Dreaming of a motorcycle trip to distant climes? This section will help you to plan your trip, whether it's to the next state, country or all the way around the world! Start here!
The Achievable Dream 5-part series - the definitive video guide for planning your motorcycle adventure. Get Ready! covers planning, paperwork, medical and many other topics! "Inspirational and Awesome!" See the trailer here!
You could just get on a plane with your credit card and passport and buy or rent everything you need when you get there. That includes the bike, riding gear, etc. etc.
Gear Up! is a 2-DVD set, 6 hours! Which bike is right for me? How do I prepare the bike? What stuff do I need - riding gear, clothing, camping gear, first aid kit, tires, maps and GPS? What don't I need? How do I pack it all in? Lots of opinions from over 150 travellers! "will save you a fortune!"See the trailer here!
So you've done it - got inspired, planned your trip, packed your stuff and you're on the road! This section is about staying healthy, happy and secure on your motorcycle adventure. And crossing borders, war zones or oceans!
On the Road! is 5.5 hours of the tips and advice you need to cross borders, break down language barriers, overcome culture shock, ship the bike and deal with breakdowns and emergencies."Just makes me want to pack up and go!" See the trailer here!
Tire Changing!Grant demystifies the black art of Tire Changing and Repair to help you STAY on the road! "Very informative and practical." See the trailer here!
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Ladies on the Loose! For the first time ever, a motorcycle travel DVD made for women, by women! These intrepid women share their tips to help you plan your own motorcycle adventure. They also answer the women-only questions, and entertain you with amazing tales from the road! Presented by Lois Pryce, veteran solo traveller through South America and Africa and author of 'Lois on the Loose', and 'Red Tape and White Knuckles.'
"It has me all fired up to go out on my own adventure!" See the trailer here!
Meet people who don't think you're crazy for wanting to ride your bike to South America or across Asia! They will encourage you, share their experiences and advice on how to do it!
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Catching a breather in the middle of the Norwegian wilderness
We are running a very fast pace with Daniel and Sara! Much faster than we are used to. Before we met them it was like we were walking beside a railroad and now it's like we've grabbed onto the back of a fast moving train as it whizzes past us!
More Icelandic-style scenery
I have a million pictures from this ride, so difficult to pick just a few for the blog
There are hundreds of these tiny lakes, the rain and the meltwater trapped in the wells of rocky terrain in Southern Norway
Would have been nice to link up all our comunicators, but since we're all using different brands, every now and then we stop to have a face-to-face "conference call" to figure out where to go next. Well, at least those guys do, I'm just the staff photographer...
Lysebotn Harbour
There's a tourist restaurant at the top of Lysebotn Harbour. We went in to warm up and to see how expensive the food was. Holy crap. €6 for a coffee. That's $10 CDN. Holy crap. We left feeling very poor. On the way out we met some Swedish tourists and we all commiserated about how expensive Norway was. Okay, if the Swedish feel poor as well, then I don't feel so bad. $10 for a coffee. Holy crap!
Lysevegen Road leading down to Lysebotn Harbour. This is going to be fun!
Lysevegen Road: In just 8.9 short kms, you've got 32 hairpins and a vertical drop of 840m! Yeah, baby!!!
Yeah, the Count is a bit wrong because we had already done a few switchbacks before I thought to myself, "Hey... this would make a really cool video..." Love our Sena Prism camera, it makes shooting on the fly so simple!
I found an aerial view shot of the Lysevegen road on the Internet! This is what it looks like from the sky!
Remember the "Carpal" Tunnel? It's that huge drop where you don't see any hairpins because they're hidden underground. It doesn't look like it in the video, but it was friggin' steep! We were basically engine braking the whole way down.
Man, if the rest of Norway is going to be this awesome, I'm gonna explode!!!
At Lysebotn Harbour, we have to decide whether to ride for a couple more hours to our intended destination for the night or to camp out here. Although the riding days are long and we are in no danger of running out of daylight, the clouds are getting very dark and threatening rain, and because we've already ridden many hours, we decide to stay here overnight and then do a short run tomorrow.
Then we see the campsite and we know we're making the right decision. Nice!
The rain is imminent now and it's a mad dash to get the tents up just as the first drops of rain are falling on our heads. Then it's time to reward ourselves with a hot meal!
Isn't it good? Norwegian food.
Actually, not Norwegian food. It's food that we've brought in from Sweden. One great benefit of traveling with other people is that you can pool your food and camping recipes together to try new stuff! We dragged a picnic table under the awning of the washroom building at the campsite and had ourselves a feast! Livin' La Vida Hobo!
World-class view at Lysebotn Harbour. Shame it's so rainy here.
It rains 2 out of 3 days in Lysebotn at this time of year, so the weather is not too unexpected. This whole area of Western Norway gets a lot of precipitation because the warm air from the North Sea hits the steep mountains of the fjordlands and as it is forced upwards, it cools, releasing all of its moisture as rainfall. Brekke, a few hours north of here gets 3500mm of rain a year. Three and a half meters of rain! That's almost 10 cms of rain a day. Crazy!
Peering out the tent in the morning to see if it's going to be a good riding day or not
One nice side effect of all this precipitation is that there are waterfalls everywhere on the high cliff walls of the Lysefjorden. This large one just outside our tent provided a nice white-noise effect that lulled us to sleep last night.
Drinking water is the cheapest thing we could find in Norway
Trying to find patches of sun in the dark skies above us
With the clouds slowly dissipating, we try to get our tents as dry as possible before packing them in. No success at all. It's such a gross feeling packing a wet tent away. It's like putting on wet underwear. Ugh.
Got our wet underwear packed and ready to head out for the day! Bye Lysebotn!
Back on the Canadian Express through Southern Norway! Choo choo!
With all the rain here, everything that can cling to the rocky terrain is so lush and green
We're hanging onto the back of Sara and Daniel's convoy by our fingernails. We can't keep up at with the pace that they're running, so we just let them go ahead and we'll meet them later on in the campsite. This allows us to dawdle at our own pace, and lets me stop and take some pictures too.
Rains create so many waterfalls along the steep cliffs around us. Very pretty, but it'd be nice to have some dry weather
It just keeps on raining without any break, the water bouncing off my tank bag and coming up underneath my helmet. I think my left boot is developing a leak, the tip of my sock feels a bit wet, but I'm not sure if it's just cold or damp. This is not the time to have our waterproof gear fail on us!
Ugh, so much rain!
It occurred to me that for the last two years of our trip we have been followed by rains. But this time it's different. It feels as if we've followed the RideDOT.com rains back to their home and we're on its turf right now. Ugh.
Ah, the home stretch. We catch the ferry from Lauvvik and it should let us off close to our campsite
Guess who we run into on the ferry? Sara and Daniel! We caught up to them!
Thankfully the ferry staff let us park under this awning. It is *so* wet!
I walked around the ferry as it took us across to the other side of Lysebotn Harbour while Neda paid the ferryman (before he got us to the other side!) They're very organized, walking around to all the vehicles with their wireless credit-card machines, collecting everyone's payment in the short hop from Lauvvik to Oanes.
The toes of my left foot squished in a tiny pool at the tip of my no-so-waterproof-anymore boot. Gross.
Just another half-hour of rain till we reach our campsite
We all pull into the Preikestolen Campsite in the pouring rain. All we want to do is get warm and dry, so we pile inside the camping lodge watching the waterworks outside. My left sock has completely wicked up the water inside the boot and is completely soaked up to my calf and the boot is waterlogged. Ugh. Now we're just waiting, trying to find a small window of time when the rain lets up a little bit to put up our tents, which are also completely soaked in our "dry" bags. Ugh. Camping in the rain sucks.
I hate when people read over my shoulder when I'm blogging.
We've been getting to know Sara and Dan a little bit more over the last few days. Sara is the documenter for their trip, and everytime we find wifi, the two of us are banging out blog entries while Dan and Neda engage in camping gear comparisons/competitions (Isn't it good? Norwegian feud).
I'm a night owl and I'm discovering that Sara is as well. Many times, I'll do my final 2AM run to the washroom before crawling into our tent and I'll see that their tent is softly illuminated from within by laptop light.
We have to eat outside because we're not allowed to bring our own food in the lodge and everything on the menu is too expensive for us
Why is Norway so expensive? They were actually a very poor country - about 750,000 Norwegians emigrated to the US and Canada from 1825 to 1925 to escape famine, war and poverty. Then they discovered oil in 1969 and have been inflicting famine, economic warfare and poverty onto tourists ever since.
Sara and Neda on the way to Pulpit Rock
Neda, Sara and Daniel do some hiking! Without me! YAY!!!!
One of Norway's most famous sights is Preikestolen, otherwise known as Pulpit Rock. It's a 25x25 metre square outcropping of rock high above the waters of the Lysefjorden and the straight drop is completely unhindered by any railing or safety precaution.
The Pulpit Rock is about a two-hour hike from our campsite. Since I'm suffering from bad allergies (and I hate hiking), I beg off this walk, and I'm so glad Sara and Daniel are hikers so they can keep Neda company.
People do all sorts of crazy things for a picture at Pulpit Rock, but surprisingly,
there has only been one confirmed accidental death here. Lots of suicides though...
About a quarter million people tourists make the trek to Preikestolen annually. It's also a popular place to do BASE jumping.
Neda the Brave, dangling her legs over 600 meters above the waters of Lysefjorden
Back at camp, we're drying everything out as soon as there is a little bit of sun
Neda's panniers are leaking really badly, just like my left boot, so when the sun comes out, we spread out all of our belongings on the grass around our tent to try to dry them out. Redneck Yard Sale.
We escape Norwegian poverty by eating food smuggled in from Sweden. Thank you, Abba!
Abba, other than being a 70s pop group, is also a brand of canned seafood that we picked up while doing cheap grocery shopping in Sweden. We have developed a liking to salted herring, so our favorite lunchtime meal is herring sandwich. Yum! Other than campsite fees and gas, I don't think we've spent any money in Norway. Can't afford it...
Money, money, money, must be funny, in a rich man's world.
We putter around the Preikestolen Campsite, taking our time before leaving. I like that the days are so long up north that we can wake up and start riding anytime we want - which is late! Daniel and Sara are early birds and have left while we are eating breakfast, we'll catch up to them at the next campsite.
First ferry of the day. Get the wallet out, Neda!
The day starts off without rain, so we're very optimistic that we'll get a chance to experience the fabled Norwegian summer that's on all the travel web sites and brochures. You know, the ones that feature all those green-covered fjords towering over impossibly clear blue skies?
We start heading north
There's a route that travels right along the western coastline of Norway through Stavanger. But going that way requires a very long and expensive ferry to get to the next fjord north, so we opt for the inland route instead. Our chosen road curves around a myriad of inlets and lakes. Nice. And very scenic as well!
If you like riding past water, you'll like the west coast of Norway!
If you like riding through tunnels, you'll like the west coast of Norway!
Riding carefully, lest I wake up the troll underneath this bridge
Traditionally, Norwegian trolls live in rocks, mountains and caves. Later on, they were associated with landmarks and I think it was the Three Billy Goats Gruff fairytale that was the first account of a troll living underneath a bridge.
When the road rises high enough, you get spectacular views of the inlets below
Roadside flowers bloom in the middle of a Norwegian summer
A fjord is created when glaciers extend to below sea level. The deep grooves they carve into the bedrock underneath are exposed when the glaciers recede and are then filled with seawater creating inlets, channels and fjords. Pretty cool that all of these geological features we're riding around were created during the last ice age 10,000 years ago!
We roll into the campsite at Kinsarvik in the late evening and the sun is still hanging high in the sky. I love traveling in the north!
Our neighbour Dan sizes up Neda's cooking gear and is deciding whether to start another camping gear comparison showdown or not...
Sara and Daniel have planned a pretty long riding day tomorrow and we've got a different schedule so I think this may be our last evening with them. It's been nice having company for a while and I'm sure we'll run into each other somewhere, sometime! The world seems so small when you're riding around it on a motorcycle!
Raining when we visit Borgund
Well, the good weather lasted all of one day. The rain is back in the morning and the air is cold with mist hugging the sides of the mountains. We ride to our first site of the day, the Borgund Stave church but it's too wet to walk around, so we duck into the visitor's centre to wait out the rain.
Stealing free wifi
The wifi may have been free, but the staff at the visitor's centre were giving us the stinkeye because we had occupied a table for over an hour without buying anything. So we bought some really expensive cake from them. Too ashamed to say how much we paid... Ouch. Norway is expensive!
During a break in the rain, we literally ran out to see the church
Stave churches are built in the middle ages and are made entirely of... Norwegian wood. Isn't it... no, too easy. There used to be a lot of them built all over north-west Europe but today, most of the surviving Stave churches are only in Norway. The Borgund Stave Church was built in the late 1100s and is the most well preserved and authentic stave church.
Have YOU ever wondered who has ridden around the world? We did too - and now here's thelist of Circumnavigators!
Check it out now, and add your information if we didn't find you.
Check the RAW segments; Grant, your HU host is on every month!
Episodes below to listen to while you, err, pretend to do something or other...
2020 Edition of Chris Scott's Adventure Motorcycling Handbook.
"Ultimate global guide for red-blooded bikers planning overseas exploration. Covers choice & preparation of best bike, shipping overseas, baggage design, riding techniques, travel health, visas, documentation, safety and useful addresses." Recommended. (Grant)
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Led by special operations veterans, Stanford Medicine affiliated physicians, paramedics and other travel experts, Ripcord is perfect for adventure seekers, climbers, skiers, sports enthusiasts, hunters, international travelers, humanitarian efforts, expeditions and more.
Ripcord travel protection is now available for ALL nationalities, and travel is covered on motorcycles of all sizes!
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Horizons Unlimited is not a big multi-national company, just two people who love motorcycle travel and have grown what started as a hobby in 1997 into a full time job (usually 8-10 hours per day and 7 days a week) and a labour of love. To keep it going and a roof over our heads, we run events all over the world with the help of volunteers; we sell inspirational and informative DVDs; we have a few selected advertisers; and we make a small amount from memberships.
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