Speed, Coffee and Music

Speed 

With self induced pressure from a lot of kms to cover in a limited amount of time the question of speed and more accurately speed limits naturally popped into my mind especially as I’m expecting to encounter some wonderful open roads with good surfaces.

In Norway I found (on this site) that speed is a 4 letter word (it isn’t really 4 letters its actually 9 letters “Hastighet” which I really hope sounds like “Hasty get” because that would be perfect) what I mean is that if you speed even a little bit and you get caught you are f$%&#d. Fines start at about €80 for a small transgression (under +5kph)  and rise rapidly to the point of a €930 fine at +25kph. If you are being stupid or forgetful and go above that you will be looking at loosing your licence with a fine that will depend on your income, community service or a mandatory stay in prison. With knowledge that speed limits seem to be lower in Norway than other European countries this is all starting to weigh heavily on my mind as I have a tendency to “make good progress” when conditions permit.

I really don’t want to stay at her Norweigan Majestys pleasure (even if she does look like the princess in Kingsman) or get hit with a heavy fine so I’m going to have to think of ways to ensure that I don’t speed. The lack of ability to make progress coupled with long days in the saddle means I’m going to need Coffee, Music and some sort of speed warning thingy.

Coffee

A tip from my colleague Jake in Bardufoss which is repeated in the Rough Guide to Norway means that Coffee will not be a problem. If you go to a Circle K (formerly StatOil) or Shell Seven Eleven and buy one of their reusable cups for about 30 Euro you can go into any of their other stations along your journey and get a free refil for as long as you keep the cup. Apparently coffee is normally about €3 a cup so after 10 cups everything else is free - sounds almost too good to be true.

Music

My headset is a Sena 20S - it works off Bluetooth and is linked to my phone and my GPS so I should be able to work out how to get music from my phone into my ears. I’ve never needed this before as my wife used to keep me entertained as she chatted away about all sorts of stuff, making observations about the towns or countryside that we were travelling though and occasionally offering advice along the lines of watch out for that truck/car/old person or asking how long we had to go until the next stop. The question is how much space do I need to store enough music for over 100 hours of riding? I sort of found the answer here. I have 12Gb free on my phones external SD card so that is the same as 1.5x 8Gb and therefore enough for 111 hours of music - I think that will be enough .

Speed Warning Thingy

Turns out this is an easy one too as my Garmin Zumo 340LM GPS has a speed warning function that beeps when you exceed the speed limit. The beeping is either going to help keep me awake and to the correct speed or get turned off when it becomes too annoying….. only time will tell.