Slept in today, Preparation for our attempt at the GN-72
The GN-72 is an official IBA Ride that takes us from Nordkapp - Gibraltar, the goal is to achieve this in less than 72 hours. Of course it can be ridden either North - South or South - North. But those who have achieved it have found that it is easier to begin in the North and ride south. A distance of around 5500 km, through around 8 or 9 countries, depending upon the chosen route. It can be done overland using bridges or ferries. I have chosen to complete it using the Oresund bridge linking southern Sweden and Denmark.
During our pre-ride check, I have discovered that my main headlight has blown. With much mucking about it takes about an hour to change the bulb, not exactly quick. This completed, we say goodbye to Jan and Wan and ride to Nordkapp from camp later than expected. The short journey from Camp to Nordkapp we encountered fog and low-lying cloud, a drastic change in conditions from yesterday. When we arrived the fog was so thick that visibility was only a few meters. We had planned on riding behind the reception centre to the monument for our photo at the beginning, this was completely impossible and had to settle for taking it in front of the reception centre. Due to the poor visibility we didn't start our ride until around 12:30, back to Nordkapp town and south. The route we had chosen was not the most direct but we should encounter less traffic, cover more distance in Germany (thus increasing our overall average speed) and avoid Paris.
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| Ready to Roll, Visibility was essentially Null |
22 July
Still in Sweden, around 07:45 Scott ran out of fuel, it seems his bike's consumption is greater than mine. Perhaps it is the bike or perhaps the rider. I managed to get fuel just down the road, return it to Scott and both ride to the fuel station. We lost only about 30 minutes.
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| re-fueling, road side |
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Such a hot Summer in sweden, Forrest fires all over. This was part of a convo from Poland 
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Upon arriving in Germany, just over the Danish-German border, I discovered that the headlights needed adjusting as they were pointing at the skies and we had to stop to adjust them. This was around 00:05 23 July. The guy at the Petrol station was super helpful and we got the job completed reasonably in about 45 minutes. Once the lights were corrected we could continue and I could actually see the road and Scott's lights were no longer blinding me. We continued on for a while and crossed over into France at Strasbourg, although we should have continued to Mulhouse which was about another 100km along the E45/A5. Unfortunately, when we crossed over the border I discovered that my GPS no longer had any maps. In fact, it had no maps of Southern European countries including France and Spain. This was a major disappointment and try as we might we could find no solution. We had to swap navigation units and try and continue.
Unfortunately with this error, it took us quite a while to reach the autoroute, Costing us much time, eventually we reached the Autoroute and continued on to Dole, where we stopped for fuel. It was at this point Scott asked if I felt he were too tired to continue the ride. For more than the past few hours, I had been watching Scott's riding and had been thinking about this. His decision-making
had become poor and I felt that fatigue was settling in. He was no longer riding safely. We had about another 2000 km to go in 23 hours, do-able. But the state he was in and having to rely more and more upon red-bull, we decided to stop. I was bitterly disappointed but there was nothing for it. Better to stop now than die trying.
Whilst discussing this, a Harley rider had stopped to re-fuel and couldn't restart his bike. This is when we met Dietmar from Germany. It was a keyless bike - with hob but the bike wouldn't recognise the fob, it just did nothing...I decided that if we weren't going to continue on our quest, I could at least try and help Dietmar. We pulled the bike apart and tried to diagnose the problem,, this took several hours, I even called a few mates for advice (Olav and Michi) but all was to no avail. Eventually he called a mate in Germany who would come with a van to collect him.
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| Mission Impossible...try to fix a Harley |
As it was getting late we had to set off and find a camp, now near Dole. We arrived at the camp at 21:30, Checked-in and ordered dinner and a beer, as the kitchen was closing at 22:00 and we didn't feel like cooking, then we set-up camp quite late.
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| Arrival at dole camp, after a long few days |
25 July
Packed-up and had a bit of a late start. Heading West direction Bordeaux. The old GPS I now had was not as easy to use...guess I'd gotten used to the Navi V.
We arrived at camp around 18:00. Beers, Catch-up with Charles and dinner at the bar. Then it was beers and Whisky down at the tents with Charles.
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| A chance meeting with a mate we met in Voss, by chance |
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| windy, forest roads...say no more |
Next day, we decided to head South-West toward Spain and catch-up with Inigo. Before leaving camp, Scott managed to drop his bike, I just put this down to tiredness. We had some issues with the GPS accuracy and our route along the way but was workable.
Around Bordeaux (the ring road) we encountered heavy traffic and had begun filtering. We were making good progress when I felt a shunt from behind me, fully expecting that I'd been hit by a car I saw Scott on the ground and discovered it had been him. At low speed he had hit my LHS pannier and come off his bike, I had managed to not fall. A french rider stopped to assist us in righting Scott's bike. I check that no-one had been injured and no major damage done, luckily he had not hit any other vehicles. I was livid, it was hot and we were on an Autoroute, so we took the next exit and stopped as soon as we could find a place out of the sun and allow tempers to calm down. After a while we discussed what had happened and why. I now believe that Scott is over-tired and doesn't recognise it. We will rest at Inigo's and give Scott time to recover.
Arrived at Inigo's around 19:00. We ate together Tortilla (Spanish Omelette), drank and made plans to stay till Monday morning with a couple of short trips thrown-in.
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| A few bumps and scrapes, but I think we got away lightly |
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| Our introduction to Spain, if you look closely most of the cars have been abandoned here. We didn't hang around long |
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| Enough room for 3 bikes, once we get rid of that car |
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| Inigo's place, we made ourselves at home |
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