[ST] Touring Norway

["Anderson, Neil G (China)" <andersng@xxxxxx>]

I know at least one other person on the list was planning a trip to Norway,
so I thought I'd give some brief notes about the trip we have just made.

I had a look for motorcycle touring sites before we went and I found these
two:

http://www.nordicbike.no/index.htm look at the picture of the Lysebotn
hairpin bends!
http://bma.buffnet.net/nor-tbl.html

These will give you ideas for routes if you're travelling independently.  We
had very little time to do Norway justice, as our schedule was as follows

Day 1 from Stockholm via Örebro and Arvika to Lillehammer - some motorway,
some pleasant country roads

Day 2 from Lillehammer to Andalsnes, then over the Trollstigen road to
Geiranger and on to Olden and Briksdal.  This passes Trollveggen, the
biggest vertical rock wall in Europe, with some climbs that I used to dream
of being able to do.  The road over the top to Geiranger has great hairpin
bends and a little ferry ride.  Geirangerfjord is very pretty and if you
have the nerve to ride up steep gravel hairpins to the Dalsnibba viewpoint,
you'll see fantastic views over the fjord.  We camped at Briksdal and walked
up to the glacier for a beer at sunset (nearly 11pm).

Day 3 from Briksdal to Utvik, towards Forde and over passes to Dragsvik for
the ferry to Vangsnes and the ride down to Voss.  You pass a couple of very
characteristic wooden stave churches on the way.  Just North of Voss we took
the E16 East for a few miles and found some amazing steep hairpin bends up
to a hotel perched on a cliff edge.

Day 4 from Voss to Ulvik, another pretty little winding pass road, then
along the shore of Hardangerfjorden to Bergen, as we had run out of time.

We picked up a useful free map from the tourist information centre at the
Swedish/Norwegian border which marked "scenic" roads.  Most of them turns
out to be fantastic for biking.  Even in late June there was not too much
traffic on the roads and most were biker-friendly; several times large
lorries moved over to let us pass and there were plenty of other motorbike
tourers there.

Weather - we took all the wet & cold weather gear that we normally take for
Scottish trips, but we were lucky enough not to need much of it.  The lake
at the bottom of the Dalsnibba road was still partly frozen and we past
plenty of snow patches on the high passes, but most of the time it was
pretty hot and the roads were dry.  Couldn't have been better!

Overall I'd highly recommend Norway for motorcycle touring.  Fjordland
Norway has a lot of smaller pass roads that would easily satisfy riders who
enjoy the Applecross pass in Scotland or the Dragon at Deal's Gap.  The only
drawback is cost - petrol is somewhat more expensive than the UK (about 9
Norwegian Kroner or 90 UK pence per litre, in US terms that would be $5.7
per US gallon) and beer is definitely more expensive (about 6 UK pounds per
half litre, or $38 per US gallon for the US readers!)  On larger roads,
watch your speed as police use laser and fines are very expensive (about 180
UK pounds for 10-15km/h over the limit).  Try to arrange any ferry trips
from the UK as returns on the same route, not one-way on one route and
one-way on another; the Bergen-Newcastle ferry seemed extremely expensive to
me, compared to UK-Germany/Denmark.  I also suggest taking tent and sleeping
bags if you want to save cost, as there are good camp sites.

Contact me off list if you want to ask any questions.

Neil

     *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
      The ST/RS Mailing list is sponsored by Jack Lilley Ltd.
          http://www.TriumphNet.com/st/lilley for more info
   http://www.TriumphNet.com/st for ST, RS and Mailing List info

=-=-=-= Next Message =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=