Not so happy landings

Friday 23.04.10

After a rough night of negligible sleep, we got up just before dawn so we could pack our tents and gear onto the bikes before daylight. We talked about the night before and both laughed when admitting to hearing things and discovering our actual position in the middle of the night.

We cleaned up and started on a rough heading back towards where we had come from, along the way we found some old dirt roads with dips and bumps in them, I told Jim something like how much fun it would have been to try and do some small jumps on them. He said: "yeah, you wanna unload your bike and try? I can take photos!" to which I replied: "eeh yeah sure!"

See, we have this "challenge" system with which we try and push each other to do things that are not always the easiest or most effortless. We do this to get more out of this trip and to experience the most we can. Of course this was not one of the "challenges", as they usually involve driving a lot further than planned or taking unknown routes or eating some strange dish etc.

They are not dare-devil stunts or anything like that, they are mere suggestions to be brought up and discussed as adults, and when we say the word "challenge" to each other I know to use the little part of the brain that controls logic and reason. Now, some may know my brain did not come equipped with this item installed as standard, but I have been trying to grow one for some 30 years now, with debatable success.

Well I don't know why I mentioned the challenge system but I guess I thought of it as a bit of a fun little challenge, now you're all thinking: "geez here we go, now he's gone and broken his pelvis or something and he's at the hospital.. what else is new?".

To you I say. "Non!" :)

The only one (or thing) that got a bruising was Klara KLR.

I had made a jump at good speed when I noticed a little ditch straight ahead about a meter or so wide, I had a split second to make a decision whether to brake hard to try and slow down with the risk of locking the wheels and still hitting the ditch hard, or give her more throttle and hope to glide over the ditch.

I chose the latter option and gunned the throttle. I just about cleared it but hit the far edge of the ditch with my rear wheel, bottoming out the rear shock so that the underbelly of the bike hit hard sending the bike and me flying up again so only the front wheel was in contact with the ground for a few seconds. I maintained control but it was a hard hit, both for Klara's lower parts as well as mine.

I stopped to do a quick check of the bike, looking for immediate  leaks, cracks or rattles. None were found. I felt quite stupid. It's too easy to forget that you are about 5000km from your usual garage or motorbike workshop, and that you still need everything working smooth for another 3 weeks.

Relieved that the bike was apparently fine, we drove to the town of Erfour to have breakfast. We refueled at a gas-selling place first and then found a local café to order some food.

 We always get tables right by our bikes so we can watch them and most of our gear while eating. I noticed a drop of oil dripping from under the engine and realized I might still be in trouble.

 I looked underneath and found the oil to be coming from the drain bolt, I could see the crash plate had some scars and had also taken a beating.

 I was not happy. I couldn't check it further right then and there since we were parked in a busy street and were waiting for our orders.

 To give me an even worse feeling, another liquid started dripping out of somewhere(!). Klara was not gonna let me forget so easily.

It turned out to be fuel, I thought one of the brackets had tore a hole in the tank, but luckily it was just excess fuel coming out of the vent cap of the newly top-filled tank. Normal, but the coincidence got me scared if only for a minute.

Jim could see I was getting worried still about the oil leak, so we discussed options and decided to find a better place after breakfast where I could further inspect the engine. In the meantime he tried to cheer me up by letting me win a game of Yahtzee (ed: not true, I beat him with superior skills and tactics of course).

I eventually got to inspect the bolt, and to my enormous relief the bolt, bolt threads and engine block were all intact, it had just come a little loose, and needed tightening with a spanner.

I will have to be more careful with Klara, she survived this time, but gave me a big scare.

Happy, we drove on for our next goal for today, namely a desert town in the middle of the dunes called Merzouga. After cruising around in the sand for a while we found a fairly isolated camp site, the temperature was around 30* C in dry dry air so we have taken most of the day off here at the camp site, recharging batteries and organizing everything from our gear to camera / video images. We didn't even think they had electricity out here much less internet, but they sure did have both. :)

Tomorrow we are planning a route through desert areas and a long river canyon with multiple water crossings, it should be very interesting as it was part of the actual Paris-Dakar Rally back in the day. We will be bringing extra fuel and water for the leg, and we hope to get some decent gps coordinates for the route as the maps of the area with lat-long grids are just about non-obtainable for tourists like us, we believe it to be because of its proximity to the border.

Mustafa our host and local fix it all man, is helping us getting coordinates for the "Dakar" route.

We will be in deserted and rural areas for the next 2-3 days but I will update again once we get somewhere they have internet.

I also fly during my off-time

Nice breakfest in Erfoud, I'm glad the bike is ok after the jumps

Wait! Is that engine oil dripping!? and fuel?!

Me before I am assembled every morning

Let me just shimmy under there..

Engine crash plate, now moved up in front of heated grips as best purchase yet!

Bolts tightened and all checked good, I will never hurt you again!

Roadrules / Camping.. way out

Wednesday 21.04.10

Wednesday we headed out of busy Rabat city and our destination for the day was a place called Azrou. There is supposed to be a wildlife reserve there with monkeys roaming free (who doesn't want to see free-roaming monkeys?! Who?! I know I do!).

We never got there as I first misplaced my sunglasses so we had to backtrack to the Rabat house and look for them (not finding them), then later we missed a poorly marked exit on the highway. The GPS Jim have does not have maps outside of Europe either, but detours have been fun so far and requires some creativity and impulse decisions on our part, so all good.

It was getting dark though and we did not want to break our rule of not driving during night on the first real day in-country. We did unfortunately break it though.. We did absolutely not want to go near any city centers to look for hotels, reason being the large amount of hustlers and troublesome persons praying on tourists like ourselves.

Instead we drove around the outskirts of the city of Fes looking for hotels, only to be told by everyone that we had to go downtown. We agreed to push further South towards smaller towns and maybe look for a place to pitch our tents.

Finding a place for the tents proved to be hard, as there are always people around in the strangest places. We are of course not allergic to other people, but 2 Scandinavians on fully-loaded motorbikes draws a lot of unwanted attention, and we do not want to split doing guard-duty all night whenever we are camping.

We finally ended up in a village called Imouzzer du Kandar south of Fes into some foothills. There we found a "hotel" for the night, and some guys in the street were willing to rent us a nearby garage to store the bikes for 20 Dirhams each (about 20kr). We accepted and loaded our gear into our rooms just as rain started pouring down.

Thursday morning we checked out of the hotel fetched our bikes and started heading South. We skipped the monkey place since we would have had to backtrack alot and lose time, but might still go by on our return trip.

The detour the day before meant we were on a different road than planned, but it turned out to be one with amazing landscape, from forests to mountains, ravines, lakes and rivers to "infinite-looking" straight roads across vast deserted plains  We captured lots of still and video images that day.

The route took us roughly through the towns of Ifrane, Medelt, and Er-Rachidia. This day we were determined not to do another ride through the dark looking for a place to sleep again. The night before I was really set for finding a spot for our tents, so with the towns spaced further and further apart, odds were good for finding an isolated spot. Time was ticking though and the road we were on were littered with small little residential areas mingling with people.

Every time we thought we had found a spot, some rocks turned out to be people out in the middle of nowhere as if animating into life by our mere proximity to them.

Just as twilight was closing we found a huge open desert-type area with only light brush vegetation as far as we could see into the horizon. I pointed towards some mountain-ranges 90* offset to the road and who knows how many kilometers and said on the intercom "let's go there!", Jim hesitantly agreed as he did not like going into too rough terrain with his heavier road-bike "Ida".

After driving off-road for a long while, barely seeing any lights from cars on the road we had been on, we decided to wait a bit to see if any "rocks" appeared to be moving towards us. None did, and as the last of the twilight turned to night we hurried pitching our tents, and I fired up the stove to heat water for our supper: field ration nr 3 "chicken in herbal sauce". Things just taste better when sweaty, tired and sitting on a jagged rock on the ground out in the vast open expanse.

During night the winds picked up drastically and we had to bolt down our light summer tents as they were threatening to take-off with us in them. Very fine red dust also accumulated quickly inside and I covered everything the best I could and tried to sleep with the noise of the wind howling and the tent flapping thinking: "were those footsteps I heard??". In a dark noisy tent in a desolate unknown area, my mind does go a bit paranoid.

I started thinking: "We went quite far off that road, not any sign of civiIisation out here... I wonder how far away we are to the Algerian border and AQIM territory... probably a long ways away, nothing to worry about, I should try and sleep and not think of silly things that keep me awake.... I guess if I really wanted to know I could just use the GPS on my iphone... better not though... *CRUNCH* Now THAT could surely not have been the tent?! *checks GPS on iphone* That was a lot closer than I thought.."

Well I fell asleep eventually and of course all was fine. :) 

Beautiful riding conditions

Lunch near Ifrane

Road as far as the eye can see

First camp

"Who DARES wake me?!"

Voyage Morocco

En Forsinket oppdatering igjen, denne gang pga. mangel på internett tilgang og GPRS nett, det finnes ikke mulighet for å sende MMS hos de 3 operatørene jeg har funnet så langt.

Jeg bruker veldig lang tid på å skrive på iPhone, og jeg får nærmest leddgikt i gass-hånden av å skrive hundre ord. Så for å spare tid og ledd så skriver jeg kun på inglisj inntil videre slik jeg slipper å oversette.

Delayed update again. The Moroccan cell-phone networks that I have found so far surprisingly does not support data traffic (MMS etc.), so I have not been able to get anything out except (ridiculously) expensive calls or SMSs.

Anyway I've finally found an internet connection in the most surprising spot, here's what's happened so far:

Tuesday 21.04.10
Tuesday morning we drove to Algeciras for the ferry over to Tanger, Marocco. Beautiful weather and temperatures in the twenties. After our oil and tire change the night before we wanted to dispose of them at a nearby tire shop. I also needed some spare light-bulbs for Klara. It was really nice to get rid of the extra weight and hassle of having to strap the tires on and off the bikes every day.

After the quick stop at the tire shop we continued towards Algeciras. We bought our tickets at a shack near a gas station (that's where you get em apparently) and headed for the port. After waiting in several lines for many hours, first for ticket checks and then for passport and papers check, we finally got to the front of the line at the end of the docks. Once there though we were first told by one "official" that we should be in a different line, a second that we should have stayed in the first line, then a third that our ship would probably be docking nearby in 5 minutes but he did not know the name of it. We laughed it off and agreed that the further south you go in Europe the longer the wait and the less precise travel details become. A 15min delay in Northern Europe is a few hours delay in southern, and between Africa and Spain, these things might go as scheduled but very often they do not, or sometimes not at all.

We finally got onboard the "Milenium Tres" (looking like a giant speedboat) around two or three o'clock, hours after the scheduled departure. We strapped down our bikes and headed for the lounge/cafeteria for some breakfast since we had still not eaten that day. We had a beautiful view of the rock of Gibraltar on our way out of Algeciras. The lack of sleep from the preceding night hit us hard halfway but we didn't want to fall asleep as we crossed over to the African continent, so a few cups of coffee and red bulls were in order, and Jim pulled out the Yatzee to pass the time.

Docking at the port of Tanger we were excited and happy to ride off of the ship onto Moroccan soil side by side, only to get pulled over by a shady man with casual clothes and an orange "police" armband. He turned out, however, to be legitimate and he told us we were missing stamps in our passports. We had filled out the visa papers the nice lady at the cafeteria had pointed out for us on the way over, but stamps??

Well, it turned out that some other casually clothed police officials had been on board the ship for us to go see during the sail, but we - and one sleepy Spanish truck driver - had missed that piece of essential information. So we had to hesitantly leave our bikes on the dockside and get back onto the ship for our stamps, but we could not get them right away,"IMPOSSIBLÉ!", no, we had to wait until ALL the cars, trucks, people and sheep leaving for Spain had boarded.. Great start!

Me and Jim took turns running to the stern of the ship to take glances at our bikes and equipment, half expecting to get scammed somehow. We didn't, and after a good hour of waiting we had to run to get off of the ship in time before she sailed off for Spain again, and we didn't like the thought of a round trip without our bikes.

We found our bikes okay, and shady armband policeman gave us our passports back after taking his sweet time strolling around with them in his pocket shooting the breeze and high-fiving a lot of truck-driver "friends" rolling ashore loaded with teddy-bears and rainbows no doubt.

One hurdle passed and onto the next. More paper checkpoints ahead. We met a big line at the immigration point but a friendly armband official waved me through to the front, passing all the cars saying: "Super sport motorbike you go number one!". I smiled sheepishly and accepted the nice "gesture" thinking: "YES, we riders DO deserve to get ahead of the car people (..or cagers as we lovingly call them)" Sucker..

Of course a second armband official showed up in a flash and he also were only too eager to tell us what to do and how to fix things quickly. It didn't take them too long to start hinting about compensation for all the trouble..

Jim went for the old: "I don't quite understand what you are asking?" to; "Where DID I put my money..". I had to go upstairs to get my papers signed and in the end we both payed them a little as they were getting troublesome. Annoying, but better than getting delayed for several hours by these officials, giving us great first-impressions of their country.

Next up was getting insurance, we dodged tens of hutslers and scammers and got insured at the least shady looking booth and motored out off Tanger city and into the countryside, relieved and glad to finally be able to enjoy the view and the ride.

We drove straight south-west to Rabat where we stayed with a danish couple's house, a former colleague of Jim lives there.

Now, some have rightly pointed out that I've written little to nothing about our route in Africa. The main reason for this is that it has changed a lot since the original plan was made. Since we could not go all the way to Guinea, we intended to stop one country short, namely Senegal and the city of Dakar.

To get to Senegal you have to drive through Mauritania. Mauritania has had some bad things happen during the last years, mostly due to a terrorist branch called AQIM or al-quaida in Mahgreb. They are the same group responsible for the Paris-Dakar Rally getting canceled. Some tourists had been gunned down and others kidnapped during the last years.

Well, why would we consider it at all? Any type of these long travels through poor countries will always carry some inherent risks, that's part of it all. But we reckoned our chances were good, traveling light and fast, unannounced, and staying out of the "danger" areas.

This was until recently. Jim have former colleagues now working in Africa in positions where they have been able to give us sound advise on our routes and the country's status.
The advice we got not long ago was: "Do not cross the West-Sahara / Mauritanian border!".

There have been further kidnappings close to the border, this time aid-workers driving in a lose military escort column, the escort was there because of the risk, two people were kidnapped regardless.. We decided to take the advice seriously. This meant of course that we would not be able to get as far into Africa as intended.

However, Morocco and West-Sahara are huge and there are plenty of incredible places to go riding, so that's what we're gonna do. The total round trip journey is estimated to take us 5 weeks time.

Queue up for the crossover

Our ship

The Rock of Gibraltar

Passing time and staying awake

España - OPPDATERT / UPDATED 23.04.10

Bare en liten kjapp oppdatering før jeg sovner.

Igår, søndag, kjørte vi fra Zaragoza og hele veien ned til Marbella. Vi stod opp tidlig og hadde planlagt å få kjørt mest mulig i løpet av dagslyset. Da vi møttes til frokost derimot så la vi merke til at det regnet kraftig utenfor, sånn går det når jeg skryter av sol hele veien på siden dagen før.

Vel både jeg og Jim visste det kom til å bli tungt å kjøre en lang etappe kalde og våte, så vi nedjusterte ambisjonene noe og bestemte oss for å kjøre så langt vi orket. Vi dro avgårde 12:00, og kjørte sørøst mot Valencia. GPSn foreslo rute via Madrid, men etter å ha studert satelittbilder og værkart satset vi heller på å komme oss litt mer ned i lavlandet og mot kysten. Det heter jo tross alt costa del sol(!). Dessverre endte det heller med å bli costa del lyn og torden.. Vi pakket oss og utstyret godt i regntøy og knuste på. Vi holdt hverandre gående i nesten 14 timer før vi ankom vårt stoppested ved Marbella, dette var den lengste etappen så langt. Vi stoppet kun for bensin og en gang for mat. Vi spiste i en veldig lokal kro midt i ingensteds mellom noen fjell, vi ble skulet på av de lokale som hadde møtt opp for å se fotballkamp på tv, og jeg må si meg enig med Jim da han uttalte at det virket som om vi hadde braset inn i noens private stue.

Vel fremme nær Marbella var det rett i køys. Vi bor i en leilighet som
vår gode venn Sjur Heskje har stillt til rådighet. Takk Sjur! :)

I dag har vi sovet godt ut og deretter gjort en siste service av syklene før vi krysser kontinent imorgen, ting som dekkbytte, olje/filterbytte, bremsebytte osv. ble gjennomført.
Det har blitt veldig sent og vi må opp om 4 timer for å ta fergen til Marokko, jeg får ikke lastet opp bilder nå men de kommer snart.

Neste oppdatering blir fra Afrika! :)

Just a quick update before I go to sleep. Yesterday, Sunday we drove all the way down from Zaragoza to Marbella.
We got up early and had planned to get the most amount of driving done during daylight, but when we met for breakfast we noticed it was pissing outside (that's what I get for bragging about having had nothing but sunshine the whole trip), well both me and Jim knew it was going to be really though driving that far wet and cold even with good equipment so we decided to start off and see how far we got before dark.

We waited a bit and then started driving at noon southeast towards Valencia. The GPS suggested route said to drive via Madrid, but after checking weather charts and satellite images we decided to go towards the coast and lowlands as soon as possible. It's called costa del sol after all (!).

Unfortunately it ended up being more like costa del thunder..
We had packed our gear and ourselves in rainproof textiles and hunkered down for the misery. We ended up challenging each other to go further and further and in the end we drove all the way to Marbella adding up a grand total of about 14 hours on the road. This is the longest leg we've had, and we only stopped for gas and once for food. The food stop was at a very local road stop in the middle of nowhere between some mountains. The locals were not very friendly and Jim put it best when he said that it was like if we had just barged into someones living room uninvited.

Arriving finally at our destination near Marbella we went straight to sleep at around 2 in the morning. We live in an apartment that our good friend Sjur Heskje put at our disposal. Thanks Sjur! :)

After a good nights sleep we've today done the final servicing and checkups of Klara and Ida, including tire changes, oil and filter replacements and brake pad replacements.

It's very late now and in four hours I have to get up to catch the ferry to Morocco. Pictures to come..

Next update will be from Africa!! :)

Bare kalde skuldre, må være våre velstelte fjes /Cold shoulders everywhere, must be our well-groomed faces

Vanntett i Spania / Waterproof in Spain

Casa Heskje 22*C

Europa Express

Veldig forsinket oppdatering her nå, saa det blir en kjempestor en!
Jeg fikk problemer med å låse opp iphonen slik jeg kunne bruke mitt vanlige abonnement og sim.kort, men etter ørten henvendelser til kundeservice så fungerer det endelig og jeg kan oppdatere via tlf, delvis.

Danmark - Tyskland - Belgia - Nederland

Sist jeg skrev var vi i Danmark, mye har skjedd siden da. Etter besøket i Danmark kjørte vi paa mandag ned gjennom Tyskland via Hamburg, gjennom Belgia og det meste av Nederland før vi nådde vårt neste stoppested i Den Haag. Saa egentlig en ren transport etappe. Syklene fungerte fint og den eneste justeringen jeg måtte gjøre var å flytte reservedekkene fra bakpaa salen og ned til sidene av lastekassene. Dette pga. at det var ekstremt trangt å sitte mellom tanken og dekkene, og det ble sårt der det helst ikke skal bli så veldig sårt..

Paa vei til Den Haag gikk jeg tom for bensin 1500m foer en bensinstasjon (som vi ikke saa, eller visste om), det var delvis forventet fordi jeg ville gjerne finne ut naar jeg maatte vri om til reservetanken (paa den ny-installerte tanken), vi hadde tenkt aa kjoere av tidligere paa en annen bensinstasjon, men avkjoerselen fra motorveien var sperret pga. veiarbeid.
Jim var ogsaa nesten tom, men klarte aa halte seg frem for aa fylle sin tank og en reservekanne. Jeg kom meg 421km paa hovedtanken og 451km foer Klara nektet mer.

Paa veien oppdaget jeg ogsaa at kasserammene (..fra helsikke) fortsatt ikke var helt ferdige med aa irritere meg. Jeg hadde lagt merke til noe "merkelig" med sykkelen tidligere paa turen, nemlig at naar jeg traff humper i veien saa virket det som om motoren mistet kraften i et veldig kort oyeblikk. Jeg tenkte at det kanskje var en stram gass-wire eller en drivstoff slange som var kommet i klem, men valgte aa vente med aa feilsoeke inntil videre. Etterhvert saa demret det for meg at det ikke var en gass wire eller drivstoff slange som var problemet, men heller avstiver stangen til kasserammene. Paa grunn av at jeg hadde spesialtilpasset rammene til min sykkel, saa var ikke alt posisjonert helt i originale posisjoner. Avstiver rammen gaar over og bak bakdekket og mellom hoyre og venstre side av sykkelen, men den var ikke langt nok bak dekket, dette gjorde at naar sykkelen var fullastet og jeg traff en hump sa fjaeret sykkelen saapass mye at stangen tok nedpaa dekket og dermed bremset sykkelen kort. I tillegg ble hele bak-akslingen skjoevet forover, slik at kjedet ble slakkt, som igjen foerte til at kjedet gikk ujevnt og laget fryktelig mye friksjon og varme slik at drevene ble skadet. Problem!

Vi ankom Den Haag paa kvelden og fant frem til huset der vaar gode kollega Bob og hans familie bor. De hadde paa generoest vis tilbydt seg aa la oss overnatte der i anledningen. Vi spiste nydelig god middag, og brukte resten av kvelden paa litt service av motorsykklene. Bob er stor-entusiast naar det gjelder MC, og han hadde alt av verktoy og kompetanse til aa hjelpe oss. Jim hadde hentet en senterstoette i Tyskland som han skulle montere, jeg ville proeve og sette bakdemperen paa max styrke i haap om at avstiver stangen ikke skulle treffe bakdekket, i tillegg justerte jeg kjedet og etterfyllte kjoelevaeske og andre smaating. Det ble fort klart at drevene og kjedet var blitt saa skadet av varme og slitasje at de maatte byttes iallefall foer ankomst Afrika kontinentet.

Paris - Le Bal de Moulin Rouge
Vi fikk en god natts soevn hos casa Bob, og satte avgaarde dagen etter. Bob og hans kone fulgte oss paa motorsykkel et stykke mot grensen til Belgia foer vi takket for kjempetrivelig selskap og service og satte snuten mot neste maal for tirsdagen, Paris, gjennom Antwerpen, Gent og Lille.

Vi ankom Paris ganske tidlig paa dagen, og bestemte oss for aa proeve aa finne et hotell ikke saa langt fra sentrum eller i det minste metro'n. Vi hadde ogsaa et oenske om aa faa parkert sykklene et trygt sted, helst i lukket garasje. Det viste seg aa vaere umulig aa oppdrive et eneste hotell i og rundt sentrum som hadde ledige rom, men etter at min kjaere snille lille-soester hadde ringt rundt omkring en stund, saa fant hun ledige rom ved Charles de Gaulle flyplass. Vi sjekket inn der og fikk parkert sykklene i garasje, godt fornoyde.

paa onsdag maatte jeg bruke mye av dagen til aa proeve aa faa skaffet deler til Klara. Etter mye frem og tilbake fant vi endelig en mc-butikk som kunne skaffe delene over natten (utrolig nok!), men de kunne ikke et eneste ord engelsk, og jeg maatte moete opp personlig for at de skulle gidde aa bestille delene. Jeg laante GPS`n til Jim og satte noelende avgaarde for aa forhandle, jeg forventet egentlig aa matte bestille deler fra England for saa aa sende de i forveien til soer-spania. Jim dro paa litt sightseeing rundt omkring i sentrum i mellomtiden.

Folkene paa Folie Maricourt var veldig vennlige og syns at det var kjempeartig at jeg stod aa bladde febrilsk i min Norsk-Fransk ordbok samt tegnet bilder av hva jeg hadde problemer med og hva jeg trengte. Kjede og drev kunne de ha paa lager dagen etter, men det var verre med rammestangen min som jeg ville ha kappet, forlenget og sveist paa igjen. Jeg hadde paa et tidspunkt 4-5 mekanikere staaende rundt sykkelen min og diskutere og gestikulere enormt, foer en sa noe i dur av "...we fix...maybe...saturday".

Jeg sa at jeg ikke hadde anledning til aa vente saa lenge og ville derfor proeve aa finne noen andre med sveisemaskin, men jeg takket likevel for hjelp og ville fortsatt ha delene som avtalt. Rett foer jeg skulle gaa, saa dukket det opp en yngre mekaniker som kunne litt engelsk. Han tilbydde seg aa montere alt av deler og til og med kappe/sveise rammen min til dagen etter, ingen problem. Jeg var storfornoyd og takket saa mye foer jeg ga fra meg noeklene til sykkelen og tok toget tilbake til hotellet.

Neste punkt for onsdagskvelden var aa dra og se lillesoester Louise opptre paa Moulin Rouge! Jeg og Jim spiste middag sammen med henne foerst og hang i leiligheten hennes mens hun gjorde sitt foerste show for kvelden. Showet var (som vanlig) fantastisk, og Jim var ogsaa godt fornoyd. Jim ble dessverre veldig daarlig etter mulig matforgiftning tidligere paa dagen, og det gjorde at han var ute av spill hele kvelden og maatte ta taxi rett til hotellet etter showet.

Det ble en veldig sen kveld, og etter aa ha diskutert med Jim saa ble vi enige om aa bli en dag til i Paris. Han var fortsatt litt svak etter syken, og jeg var svak etter en annen syke. Jeg fikk hentet Klara fiks ferdig paa verkstedet, takket igjen saa mye, og lovte aa sende noen kule bilder til de fra Afrika. Torsdags kveld dro jeg til Louise sin leilighet der hun hadde innflyttingsfest. Det ble nok en sen kveld, men det var veldig moro og jeg traff artige mennesker og saa interessante steder.

Paris - Bordeaux
Fredag dro vi endelig avgaarde fra Paris og kjoerte en ekstra lang etappe for aa proeve aa ta igjen litt "tapt" tid. Etter veldig mye rush og ko-kjoering rundt/gjennom Paris fikk vi endelig satt opp farten og holdt en god marsj-fart paa 120km/t paa store og rette 3-4 felts motorveier.

Maalet var Bordeaux, og vi kjoerte bl.a gjennom Orlêans, Tours og Poitiers foer vi ankom Bordeaux ved moerkets frembrudd i 8-9 tiden.

Bordeaux - Zaragoza, Spania

Idag (Loerdag) har vi kjoert fra Bordeaux gjennom Bayonne over Pyrinee fjellene til Spania og stoppet i Zaragoza. Det har vaert en fantastisk fin etappe, vaeret har vaert suverent hele veien, noe som det faktisk har vaert siden Bergen (kun blaa himmel og sol!). Det beste med etappen var at vi endelig kom oss av motorveien cirka halveis til Zaragoza. Paa grunn av at Jim's GPS bestemte seg for slaa seg vrang endte vi opp midt ute i vakkert landskap og smaa landsbyer, paa grusveier, over elver og det meste, det var faktisk bare godt aa bruke andre gir enn 5'e og faktisk ogsaa svinge litt. Fantastiske vaarfarger overalt ogsaa, baade jeg og Jim filmet mye paa ruten.

Temperaturen har vaert ifra 24 til 8, saa det har vaert vanskelig aa kle seg fornuftig, og hva som har vaert komfortabelt i lave hastigheter, fungerer ikke saa godt i 120+ km/t. Saa det har for det meste enten vaert uutholdelig varmt og svett til neglebitende kaldt. Godt at vi kun faar det uutholdelig varmt dit vi skal, saa slipper man aa undres. :)

Naa er jeg stuptroett, og det sitter sinte mennesker og skulle helst brukt pc´n jeg sitter og bruker i lobbyen...eh teltet.. ok da, vi bor paa hotell. ;)

I morgen drar vi videre ned gjennom Spania, vi har ikke helt bestemt ruten, men vi skal iallefall ned til Madrid, og saa enten rett ned mot Marbella eller via Oest-kysten. Hovedlykten min sloknet idag, saa jeg maa feilsoeke litt imorgen og se om det er ledninger eller selve paeren som er gaatt. Vi kjoerer uansett mest i dagslys, saa det byr ikke paa praktiske problemer, men den maa fikses foer vi krysser over til kontinentet.

Legger ved noen bilder fra siste uken.

English
Much delayed update.. So it will be a huge one!
I had a lot of problems unlocking my iphone so I could use my regular service sim-card. But after many calls to customer service it finally works and I can partly update this page with it.

Denmark - Germany - Belgium - Netherland

The last update I wrote was from Denmark, alot has happened since then. Monday we drove to Den Haag in Holland, through Germany (Hamburg), Belgium. It was mostly a transport leg, so no time for sightseeing unfortunately. The bikes were functioning fine and the only adjustment I had to make was to move the spare tires from the rear seat to the sides of the panniers, as the space between them and the fuel tank made my small packet of goods feel abused.

On the way to Den Haag I ran out of gas about 1500m before reaching a gas station (we could not see it around the bend). I was half expecting it, since I did want to see how much gas would be left before switching to the final reserve. We intended to refuel at an earlier stop, but the off-ramp was closed due to maintenance, so we had to push on. Jim was also nearly out, but managed to limp on to refuel his bike and the spare can for me. Klara made it for 421 km before asking for the reserve, then 451 km total before refusing to go further.

During the drive to Den Haag I discovered that the pannier frames (...from heck) were still not finished tormenting me. I had noticed "something strange" earlier in Scandinavia. When I hit bumbs or slumps in the road, sometimes the engine would very momentarily lose power. I figured the throttle cable was too tight or a fuel hose were getting squeesed, but it was such a minor thing, I had delayed trying to search for the cause. But during one of the bumbs in the road, I discovered what it was. It was the pannier frame stiffening bar that hit the top rear of the rear wheel tire whenever the spring flexed deep enough. That´s what I get for custom mounting stuff in non-original positions.
Well not only did it hit the tire, slowing me down shortly, but also it wore the tire, bent the pannier frame slightly, and pushed the rear axle slightly forward, un-tensioning the chain, causing the chain to run un-even and very hot, wearing down my sprockets.. Big problem!

We arrived Den Haag at the evening and found the house where our good colleague Bob and his family live. They had generously offered us a room for the night. We had a delicious dinner and spent the rest of the evening servicing the bikes. Bob is a big MC enthusiast and helped us with his excellent competence and tools. Jim needed to mount a centerstand he picked up in Germany. I needed to adjust the rear shock to try and alleviate the pannier frame problem and also refilled some coolant and adjusted the chain tension. It quickly became clear that the chain and both sprockets needed replacement, at least before getting to the african continent.

Paris - Le Bal de Moulin Rouge

We got a good nights sleep at Bob´s house and departed on tuesday morning. Bob and his wife joined us for the first part of the ride out of Holland towards Belgium before we thanked them for everything and headed for our next target for the day, Paris, through Antwerpen, Gent and Lille.

We arrived in Paris quite early in the evening and decided to try and find a hotel with secure parking somewhere near downtown, or at least close to the metro. It was not to be, as all the hotels incredibly were fully booked. In the end , with the help of my dear little-sister Louise we found rooms near the airport of Charles de Gaulles.

Wednesday I had to spend most of my time trying to find replacement parts for Klara. After a lot of back and forth we finally found a shop where they thought they could manage to get the parts for over night (incredibly), but they could not speak a single word of english, and I had to show up personally at the shop before they would order any parts. I borrowed Jim´s GPS and hesitantly left to find the shop, as I half expected it to be a waste of time and that I needed to instead order the parts from England and have them over-nighted to Spain ahead of us. Jim went sightseeing and taking pictures while I drove around for the parts.

The people at the Folie Mericourt were actually very friendly and helpful, and they thought it quite funny that I was frantically flipping through my pocket translator and drawing them pictures of what I needed done. The could get me the parts for the next day, but work on the pannier frame they did not have a good outlook for, the told me Saturday at the earliest. But finally just as I was leaving a young mechanic showed up, who could speak english, and he would personally have it done by the next morning(!). I thanked him very much, and took the train back to the hotel.

In the evening me and Jim went downtown to see my sister dance at the Moulin Rouge! We had dinner together before Louise´s first show of the night. The show was (as usual) fantastic! Jim unfortunately got very sick right before the show due to (we suspect) food poisoning from earlier in the day. He still stayed for the show, but had to head straight back to the hotel afterwards.

I stayed for the afterparty and it ended up being a long night out. The next morning, Thursday, Jim and I decided to postpone our departure for another day. He was still a bit shaky after the stomach trouble, and I was shaky from the night out and still needed get the bike ready.
I picked up the bike at the shop, thanked them dearly and went to Louise´s apartment where she had a moving in party. Another late night out for me, but I had alot of fun, met fun people and saw interesting places. Jim wisely decided to not challenge his stomach.

Paris - Bordeaux

Friday we finally left Paris and drove an extra long leg to try and buy some lost time. After alot of traffick jams and queues in and around Paris, we finally were able to speed up and cruise at around 120 km/hr on wide motorways.

Our target was Bordeaux in the southwest of France, and we drove through Orleans, Tours and Poitiers before arriving in Bordeaux before dark, around 8-9 o´clock in the evening.

Bordeaux - Zaragoza, Spain

Today (saturday) we drove from Bordeaux through Bayonne over the Pyrinee mountains to Spain and have stopped in Zaragoza. It has been a wonderful leg, the weather has been perfect all the way, which by the way it has been even from Bergen (blue skies all the way!). The best part of this leg was that we were able to get off the highway about halfway to Zaragoza. Because Jim´s GPS decided to play us a trick, we ended up way out in the country side on small backroads, over rivers and through quiet villages. It was really nice to use other gears than 5th, oh and also to do turns.. Some fantastic scenery to be seen in the spring colors, and both me and Jim were rolling film with our helmet cameras.

The temperaturse have varied alot on this leg, from 23 celsius to just 8, so it has been difficult to dress properly for it. Whatever works for slow speeds does not always work for 120km/hr +. It´s either been hot and sweaty or nailbitingly cold. Good thing we know what to expect in Marocco, so we won`t be guessing so much.

Now I am dead tired, and there are angry people giving me the stink-eye, waiting to use the computer in the lobby.. eh I mean.. the tent..   fine... we are staying in a hotel. But eating combat rations! (ed: entrecote and wine) ;)

Tomorrow, we drive further through Spain, at least to Madrid, and then we have yet to decide if we route via the East coast or go straight down to Marbella, our next stop.
My headlight died sometime today, so I will have to check it tomorrow and see if its my talented wiring skills that is the fault, or just the bulb. Either way it need to be fixed before leaving Spain.

Here are some pictures from the preceding week.

Tom for drivstoff rett over grensen til Nederland / Outta gas just across the border to Holland

Jim med drikke til Klare / Jim brings Klara`s favourite beverage

Drev maa skiftes.. / The sprockets have to be replaced

Ramme avstiver stang etter modifisering, foer gikk den over bakdekket / Pannier frame bar moved further back

Bob and wife coming along for a drive :)

Show i Paris!

Flinke Louise!

En gate i Paris foer avreise mot Bordeaux / A street in Paris before leaving for Bordeaux

View Larger Map

Ruten saa langt / The route so far