I’ve been going to a conference in Lund, Sweden for the past three years. This year I decided to ride my motorcycle, a BMW F750 GS 2021, instead of just grabbing a flight. Four days down, four days up was the original plan. Ended up spending five days up due to extra stop to visit my uncle and an early stop due to heavy rain.
My total route looks like I was trying my best to avoid Oslo, which I did, because the roads through Oslo aren’t the most exciting.
I didn’t pack a tent as this was in the end of May, and I was expecting cold and wet weather. As it turned out, it was surprisingly warm and summery, ranging from 20-30°C all the way down and most of the way back up. It was also a week or two too early for camping sites to be open, so most of the time I stayed at bed and breakfasts or hotels. The bed and breakfasts were usually the more charming lodgings. This early in the season there where few other guests, which suited me fine. I like the peace and quiet.
I had made rough estimates on how far I’d drive each day on average, but not booked anything in advance. Half way into each days I’d start looking for a destination based on weather and how tired I felt.
Day 1 – Trondheim to Norrsjön, 383.69 km
Starting 18th of May I headed south from Trondheim towards and past Røros before entering Sweden. My brother joined me on his BMW F850 GS 2019 for the first part of the ride towards the border before he headed back home.
It was in large part a transportation route. But after crossing into Sweden there was some nice winding roads through the forests, even some elevation action that made for some enjoyable cruising.
Coming into Norrsjön I found that I needed to be more conscious of my refuelling options. It can be far between petrol stations and not only that, as you get further from the larger cities they aren’t all open 24/7 for self service. When I finally refuelled I had less than an estimated 40km on the tank. If I’d missed that one I didn’t see any other on the map that was open that day. 😬
I stopped at Norrsjön Gästgifveri, a farm bed and breakfast. I was the only guest there so the owner let me have my pick at any of the rooms, even though I’d booked the smallest a couple of hours before I arrived. That’s one of the reasons I like the smaller bed and breakfasts. Things are much more informal and it is usually a much more enjoyable experience with those who run the place.
Day 2 – Norrsjön to Torsby, 239.59 km
I’d booked so late in the day, and early in the season that there wasn’t any breakfast available. But that was no problem, only a few minutes away there were several options and I found a nice newly opened cafe named Bedits Kaffe & Kök to have a solid breakfast.
I was close to where the Swedish TET was going, so I decided to follow that for a while. One particularly point of interesting along that route was a dead-end trail along Tossjön. There is a “road” where you have the lake on both sides and to get there you have to pass through a short section of sandy road. That’s where I met the first other biker on my trip who happened to also be from Norway.
After returning back onto the main gravel road from that detour I ended up suddenly taking a nose dive on my bike…
I was alright, only a twinge in my right leg from pulling a muscle as I ungracefully “dismounted” the bike as it tumbled. Fortunately I was able to lift it back upright without too much hassle. The uneven road surface where I landed made it little awkward to get proper footing, but it wasn’t too bad. I had lifted my bike only once before, earlier in the spring as I’d dropped it while trying to traverse a snow dune across a dirt road. That had been good exercise for this tumble, being all alone in remote Sweden. I spent some time extracting dirt from the bike, especially the front, using a stick. It’d gotten deep in there. Thanks to the crash bars it was mostly undamaged besides for some minor scratches. The main damage was done to the Vario case on the side side that had taken the grunt of the fall. Luckily the bag inside and its content was undamaged. The case had however ended up smashing the one half of the adjustable case into the other half, jamming the mechanism to it. But the case mount wasn’t broken and the lid opened and closed fine so I was able to continue to ride after I’d gone over and checked for other damages. The extra lights I’d mounted on the crash bars got shifted out of position, but they were fully functional without any scratches to the glass.
As I was riding onward I found the right mirror had come loose, and I realised I was foolish enough to not pack any tools. Unable to tighten the mirror that was swinging back and forth I just unscrewed it and put it in my rear top box, I still had my left mirror. After that I also realised that the lever to adjust the wind shield up and down and also broken. However it wasn’t critical for the wind shield, it stayed on without vibrations even though it was held in place only on the right side.
The roads had been gotten a fresh layer of gravel, deep as well. The surface was pretty loose for a good section after that. After the fall my adrenaline was disappearing and I was starting to feel much more insecure for a while. It wasn’t until I was back on paved roads for a few kilometres on nice winding roads that I started to calm back down and get that good riding feeling. Still, that fall would have me on edge for the rest of this trip and further into the summer. My confidence had taken am unexpected beating.
At Torsby Camping, one of the few camping sites open this early, I went over the bike again to double check for damages. They didn’t have any tools to borrow that fit what I needed, but they did have some duct tape that I was able to use to seal the damaged side case. (Repairing that when I got home is an article by itself.)
The camp site was owned by a German family that was very hospitable. The wife and mother of the family didn’t speak much English, but she saw me limping around on my leg that I’d pulled and came over and gave me some painkillers. I ended up talking with one of the sons for a good while, over a glass of whiskey he donated.
Day 3 – Torsby to Thorskogs Slott, 331.25 km
The next day I returned to the TET route, but I ended up breaking off from it earlier than I had planned. I felt I was still shaken from the fall the day before so I was riding a lot slower on the gravel roads. Having done some calculations I also knew I had to get a few more kilometres done today than I had yesterday. It was also not fun to stop on the forest roads at this point as I’d instantly have a swarm of mosquitos orbiting me. The paved roads rest of the day was fine. A mix of boring stretches along with some really fun ones.
When I got to the point of looking for a place to lodge I was surprised to find a castle, Thorskogs Slott, in a rural part of Sweden. It was more expensive than other alternatives around, but it looked so nice and the dinner menu looked so inviting that I couldn’t resist to splash out on a nicer stay. Totally worth it! Just the dinner alone made me so happy and re-energised me. The rest of the evening I spent walking around taking photos.
I had also found a repair shop earlier that day that lent me tools to re-attach my right mirror. I also bought some epoxy glue which I used to repair the broken handle for the windscreen. After arriving at the castle where I’d stay the night I glued the broken pieces together. Using the strap of my camera to hold it tight while it dried over the night. Worked like a charm – to this day it has held up despite a lot of shaking and vibrations while driving.
Day 4 – Thorskogs Slott to Lund, 334.53 km
This was the most boring day of the whole ride down to Lund. I had to make it all the way down that day and I was approaching the populated parts of Sweden, meaning there was fewer options for enjoyable roads.
I tried to keep to the west, thinking that if I followed the coast the roads would be somewhat winding. I was wrong. As I came to pass Gothenburg I missed a turn on the motorway because of the confusing spaghetti junctions so I ended up the the centre of the city, at 30°C+… Finally out of Gothenburg I started to look for places to eat, but I struggled to find anything but your average hamburger, pizza and kebab places – none of which really appealed to me. Getting close to Lund the roads just got straighter, flatter and faster. And also windier – much windier! I ended up riding more in the centre of the lane than what I normally do in order to have more space for when the wind grabbed hold of me and the bike. I was extremely fed up with wind by the end of that day.
Lund is an old city with narrow one-way cobblestone streets. Neither the GPS on my bike nor Google Maps was able to provide me with a legal route to my hotel. I think I spent 20-30 minutes riding around in circles getting trapped by the maze of one-way streets. It wasn’t easy to find parking, at least free parking, even for motorbikes near the hotel. In the end I shelled out of parking on the roof of the hotel, which cost over 200 euro, but at that point it was for the conference so I could expense it as business expense. :)
Day 5 – 7 – Conference at Lund
The conference in Lund was fun, as always. I’m omitting the details and most photos for this article that’s already long enough. But a couple of photos of the wonderfully detailed interior of the All Saints Church:
Lund is a very pretty and charming city, well worth a visit if one find oneself in the area.
Day 8 – Lund to Kristiansand via Denmark, 364.16 km
Denmark was a pure transportation day. Flat and a lot of 90-130kmt. I took the ferry from Sjællands Odde to Aarhus to avoid the E20 and cut a few kilometres. While waiting at the ferry a group of very nice retro bikes arrived.
The rest of the day was pretty dull, working my way up to Hirtshals for the ferry to Kristiansand leaving at 20:00. I had booked a quiet area seat, which was worth it. The ferry is large and a lot of people in the rest of the areas.
Arrived at Kristiansand at midnight, with a short five minutes drive to an AirBnb room I had booked the day before.
Day 9 – Kristiansand to Oanes, 260.38 km
The weather report south in leading up to when I arrived hadn’t looked great. But it was holding up for my ride to Oanes where my uncle lives. I took some of the smaller roads going over Sirdal and Dirdal coming down to the Lauvvik ferry to Oanes. After Flatland (Denmark) it was really nice to have mountains and winding roads again.
At Oanes my uncle had summoned some of my cousins and their family living not too far away. Nice to catch up as I don’t see them very often.
Day 10 – Oanes to Rjukan, 288.00 km
Starting on my northwards ride back up, over Suleskardveien and past Dalen the weather began to shift. Still quite a bit of snow over the mountains, but not the meters high walls I had a tiny hope of seeing. It had been very warm the last week so most of it was already gone.
I still had to make a stop to pad up with more layers to keep warm over the mountain crossings. The rain also picked up over the day and as I made a fuel stop at Rukjan it really started to pour down. By then the coldness had also set into the core of my body so I decided to look for a place for the night. Earlier than I had originally planned, but it the heavy rain wasn’t giving any indication to be clearing up any time soon and I was tired.
I found Rjukan Admini a few meters apart. A nice historical hotel with a very tempting restaurant was very appealing after the wet and cold hours on the road. There wasn’t too many other guests that day, so I ended up geeking out with the staff about the building and its details. It was a very enjoyable hotel to stay at, much better than your regular chain brand.
Like the dinner, their breakfast was very nice. A great start of the day.
Day 11 – Rjukan to Vågå, 359.56 km
Stopping earlier the day before meant that I’d likely spend an extra day on my way back home. But it was completely worth it because the weather had cleared up and I felt re-energised. Had I kept going the day before I wouldn’t have enjoyed the roads as well, another reason to listen to your body when riding motorcycles.
Most private roads in Norway use license plate photo recognition, or Vipps. But every now and then you still have the ones that accept only cash in a box. This day included one of these, and I was not prepared for that. But looking close, very close, at the sign I found an amendment for motorcycles saying it was free. :)
I was riding towards Dombås via Gol and Beitostdølen. From Vågåmo I found a nice looking gravel road, Slådalsvegen, part of the Norwegian TET. It would bring me back to the main roads close to Dombås where I had originally planned to stay the night. However I was two days too early, the road was still winter closed. I saw they had scraped and applied fresh gravel to the road, probably that very same day I was there. Turning around I looked for a place near Vågåmo. Found Nordigard Blessom, a very charming bed and breakfast old farm.
The owners was very friendly and hospitable. Catering primarily for tourists visiting Norway that want to sample a bit of Norwegian traditions it was still a very nice place to stay for a Norwegian.
Day 12 – Home, 252.10 km
I was one day over schedule according to my original plan so I stuck to E6, despite being a rather uninteresting route. It allowed me to arrive home mid day with enough time to get organised and rested before resuming back to normal work life.
Totalling 2772km this trip gave me a nice sampler for the longer trip I had planned later in the summer.
