Another Norway report, maybe not

[RPN]

Great pictures! Brought back many happy memories. I travelled thru in 1989 and for an Australian, I couldn't believe a country existed with so many excellent roads, waterfalls and stunning scenery.

Thank you

[Viking]

I am amazed, the photos and the stories are great. I used to live in Stavanger before I immigrated to Canada and you describe the area very well.

Waiting for the rest/////

[IceR]

The big fun for us is the road to get there, but its also nice to se all the strange technical solutions to stay warm in the winter. But when you hear storys about "Well after Gällivare i got colder the last 400 km" and you know it was -30 when they took of, the you accept more of those constructions. Several years ago a XT600 owner from Kiruna rerouted the oil from the oilcooler inside the bars! Go there if you are in Norway next time!

Originally Posted by ThorH

Embarassed to say; only seen the pictures so far. Maybe when I come home again...

[arcticIndian]

If anyone is interested.. I have some pictures from motorcycle trips in Norway. I love to travel in Norway.. and not just because I'm norwegian.
There are lots and lots of roads to ride.. and lots of stuff to see. there's always something new after the next curve..

If you don't mind the indian.. there's a bit of norway in each of the photos.

Trip to Harstad (into the arctic circle) in 2003
http://home.online.no/~344chief/skogsl1.html
misc pictures..
http://home.online.no/~344chief/imag.../index001.html


Suleskar.. early spring 2005..the day after the Suleskar road was opened after the winter:
http://home.online.no/~344chief/gallery7.html


I have lots more pictures from the westcoast of norway .. but these are on borrowed space in a server in france (with a slow line)... but if someone wants to see them send me a pm..

[viatormundi]

I see great pictures have been added to my report.

Let's continue to our journey. After a wonderful breakfast we leave Trollbau and continue towards Andalsnes. Today's trip is 200km on the main route.



The alternative route is gravel and about 100km long. We as the gravel team (grusbusar in Swedish, translation to english would be gravelfreaks or something) decide to take this route of course.



Short after leaving we come across the glacier close to Styrn. It is possible to ski in the summer time



Lifts were open and we even thougt about renting skis and testing the slopes with our motorcycle gear and helmets. But we have a tight schedule and have to move on. A memory picture from the slopes.



Rest of the road had nice view with snow and it was quite chilly actually



The asphalt team is taking a break and you can see they are happy because we will see Trollstigen today.



But first we will drive on a road called Dalsnibba which takes us to a viewpoint facing Geiranger. It is a steep, curvey gravel road, perfect for GS.
There are many tourists up there and we also meet the Swedish Motorcycle Association group that has an off-road trip in Norway. Unfortunately the view is not great yet.



In half an hour, the view gets better



The view is breathtaking, and the fee we paid for the road was definitely worth it.





A memory picture of the grusbus team. My GS in the front, the bike performed very well with no problems during the trip. But one member of the team had a lot of problems with his GS and he got so angry that he sold it and bought a K1200S after the trip.



Time to move on, Thomas is very skilled with GPS and finds new gravel roads. This road takes us to a farm and ends there. We need to turn back. Lars and Thomas are discussing which route to take.



We arrive to Storfjord and have lunch while we are waiting for the ferry. We meet a solo rider from Sweden. Lars Olof is trying to convince Lars Eve to buy a GS and actually Lars Eve does that after this trip. He has an R80GS. Right choice because Lars Eve has GS riding skills in his genes.



To be continued, next stop is Trollstigen

[viatormundi]

After the ferry we reach the most known road in Norway. I have to say that this road is an engineering master work. It is actually not so much fun to drive on it because there are too many tourist buses on it and they have quite bad turning radius. (Still better than my KTM ) Especially when it rains, it can be tricky to drive here but the view is absolutey fantastic.





After driving down, we all felt like drivig back up again and driving down again. It was a nice experience actually. But we need to arrive to the hostel in Andalsnes in good time, we don't like missing our reguar after ride beer session. The hostel we stayed was quite cozy and nice. But the bad news was that they don't serve alcohol. Thure saved the day and drove to vinmonopolet (in Sweden and Norway, alcohol is sold by governmental controlled shops, since they are governmental controlled, these shops have not so flexible opening hours I can write a book about this weird set up but this is not the right place ) Anyway, Thure drove with his LT to vinmonopolet, filled the topcase with beer and came back. He was the hero of the day. All that beer vanished so fast and I couldn't take a picture of it.



After dinner, we find a local bar and get more beer

Cheers everybody





Tomorrow, we will be in Trondheim.

to be continued....

[viatormundi]

Today's route is about 300km and the final destination is Trondheim.



After a short ride, we load our bikes to a ferry again. What do you think about the extra pegs on the RT?



We will be driving on the Atlantic road (Atlantahavsvägen). This road is very special actually. It connects multiple small islands to the mainland. It is about 100km long and has 8 bridges. The design had to be specific and during the construction workers had rought time because of very harsh weather conditions. The islands connected through this road have a small population of fisher families.

Unfortunately, it was raining and very foggy when we rode on this road. The only rainy day of the trip actually. Therefore, we couldn't take some pictures but I put some pictures which I found on the internet.







I read that the road is closed sometimes in the winter because of strong winds.





Next stop is the beautiful Torndheim.

to be continued....

[Torparen]

Originally Posted by viatormundi

We arrive to Storfjord and have lunch while we are waiting for the ferry. We meet a solo rider from Sweden. Lars Olof is trying to convince Lars Eve to buy a GS and actually Lars Eve does that after this trip. He has an R80GS. Right choice because Lars Eve has GS riding skills in his genes.



To be continued, next stop is Trollstigen

As usual Viatormundi is wery generous with his complements, my genes are unfortunally not quite as competent on gravel as the gentleman says. However he is quite correct in his statement that I´m nowadays are travelling around on a R80GS, (sometimes a man has to surrender to the greater logic...). And I must confess, the GS are unbeatable in luggage-capacity, (something I believe that Viatormundi never has tried ).

I´m planting a picture of my gs (wich you haven´t seen yet), and look forward too the rest of the Norwaystory. You are truly a great storyteller and I´m already looking forward too my next tripp to Norway in late July. ( That will be my third Norway-tripp in the same amount of years, so that speaks for it self. Atleast one tripp to Norway each year is a "must".)




By the way, to all of you out there.. If you ever get a chance of travelling in the same company as Viatormundi, you should definatly seece the opportunity of doing so. He´s a great chap to have around!
And to you Viatormundi: I hope to cross roads (or paths), with you again some day.
Bon voyagé mon ami.

[DesertRat]

Great pictures of Preikestolen rock! My complements to the photoshop wizard that removed all the guard rails, barricades, warning signs, and rabid park rangers. Wouldn't it be great if something like that really existed in its natural state?

Mike

[viatormundi]

Originally Posted by DesertRat

Great pictures of Preikestolen rock! My complements to the photoshop wizard that removed all the guard rails, barricades, warning signs, and rabid park rangers. Wouldn't it be great if something like that really existed in its natural state?

Mike

The photos of Preikestolen are not photoshoped. It is in it's natural state, therefore very scary to approach the edge of the rock. But I agree with you, I have seen some other beautiful places and for some stupid security reasons they look like landing zones on a airplane carrier. Such a shame..

[DesertRat]

Originally Posted by viatormundi

The photos of Preikestolen are not photoshoped.

I know. It was just refreshing to see a place like that!

Mike

[viatormundi]

Originally Posted by DesertRat

I know. It was just refreshing to see a place like that!

Mike

Sorry, I misunderstood you. Peace

[viatormundi]

Originally Posted by Torparen

As usual Viatormundi is wery generous with his complements, my genes are unfortunally not quite as competent on gravel as the gentleman says. However he is quite correct in his statement that I´m nowadays are travelling around on a R80GS, (sometimes a man has to surrender to the greater logic...). And I must confess, the GS are unbeatable in luggage-capacity, (something I believe that Viatormundi never has tried ).

Dear torparen, maybe I am generous with my complements, must have to do something with my turkish genes But you have also the typical swedish modesty here. You handled that K75 very good on gravel roads, respect! You are right, I don't like too much luggage and piss off sometimes other drivers with my small luggage solutions but as you know every gram counts.

I´m planting a picture of my gs (wich you haven´t seen yet), and look forward too the rest of the Norwaystory. You are truly a great storyteller and I´m already looking forward too my next tripp to Norway in late July. ( That will be my third Norway-tripp in the same amount of years, so that speaks for it self. Atleast one tripp to Norway each year is a "must".)

That's a great looking GS. I see you picked again a red bike, the fastest version I agree, Norway is a must. Although it is little expensive and their food is not great, the nature and those amazing roads make that place a motorcycle mekka.

By the way, to all of you out there.. If you ever get a chance of travelling in the same company as Viatormundi, you should definatly seece the opportunity of doing so. He´s a great chap to have around!
And to you Viatormundi: I hope to cross roads (or paths), with you again some day.
Bon voyagé mon ami.

Thx mate, the pleasure is mine. I look forward to see you soon but it looks like I won't be able to join you in Norway this July since I have some other plans. A long trip is planned or in planning phase. First to the Alps then to Spain, to meet my princess then a long trip to Turkey, traveling in the eastern part of that magnificent country and then I don't know maybe further to east. I am preparing the beast and asking for suggestion in the forum http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211402 .

[viatormundi]

Finally I have some time to finish my report. After a rainy ride on Atlantic road we continued towards Trondheim. This day was our only rainy day in Norway, we got some real rain when we were crossing the border between Norway and Sweden couple of days later. The hostel in Trondheim wasn't so impressive actualy, I wouldn't recommend it.



I really liked Trondheim. It is a cute city located on the delta of Nidelva river. Buildings in the city have a nice architecture. I can imagine that the city gets quite cold and dark in the winter time. After leaving our luggage to the hostel, we start to walk on the streets of Trondheim.



These buildings next to the river are impressive!



Some members of the team start to show early signs of a strong need of afterdrive beer Swedish people are famous with their consensus and sometimes long (according to southern european people at least) decision making process but when they are looking for drinks this process can be surprisingly short
From Bertil's smile you can understand that he has a plan already.



He found this nice spot for some afterdrive beer, not bad actually.



A swedish invasion of a norwegian island



After couple of beers, we feel even better! But beer is expensive, around 7-8 euros for a large glass

I found the cathedral impressive for Nordic standards.





Don't ask me how that fellow got those flowers? He is quite high up at the building



Time to go to our hostel and have dinner.

[viatormundi]

Thomas wasn't so sure about alternative route's condition. The total ride is about 270km and 150km of that is alternative route, most probably gravel. Grusbus (gravelfreaks) team is excited about this situation. Our final destination today is called Grong, a small town with good reputation. This town is a magnet for hard core salmon fishers. Apparently large I mean really large salmons can be cought here.

Our route today was like this



And a detailed view of the alternative route



Let me introduce you the girlpower team



After the ferry we drive about 50km all together and then the alternative route starts. It was great fun, full of gravel riding. Thomas is really a master of GPS and finds some cool roads outside of the alternative route. While driving on those soft gravel roads I realize that the 19' front wheel of my GS is not so optimal or I am not so experienced to drive on gravel roads and get the feeling that the front part of the bike wobbles. Most probably the second explanation is more true then the first but now I have a bike with 21' front wheel and it makes a difference on loose gravel actually.
The surface is wet and slippery, and causes a small accident. While we are driving on a wide gravel road Thomas finds a smaller and steeper road covered with some gras. We all follow him but the last driver comes little too fast and can't stop in time. He takes the left side case of Lars Eve's K75 as a souvenier In the background you can see the repair team in action. God bless the inventor of duck tape



The rest of the road was quite steep actually



We had to push some bikes. While we are wrestling with our heavy GS, the asphalt team is driving. Well even the asphalt road has quite some gravel on it.



Then we come across to a fully automated road toll machine Most of these gravel roads are maintained by the farmer who owns the land and to be honest they do a great job. They kindly ask travellers to pay a reasonable fee. It is based on trust, there is nobody controlling you actually. We fill our forms, put our fee into a box and drive on a nice gravel road. I wonder if this system would work in some other countries at all ???



While we are sweating on gravel roads, the asphalt team is enjoying amazing view and sunshine.





I guess Britt is wondering if she should buy some piece of land here and build a nice house facing this view.



Meanwhile, the gravelfreaks team is happy. We drove almost the whole day on gravel roads. It was dusty but super fun. Thomas seems to be very happy



And we arrive to Grong, as I mentioned this place is very famous with its big salmons. I did some research, the biggest salmon recorded was catched in 2000 and it weighed 20.8 kg. The cute couple in the picture caught it. A salmon enough for whole family for a long time



We are not interested in salmons so much and it isn't the season neither. We stay at this nice hotel. It had many beautiful and old pictures about salmon fishing in the region.



Another great day has passed, tomorrow we will drive towards Swedish border. I will test my limits offroad and will have to teach a 200kg heavy GS skiing on snow