooooh!



I had made it East across Sweden to the Gulf of Bothnia by that evening and decided that that was enough for the day. I spotted a campsite sign on the main road so turned off to find it, aware of the fact that the last time I did this in Sweden I ended up rolling down into a ditch. I found the campsite (which appeared to be more like a caravan park), situated right on the coast and looked pleasant. Due to the northerly latitude and the fact I'd crossed a time zone on entering Sweden, it was much later than it felt. I found the campsite kiosk closed, there was a sign saying something to the effect of 'when closed, take a pitch and pay in the morning' so I set off into the site to achieve this.


Anecdote 2;

I prowled around the campsite trying to find the bit where folk had pitched tents, but could only find caravans. Most were static, all had big awnings and many had decking outside. There were a few non-static caravans, but it was clear it was a long time since these had moved. It then dawned on me that the caravans were probably the 'pitch' you rented for the night and all I had to do was find an empty one. This was good news as I could climb straight into bed instead of pitching the tent, brilliant.

Most of the static caravans did not have cars outside them, as it was an out of season weekday this made sense. Through the zipped-up awning of one of them I could see that the keys to the caravan were in the door. Excellent. I'd take this pitch and then settle up in the morning. I unzipped the awning and walked up to the caravan door thinking it was thoughtful of the campsite owners to supply flip-flops with the caravan (there was a pair about my size near the door). I opened the door and walked in (yes really) to hear a now very confused man waking from slumber. I apologized in english and backed out the door, closing it quietly in the hope he'd fall back asleep. He didn't and was shouting angrily in Swedish as I walked away. Slightly embarrassing and perhaps worthy of finding another campsite, but it was late and I am shameless so I pitched my tent and got some kip.


View from the beach on the edge of the campsite;





View from the beach looking back at the campsite, you can just see my bike and pitched tent if you squint;