Category: Blog

After an evening with a beautiful view and meeting new people at a small campsite just a view kilometres back down the road from my visit to the glacier it was time to continue the trip.
I was already some kilometres in the trip for this day and i was happy i did.
The people at the glacier site could be counted on one hand and the campsite i ended up was just a stunning place.

That was in the evening when it was nice and sunny but today it’s a bit grey and rain is forecasted, just hope it stays away as long as possible.
Remember the tip form the Dutch lady at the fist campsite? Not long after i started this day on the twisty 15 in a 180 left turn i saw a road sign with the number 285… wait a minute, that was the road!
On the left side was a place i could stop to check it out.
It was the number i was told and it was going east where my route was going north-west but it ended on a main road leading back to my route.
I also am ahead so no reason to make a little detour let me missing out on a possible epic road.

This is exactly why i don’t want to plan too tight and have a route only as a baseline.
Off course it has to be a nice route because without these kind of tips it will be the one to follow when you have a limited time frame.
But it turned out to be the road i saw pictures of and could not find. This is also a benefit of travelling alone because that conversation probably would not have gone like it went now.

The road went to some kind of gravel but it was very compacted almost like concrete, i was “warned” for that only it was just what i wanted so it was a bonus.
Now it’s back to the 15 but not long after i left the 15 to chase the 285 my route would take a left turn onto the 63 but i only have to backtrack the 15 for about 12km.
Next on the list is Geiranger.

That’s why i wanted to start my trip with the Michelin Anakee Wild, i knew they will also do very well on the paved twisties and in the wet too.
Down at the harbour i had a lunch and when i was ready to continue it started to rain like it was forcasted. Shame but i think with the reputation of the Norwegian weather i think i’m lucky i had done most of the fjords in dry and even sunny conditions.

Still one big name to go, Trollstigen.
This conditions remind me to last year on the Transfagarasan, light rain after some heavier rain and just over the top starting to dry up again.
Luckily i’m cautious in rain but not nervous so i still can enjoy the riding in these conditions.
In the video you have to do with the handlebar cam because it didn’t fall down very hard but the spray still made the helmet cam useless.

Still have a two and a halve hour ride to the Storseisundbrua on the Atlantic highway but that was not as spectacular as the pictures show.
It was a bit of a disappointment and there will be a few more this trip, the weather is a big reason for them all and that’s just fine.
People nowadays can’t handle disappointments very well any more but they are very important because how can you appreciate good things when there are no bad things?

“Plan” (end of the section) was a campsite in Dalen gård near Kristiansund (no not Kristiansand where i started in Norway) but i didn’t felt like stopping yet.
At the point i said to myself i will stop in about halve an hour i saw a place with descent priced cabins but i set my mind on wild camping.
Also spotted some possibilities for that but wanted to go one just a little bit…. big mistake.
Just after passing the last options the scenery changed drastic and flat spots to pitch a tent disappeared.
All was rocky with moss or just rough with maybe some flat spots hidden under very high grass.
About an hour after planning to stop i would settle with a campsite or any other place to spend the night like i passed the whole trip maybe every hour but this was a some dead spot i guess. Probably no strangers go there so no B&B’s needed because Maps.me, Booking.com and iOverlander also had no options for me.

Two hours after i wanted to stop i finally found a nice spot.
Now i could set up camp and have a bite to eat with a beer with a lakeside view.

Later this week i will make a little post with the video i shot at this camp, it was the ending of the day but i also wanted to give a bit of inside view about how i camp.
It was a bit awkward to cut it up but too long to add to the video for this episode.

https://youtu.be/-4g4dIXxueU

No long story this weekend and here’s why.
Last weekend i had a great weekend at Discover Overland, didn’t took much pictures and only a few short clips filmed with the phone but when i have a little time i tell you all about it.

This weekend is also fully booked so also no time to do some editing.
Friday evening after work i have to go to a traffic control deployment, Saturday i go to the north of the country because we (the VFR club) finally found somebody to take over my “job” as the event coordinator and we start the transfer.
I stop at the end of the year and we finish the rest of the year together to give him the best start i can unlike how i got into this function.

Sunday it’s also for the VFROC because we have the seventh tour out of nine, also up north (even further) so i booked a B&B to safe myself over 600km and a short night.
Of course i have to get back after the ride leaving me no time for a blog.

Also took a quick glance at the “critical skills” list for South Africa and there is some official language i have to figure out the proper meaning but there seem to be options.
If i’m correct i have to find a job with a function that’s on the list and then i can proof i have work that should allow me a work permit.
Shouldn’t be that hard otherwise the skill wouldn’t be critical according to my logic.
The challenge ahead of me is to get things my way giving me 4 to 5 months to ride down there and also find that job in a region i like to live.
I keep you updated because there is more i want to explore to get as close to my initial plans as possible.

I didn’t made it to get it finished this weekend and it where some long evenings to get it ready after all.
Saturday a wrench and meet day from the VFR forum and Sunday i helped a forum member with replacing the steering bearings. This week i’m off from work and finally have my garage floor fixed and it took a lot longer than expected due to bad work from the previous owners. I knew the floor was bad but it was mostly because of taking shortcuts on time and materials but back to the trip.

After stranding for the third time at a ferry i called it a night and in this episode i continued with a ferry crossing.
It turned out to be still running the night before but it looked shut down and it was with big intervals so waiting took too long anyway so no bad feeling.
Had a great view and useful information when i sat down with a beer.

Not a bad start to finish the previous day.

As you can see the weather is again very nice, sunny but not too warm and just a perfect riding combo.
On the other side of Josenfjord i followed the lake/fjord and then some nice twisty roads north.
The next water could be crossed by a bridge and there was a museum where you could see the main feature for free, a sawmill but it was taken down for restoration.

Continuing east along the Suldalsvatnet, a 376 meter deep lake at 68 meter above sea level and where i would go north again is where the section from the previous day should have ended.

Even the main roads are great but they have a lot of tunnels and sometimes the old roads are still open and i did choose a few of the old roads to avoid some tunnels.
Skipping the tunnel on the E134 via the Røldalsfjellet was maybe the biggest surprise of the trip. When i took the turn i expected getting myself in trouble somehow but i ended up taking my favourite picture this trip which i showed you already on the first preview and i used it as the banner of the site plus i had a canvas made for in the living room.
It’s here in two places so no need to post it again, many more nice pictures to come like the Låtefossen.

At this waterfall i met a Polish biker on a GS who’s name i forgot, the same guy was at the same hostel i ended up in Helsinki. How are those odds?
Next was a little serpentine called Myrkdalen, the rest of the pictures i add at the end in a gallery.

Then i went to Trolltunga but it was what i was afraid of, you had to park and hike up there.
I was hoping a bike could get a bit closer. At least the road up was free for bikes whereas cars need to pay toll.
Not the worst ride so not a complete loss but i don’t want to change in the car park and leave my gear there.
Another great pass was Gaularfjellet which reminds me a bit of the Transfagarasan in Romania seen from above.
Before i got there i came across funny situation, i thought the Dutch went crazy with roundabouts but in Norway you have them in a tunnel. I captured one on video and put it in.

This day i came to the end of the section but i didn’t feel like stopping and started the next section.
It was not a very big part i did but glad i did.
I went on to the Gjenndalsbreen glacier, you had to pay to go there but there was no one there any more to collect the money and the instructions for that situation was unclear so i gambled and kept going. I just wanted to take a picture and not hike the last bit.
On the way up i was thinking about pitching my tent there but better not, i passed a few campsites and went back down to see if one of them had a place for me.
There was one smaller site and that was my first choice. Lucky me, there was place enough and what a view!

And then there is off course the video…

https://youtu.be/vNwOkNmqWAQ

I mentioned my plans or at least wishes for the future and that i like to move to South Africa but i wanted to do the ScanBaltic trip fist before staring anything with this idea.
This weekend i don;t have time to do a new video for the ScanBatic series so i thought it is a good moment to tell a bit about this.

That picture was taken in 2017 when i was on a trip from Johannesburg to Cape town in three weeks at a place called “Gods window”.
This was just one of many beautiful places and i missed the bike sometime but even without i enjoyed every second of it.
Let’s go back almost 2 decades when i met my last girlfriend.
My parent where poor and had no ambitions and because of that i did not grew up with holidays abroad and even very little within the Dutch boundaries. I can vaguely remember a campsite less than 30km from our house and many weekend to “beppe”, the Frisian word for grandmother. I never knew paake, Frisian for grandfather from my mothers side.
From that i learned that vacations are a waste of money and at some point i became a long distance truck driver and did see a bit from Europe after all and got paid for it too.

In 2004 i met my now ex and in 2005 we went on my first real holiday, my first flight on an air plane to Gran Canaria with friends of ours and the year after to Tenerife.
I discovered i liked travelling and seeing new places and she seemed to enjoy it different than before, more i think because we came to the point that we went multiple times per year and planning the next one even before we went on the one before.
In 2013 we discovered fly and drive vacations that was the way to go, more freedom and more unique places to go to.
My ex was not real adventurous but wanted very much to go to Africa and i guess that my attitude on the vacations and in different situations gave her the trust to take on an adventure. I seem to blend in very easy and come across like i just belong there and i don’t have any form of panic when things don’t go as planned. Just asses the situation and look for a solution… Improvise, adapt and overcome is in my DNA i think but i don;t know where it came from because it’s complete opposite to my parents.
Normally we went for 5, 8 or 10 days but that was of course way to short for Africa and that made it our longest trip of 22 days .
I do want to see more of the world but i keep thinking back to South Africa.

I had 2 bucket list trip i wanted to do some time and in 2018 over diner with friends, the same we went on vacation in 2005 it came to the conversation. Then with their just born first kid and now with their 2 teenage boys and they said that i should do one of the trips before i am too old for trips like that and my girlfriend could go wit them on vacation.
I was away on day trips and weekends a lot and go on complete vacations separate is not what you do quit easily but we agreed and because we already had plans for 2019 it should go o in 2020.

In 2020 however came an end to our relationship from just over 16 years, that was in March and in September i had the trip planned.
That story you also can read in my blog series about the Bucketlist trip Corona edition so i don’t go in to that again.
We went apart as good friends and we speak each other often and also still do things together with our friends.
Better look at things in a positive way and when a door closes there are many doors to choose from to enter and i entered the motorcycle travel door.
I went on with the first trip but due to corona it was not one of the bucketlist trips, that list grew by the way when planning alternatives in 2020.

`When looking for places to go i also was thinking about Africa.
After separating with my ex i had some money in my savings account to rebuild my life and after getting everything i need i still had some left making me think it might be enough to take a year off at work and ride to South Africa and back.
I had it all in my head already and then i figured i might make it a one way trip.
In 2021 and this year i did both original bucketlist trips and now it’s time to start looking into the biggest adventure of my life and this week i took the first step.
I made contact with the South African embassy in The Hague.

My dream is to do motorcycle tours that are focussed on adventure, based ad a lodge with day trips from there but also multiple days in collaboration with other lodges.
It should be not only riding but also teach the participants about adventurous travelling and share what i learned and will learn along the way because i am the kind of person that never stops learning as i never avoid difficult situations.
The reality probably will be different but i will work towards that goal.
I made contact with the embassy to try get an appointment to sit down and let me be informed about the steps to get there but they didn’t have a person who do such things.
I fact it will be not easy to get a green card.
I have to check the website, there is a list with “critical skills” and if i have a skill on that list i can apply for a work permit.
Not quite what i was planning but i will check that list somewhere in the next couple of weeks, i have various skills and i’m certain one of them will be on that list.

Contact with the embassy to find out if there is an explicit “no” was the fist step i had to make before i could do anything else and “its not easy” is most definite not a no so i will go on with the next step.
What that is i will tell you in another blog when it’s time or when i didn’t have time for editing h\which can be already next week or the week after that.
Tomorrow i have a truckrun, next weekend is also filled and the weekend after that i go to Adventure Overland but the week before i took off from work to redo my garage floor and maybe the electricity too.
I’ll end with a few more pictures to show why i want to go back…

The first episode was getting too long for getting to the end of day 2of the trip but now i finished episode 2 it turned out it was not the 4 or 5 minutes i thought i still needed but it was enough for a complete episode.
The preview in the end of episode 1 will not be seen in this episode because of that.
I rather make some extra episodes than making the video’s too long or skip too much, more for you to see but still in manageable episodes.
With looking for the preview i discovered the problem with the sound so next episode i get a new challenge in editing.

Last episode i ended on my way to Lysebotn, not for the place but for the road to it called Lysevegen with a serpentine at the end to get to the ferry at sea level.
The road to Lysevegen was also a great ride and i was lucky with traffic on the Lysevegen because i saw video’s where it was packed with cars and mobile homes but i came across just a few cars and bikes.
On the hairpins i use my rear brake a lot, the bike becomes a lot more stable and smooth making it easier to go faster but i didn’t change the brake fluid yet on this bike and i should have done it.

When i change it i go for the special racing kind with a lot higher boiling point which i needed on this road.
Almost at the bottom in a tunnel i discovered my rear brake was gone and i knew right away what the cause was, boiling brake fluid because i did change the pads for the same i use on Ragnarok and those survived many passes on a much heavier bike.
The last bends i took it easy and when i arrived at the ferry it had time enough to cool down.

When i arrived at the ferry it turned out you need to book online 2 days in advance for this ferry which it’s just not possible with my kind of travelling.
I don’t when or even if i arrive.
Most ferry’s do have place for a motorcycle but this one said he didn’t but for what i could see there was place enough but maybe i just got used to the Balkan safety standards.
And no, i didn’t feel unsafe there. In my opinion there are some country’s that have no safety at all but most western country’s go way and way too far with ridiculous rules.
There was another ferry that day so i started waiting with a coffee where i met some other bikers from England and Germany having a nice conversation to kill time.

In the mean time i was checking for alternatives when i also couldn’t get on the last ferry.
With still another 1,5 hour wait i had to make a decision. The alternative was back up the Lysevegen to make a 120km and 2 hour detour or wait the 90 minutes and if i couldn’t get on that one stay at the campsite next to it or make the 2 hour detour anyway.
I already was not able to book for the next day so no certainty for the next day too.
My choice was made, i thanked the other riders for the nice conversation and started the detour.
Now i had to go back up the Lysevegen which was no punishment at all and after 30km i was back at the point where i went off and another 30-ish to get to the point where i got off the backtrack part.
If it wasn’t for the Lysevegen i probably had taken that road in the first place but i saw pictures and because of those pictures video’s of the Lysevegen and i just had to ride it.

It’s not logic to backtrack and seeing the fjord from the water is also nice and that’s why i made this plan but plans are on these kind of trips just guidelines and will be changed at some points. I just didn’t want to stop too far before the end of what was essentially the first day of the trip, the ride to the ferry was just to get there.
If i already get behind that much on the first leg it wouldn’t be promising for the rest of the trip and i wasn’t tired at all so that was also not limiting me.
The road i had to take was also not bad in the view department and it was a nice riding temperature so i kept going and then the next ferry came along… next problem.
This one had it’s last run an hour ago. At some point another biker (From Sweden if i remember correctly) got following me who thought i might know where i’m going.
I did even though i’m Dutch and not Norwegian (with the grey beard and hairdo i could pass for a Viking i guess and both bikes have Norwegian names) but i did not know the ferry schedules.

Next detour… 72km to use the tunnel at Stavanger, the other biker decided to find a hotel close by.
After the tunnel it didn’t take long to get back on track and still not tired plus over here the day is already quite long, not the 24 hour daylight i had up north but getting close so not scared to end up in the dark.
But at some point you have to give up and that moment came when i got to the next ferry that looked like it stopped for the day (looked, turned out it still went with bigger intervals).
Like most things there can be good things come out of bad moments.
Just next to the ferry there was a little campsite that had a nice place for me and also i very nice price, a whopping €5,- for the night with use of the shower.

When the tent was set up and i had freshened up i sat myself with a beer to enjoy the sunset and it didn’t set much further than this.
When i was enjoying the view a woman from somewhere end 50 came to make a picture of the sunset. She apologised for disturbing me and i was certain she was Dutch too and i was right and we got into a conversation, like i learned from last years trip… when you travel alone you are almost never alone.
As i said good things can happen in bad moments and this is one of those things.
She came from the north where i was heading and she came across a road that according to her description was a road i wanted to ride but couldn’t find because i didn’t knew the name or number and even not the region but i saw pictures and she gave me the number and said if i can i should go there.
Still don’t know where it is and if i can ride it without going too far out of the way but i know the number and that is roughly in my general direction.

If i manage to find it or not you will find out in another episode…

https://youtu.be/KtuYtAPlo_8

For years i had a bucketlist with 2 big trips, last year (2021) i did the Balkans and this year it was time for Northern Europe and i probably will do another trip before i am able to pursue my plan to move to South Africa but this series is about my trip to the North Cape and back.
Initially i had no plans to go all the way to the North Cape because i don’t care about a “been there” status.
One of the few people i follow on YouTube is Noraly Schoenmaker a.k.a. Itchy Boots and on the way back form her Iceland adventure she went there because Finland had shut down for Dutch citizens and she had a similar feeling about it but was glad she went there so because i don’t care about a few km extra so i decided to go there too.
What i thought about it when i got there i will tell you when i get there in this series.

During the Balkan trip i realised i wanted to do more offroad and even for the paved places i chose the Crosstourer was just too heavy and got me in some questionable situations.
I wanted to be able to take on unpaved roads without the fear of will i be able to get through and if not will i be able to turn the bike around.
That’s why i bought Sporherre and sold Ecstasy who was no fun on long trips with the one cylinder.
As you know i did many upgrades on him and this is the ultimate tesride.

I also tried to shoot better footage with a custom made combi microphone but i think it was not without issues but we’ll figure that out during this series, i just took quick glances and will find out the real issues when i get to it in the editing process.
Yesterday i started and only then i made up my mind how this story will be told. At first i thought i end a video at the end of a day doing 1, 2 or 3 days per episode but when i reached the 20 minutes i knew day 1 was not interesting enough on it’s own and going to the end of day 2 would make the video too long.
So i stick to the 15 to 20 minutes and where i am is where i end it.
I also bought an editing app that gives me some extra options, let me know if you like it or not and if not what you dislike. It’s no use to make video’s you don’t want to watch and i only can make them better if i know what needs improvement.
What i can do in the editing i will imply in the next video and what i need to do while filming i imply on my next trips together with improvements i will discover myself during this series.
That’s a big chunk already as an intro so let’s move on to the trip…

Saturday morning, Sporherre is packed the night before and of we go.
There is one thing planned this trip and that’s the ferry from Eemshaven in the north of the Netherlands to Kristiansand in the south of Norway, one deadline so no crazy stuff this day.
Not long after leaving home i cross into Germany, the most direct way avoiding highways with a bonus of a higher maximum speed.
Also not long for my first issue to pop up, the Garmin XT crashed and after restarting the track file was not working anymore and got corrupted somehow. At least the route file was still working and the track is mostly for when i get of the route in case i decide to check some road i spot but this day it only be needed in case of a closed road.

That was the case twice, one time without an “umleitung” (detour) given and also without a visible option on the GPS so i decided to take the bicycle path and another with an umleiting that didn’t make any sense for my route so i had to work around that by stopping the route and plot another route to a point to my initial route further on and restart the route again when i got there.
Somewhere halve way in a neighbouring town to my birth town i took a short coffee break and quickly continued. The GPS and detour problems used up all my extra time but i was was still well in time for the ferry, and that’s exactly why i plan extra time when i have to be somewhere at a certain time.

The boat had a layout that makes it that motorcycles have to board last and a very odd way to secure the bikes. Normally the bikes go along the sides and strapped down but here the bikes are secured as a pair.
You also had to do it yourself which was for a lot of bikers a shock because they had no idea how to do it. With everybody helping each other and the knowledge that the crew will check and correct everything when they had time after departure it all worked out after all.
Now to the cabin to fresh up and off to the beer.

Had some drinks with a father and son i met while waiting to board and we met later again during diner.
Later on i had a few more drinks and went to the bunk in time, beer was expensive and had a few good weeks ahead so not a bad idea to go in a bit early.
That turned out to be a smart move because the sea turned quite rough, a few times i almost came loose from the bed. Good thing i have a bike that has protection against falling so i didn’t had any worries about that unlike other passengers that had doubts about the way the bikers where strapped down.
All went well and no bikes fell over, bigger problem for a lot was the lack of sleep due to the rough seas.

It took some time to get off the boat and to the main road but once on route it went smooth, apparently i chose a direction other than most or the majority first went to see Kristiansand. I don’t like big city’s so i just went for the ride which already was beautiful just outside the city limits.
Most of the main roads are like country roads here and i don’t had to go far to get of it.
Almost missed it because i forgot to turn on the headset, i didn’t want any distraction from the road and scenery so i didn’t turn on the music until the last day.

I was lucky with the weather as it was the perfect riding temperature plus clear and sunny.
Also the traffic was great because there was hardly any, just a car here and there and a few motorcycles.
It is widely known that they are very strict with the speeds in Norway and i thought i took it to the limit already until i was overtaken by another biker with a pillion. It was time to find some lunch at that time too and coincidently i stopped at the same place they did and that was perfect.
The store was something i never came across, it was an unmanned store where you could enter with your credit/bank card, collect your groceries and scan it yourself.
Without them i would assume it was closed and just would wonder why there was a card scanner outside.
There where some picknick tables outside where we could eat what we bought inside and there they gave me some tips for places to see and about the speeds and how and where i could ride a bit faster. They met with some friends there so we where with 5 of us and it was a nice first contact, nice people and good useful information early on in the trip.
Sadly no offroading but the scenery made up for that and everything went al well… until it didn’t.
But that’s for the next episode.
As i said i will work on a video to max 20 mins and that point has come before the end of day 2 so for you it’s a cliffhanger i guess, but hey… i’m here writing this so it’s nothing serious… is it?

The two 6 day work weeks are done, next week i hope to get something going with editing.
The trip was a big success already because i had a blast but it’s keep getting better with mails coming in from people i met on the road.

I am in contact via WhatsApp with a few and received a few e-mails since i’m back which is very nice.
Last week a new subscription to the blogs and a introduction mail with it form one of the side car bikers i met in the hostel in Helsinki, welcome G-P and today from a cyclist i met in Estonia.
He stopped to check if everything is alright when i was standing in a strange place to stop for a picture.

In general i dislike cyclists but you should never generalize as this guy proved by checking out. It’s not just bikers who stop for each other but i guess it go’s for travellers in general and those cyclists i hate are almost always groups who think they’re in the tour the France or whatever big tour and not seldom overweight.
But that goes also for certain motorbikers riding without any consideration for others on the road causing road closures as a result, that are al sorts of bikers on- and offroad.
You have the right to dislike persons and/or groups but remember that often a bad name is caused by a minority and when it’s a rare situation that the majority is behaving bad there are always good people amongst them.

The next event is booked and paid for, next month i go to Discover Overland.
A weekend for and by overlanders with workshops and to share experiences and with my third big trip i think i might be allowed calling myself an experienced traveller.
I probably will learn a lot there and maybe i even can have a positive contribution myself.
Plan is to take the whole week off and maybe do some TET tracks or take the garage floor out because that floor needs some levelling… i will see.

Life is back to regular, yes regular because my life never will be normal i think and that’s fine for me.
That also means i didn’t just sat around.
The day before i left the Rapid Bike Evo for Sporherre came in and it was hard but i made a wise decision for a change and did not installed it right away. It was a tank off job and i wanted to do another mod the first time i had the tank off so to many risk of ending up in the middle of the night with a probable run in with my friend Murphy.
A risk i could not take also because the ferry was booked for the next day.

I was back on Thursday and Friday i went for sparkplugs because the tank had to come off and he almost had 24.000km on the odo which would be the time to change them. Before the trip it was just too far away to already change them but now it turned out to be a good thing i didn’t installed the RB, saved me another tank removal.
I made a video with a time-laps but didn’t had time to do something with it, maybe i will add it later to this blog but for now you’ll have to do with a few pictures.

Friday after getting the sparkplugs i went to work to check if there was anything special because my colleague was going on his vacation and then for grocery’s, always nice the have fresh food in the fridge.
After that it was time to get rid of all the dirt and work on a reasonable clean bike.
Saturday i installed the RB, changed the sparkplugs and removed the charcoal cannister.
Sunday it was time for a test ride and it turned out there was a new TET section in the Netherlands here in the south.
A member of the Tenere700 forum (tenere700.net) from Germany mentioned it there that he wanted to ride it. Since he’s a beginner he had some questions and i decided to check part of it during my test ride.
Made some warning points for him and also a few changes and mailed 2 of them to the Linesmen of the TET NL.
The rest of the new section will be tested soon as it is in my front yard.

As i mentioned i had 2 long weeks at work so no time for editing yet.
Before i started washing Sporherre i removed some weeds from the backyard and today i finished that job because it grew like crazy when i was away and i also had some pruning waste to chop that was sitting for months already.
I did made a start with the footage. GoPro makes smaller video’s when you record for a longer time and numbers them not in order like 10501 and then 10502 but makes 20501 of it. The next video you start will be the 10502 so i renamed all the clips from the GoPro to have them all in a following order.
Last time i had some problems with the overview costing a lot of time because there was a third part i missed.

I also discovered some problem with the sound at some point, didn’t looked into it but it seems like my mike modification failed. Not sure if a cable broke or if the mediamod did suffer from the rain because i was not able to stop right away every time when it started and sadly the mediomod is not waterproof.
Next week is another 6 day workweek and after that i hope to start with the editing.
I also installed new editing software which hopefully works a bit faster but to find out i first have to learn to work with it… you never find anything better if you never try something else.
Just like the tyres, the Heidenau K60 Ranger set is finally on its way and will be here probably tomorrow but first i have to finish the Mitas E07 i bought in Tallinn.

When i got back from this epic trip i thought let’s do something different.
I have a lot of footage and i’m not sure how to cut it, maybe again more episodes? And then more like the first 2 trips or more like in shorter movies that cover just one or 2 days….
For now i just sat down in front of Sporherre and made this.

Finland was a blast offroading and i just couldn’t resist playing around. Some parts had a new layer of gravel to protect the road from excavator track i guess and you could feel it tear up the tyres so i started looking to het some new tyres in Estonia.

Garmin doesn’t stop with strange choises. One moment it doesn’t accept a perfectly fine gravel road and the other he sends you into a totally overgrown forrest single track.

It looks just fine but you just have to wait for the video to see how i got there. I was on my way to Helsinky where i met a couple of Germans. 2 travelling with i bike with sidecar and 2 on a BMW GS800 with whom i had a great couple of nights in Tallinn. I booked a ferry when i got back from Hardrock Café Helsinki

they where on the same ferry and also stayed 2 nights in tallinn. I first went fo a new rear tyre. I contacted a local bike shop who recomended the one where i found it. The Anakee Wild had gotten real expensive but they had options so i decided to change both for Mitas, the E07 with the + for the rear. The next day i went for a couple of new SD cards for the camera’s and then on a discovery through Tallinn.

This evening i met Stephan and Wolfgang again for diner and a couple of beers before going our own ways again. The first impression of the Mitas tyres where not good but it turned out that the mechanic despite asking what pressure i wanted just filled up to the standard spec and that just doesn’t work for my kind of riding. It didn’t track in loose sand and was very uncomfortable on gravel, amazing what only a few tenths of a bar do.

A photographed example of what Garming thinks is just fine…

I just went in and it was a bit slippery and muddy but i ended up on gravel again but with a questionable bridge. At least i didn’t fell through. This was on my way to Riga. After some of this i had just over 50km boring road and then i found out why the TET Estonia leading to Riga was not routable. It was a forrest track like a dirtbike track. Had some scetchy moment but i handled. I guess the 3 guys on proper dirtbikes just coming out of that section probably where a bit surprised an adventure bike entered.it just showed how great the T7 is, at least with the upgrades i did on the bike and glad i lowered my tyre pressure.

Tomorrow i leave towards Lithuania and probably end up just over the border in Poland close to Suwalki.