The Motivation.
The idea came about when Eirik a very good friend from university announced he was getting married and the party was to be on the island he grew up on off the north coast of Norway. The party is set for the middle of summer 2007. "What an awesome bike trip that would make!" No one knows who said it first but the idea was born and we even had a deadline for motivation. We had missed a really good wedding in Sweden in summer 2006 due to Ken's work commitments and so we are determined not to miss this one. We could even "go visiting" in Sweden on the way.

The Route.
We spent a long time planning our route and came up with the one seen in the map below. 

From Crookhill to Newcastle where we got the ferry to Ijmuiden and then up to Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Osnskoldsvik, Overkalix, Alta, North Cape, Hammerfest, Narvik, Leknes, Innhavet, Donna, Trondheim, Lillihamer, Bykle, Lysebotn, Stavanger and the ferry to Newcastle and back to Crookhill.

The 7 countries we travelled through between Crookhill and the North Cape are the UK, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

Wecovered a total of 5136 miles. The route proved to be a good choice over the more conventional route up through Norway and back down the same route. The roads in Denmark and Sweden are a lot better than those in Norway so progress was a lot faster. The Norwegian scenery is absolutely spectacular though. 

The Bikes.
The bikes we took were 2 2007 Harley Davidsons, a Softail Night Train and a 883R Sportster. The softail probably would not have gone much further with out some attention as the starter motor clutch was failing fast and it is a heavy motorcycle to bump-start all the time. The Sportster started to leak oil after a couple of thousand miles which turned out to be a oil pipe union that worked loose. We noticed it in the nick of time as it was very loose and could have been disaster if it had come off. We tightened it as tight as we dare and it held up with out further incident. The dealer network that Harley Davidson has in Scandinavia is very good and they are always pleased to see you.

The Harleys were a great choice as they coped with or luggage and the mountains well, returning approximately 60 mile to the gallon. The other great thing about the Harleys was the attention they attracted, they broke the ice brilliantly and we got speaking to many really interesting people.

Tips for Others.
One of our main concerns was the fuel range, particularly the Sportster who's fuel light would come on at approximately 110 miles. To this end we carried spare fuel with us. In the end we did not need any spare fuel, the trickiest part of the trip, for fuel, was through Finland and on up to North Cape. We had stopped over night at Overkalix and fuelled up there, then again in Pajala (Sweden) and again in Palojoensuu (Finland) and then in Alta (Norway) where we spent the night. For our run to North Cape fuel was not a problem. We left Alta with a full tank and topped up in Skaidiand then went to North Cape. On the way back we fuelled in Honningsvag and again in Rypefjord before stopping in Hammerfest for the night. The rest of the trip we fuelled at the first station we saw after the 90 mile mark had passed since our last fill. This proved to be no problem and was a nice distance between stretching our legs.

We had been advised that a lot of the fuel stations were automatic where you need a credit card and that Visa was far more popular than Mastercard. While the fuel stations have automatic pumps there was usually an option to pay cash, although the automatic pumps saved a lot of time at the pay desks. We did not have any problem with Mastercard or Visa.

Most fuel stations offer hot food (hot dogs and burgers) and often free coffee which is handy if you are fighting time.

We had also been warned that Norway was expensive especially for eating and drinking out. This proved to be very true. We saved a lot of money by ensuring that breakfast was always included at or hotels and making a packed lunch from the breakfast buffet. This was also nice as in Norway there are hundreds of nice places to stop for a break so long as you have your food etc on board.

Language, almost every one we spoke to spoke really good English - quite embarrassing in fact - however very few written signs are in English even the tourist information signs.

Leave plenty of time going can be slow in Norway as the roads are not great and can be very narrow so you do ge a lot of RVs doing some pretty strange things.

We would certainly recommend this trip to anyone who s thinking about it. The ride to North Cape has to be one of the greats. If any one would like more information then please leave your email on our guest book and ask us to get in touch and we will contact you as soon as we can. Happy Travels!