T minus 191

191 days to go.

The route is now plotted and I've managed to string together 13 of the 18 scenic routes - if everything goes according to plan its going to take 21 days. The thing that I have noticed is that while Norway seems to do a good job of selling itself, Sweden, and Finland don't seem to have a Tourist agenda to the same degree.

Norway brings its fjords and mountains, Finland has Lapland, Santa and a gazillion lakes but Sweden is a bit different it seems unremarkable geologically preferring to trade on some its more famous gifts to the world like Saab, Volvo, Ikea, "Smogasbord" and of course Abba.

Sweden and to a lesser extent Finland are the sleepers on this journey...I really don't know quite what to expect but that's all part of the adventure.

More videos

I found a new set of videos covering motorcycle touring in Norway. I like watching other peoples adventures so that I can pick up ideas of places to visit, campsites that look good and even how to do (or not do) videoing along the way. The latest set of videos I discovered is by Wildbad Touring
and published by Ricky Vida. It covers a group of bikers and their 2015 tour to Lofoton Islands in 19 episodes. I pretty much binge watched the whole series over the weekend and there are a few takeaways for me:

Weather - its going to be wet (probably very wet) at some point and most likely in the southern parts. In 2015, after enduring days of 35-40C in Spain the weather broke and I got soaked coming back through the Jura region of France to the extent that I had to stop to buy a fleece and a kagool to wear under my 15 year old Belstaff Jacket. Last year I got myself some Rukka gear (not the high end stuff but still pretty expensive), had some nice gloves for Christmas from my kids and have an old but warm and dry set of boots from Hein Gericke. Using Accuweather I had thought that temperatures in August/September in the north of Norway would average about 6C at night and 13C during the day, as an analogy thats about the same as the south of the UK in April. However Wildbad reminded me that its going to be much cooler up in the mountains and it could be cold camping at night. I think the lowest temperature they mentioned was 2C going over the Valdresflye and that was in the middle of July when central Europe would have been basking in about 30C. (they actually encountered 44C on the way through Netherlands and Germany!)

Breakdowns - I'd like to think that my old Pan which will have a service and some TLC and a couple of farkles before we go will be fine. One of the guys on a Suzuki V-Strom had leaky fork seals, a stripped suspension bolt, a failed rear bearing, clutch problems, worn out rear brake pads and contaminated front brake pads (from the fork oil). I was surprised at the rear pads because that's an easy one to check before you set off but it just goes to show that some things can be overlooked if you're not careful. The only thing that hit the Honda VFRs that the others rode were a couple of leaky fork seals and a bit of chain tensioning maintenance. Breakdown insurance seemed a bit hit and miss -  luckily the guy with the Vstrom had good insurance and with the excellent help of a some Norwegian Suzuki mechanics (wheel bearing) and an Marine Engineer (suspension bolt) managed to get back on the road quickly. It seems that the ones that come with the bike insurance are better - I have Green Flag that comes with my Insurance which I think uses the ADAC network in Europe but will need to check to ensure that I have the full package and not the basic version.

Camping - I might have covered this before but there are plenty of hytte - little wooden cabins and if it gets really wet and cold there are always Hotels/Motels. The Wildbad team seemed to just turn up on spec for the Hytte while booking ahead by email on the day for some of the Hotels. I think they did about 5-6 days tent camping which helped keep overall costs down. I'm doing this trip at the end of August into early September which is right at the end of the season so there should be plenty of room ....if they are still open. Food wise its a good job I like burgers, hot dogs and pizza because thats all that seems to be on offer.

Routing - Wildbad took a much more direct route through southern Norway, the only common elements with mine appear to be Odda,  Laerdal and then from Geiranger through to Lofoten, via Hell and Bodo. (It seems that all bikers go the Hell). Having watched their videos I've added a slight detour in my plans that will take me up to Andenes in Lofoten for some whale watching but there's a slight problem in that the ferry across to Gryllefjord only runs in the summer (until the end of August). I might need to do the whole thing anticlockwise just to be able to make this ferry. If the ferry is closed it will apparently add about an hour and 200km to the journey from Andenes to Bardufoss.

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