In a previous trip to Norway, we went to Bergen and north. This time we decided to go west to Sandsnes, where my family has it roots, then loop south through the vacation paradise of Norway. So we loaded up my dad's Peugeot Partner with beer, clothes and diesel and went up and over the mountains!

One of the first things we saw was a "stavkirke", which translates to "stave church". These are made of wood, around 1100-1200 A.D., and to preserve them, have tar applied on a regular basis. Of 900-some known churches, 28 remain standing, and they feature structures built entirely of wood, and some very intricate carvings from the Viking era.

The first one we encountered was still in use as a community church.

The second one, near Dalen, was not open but was set in a very picturesque valley.

 

 

While I drove, Jennifer took photos ... and what did she take photos of?

 Did you figure it out? These are "Stabbur", structures created for storing food away from rodents. You can read more about them here: http://www.scandinavianheritage.org/stabbur.htm

And yes ... she wants to build one behind out house. I have no clue where she gets that from.

Driving on .. the road is generally very narrow, with room for tow large vehicles (buses) with only inches to spare. When buses or trucks meet any opposing traffic, things go down to a crawl as they squeek past each other. The pavement is generally smooth, it is very curvy ... a motorcycle would be awesome here!

Dad's handy Peugeot Partner

We continued on, driving up and over the mountains then down into a steep fjord to Dalen. The road down is a long stretch of steep switchbacks, dropping 3000 feet in a couple miles. But the views are outstanding! Although it threatens to rain, it never really does.

 At the bottom of the gorge lies a historic hotel, one of the first in Norway. Via the fjords and canals tourists can take boats to it and spend the night. We were going to, but at $500/night, we decided to motor on. Heck, even dinner was too rich for our taste, at $120/entree. But it certainly was a neat old place, except the servants' bathroom ... which we accidentally entered (and used) while looking for the REAL restroom. Eh.

So on we drove. Dinner was a mexican pizza at a rest stop ... the rest of the clientele just had french fries, so we were eating pretty good! Heck, that one $20 frozen pizza wasn't bad at all, and thanks to the handy dandy electrimical cooler we borrowed from my folks, we made four meals out of it!

In a few miles the trees thinned as we gained elevation. Norway is unlike the mountains in the US. Imagine a big flat-ish rock, which is then carved from the sides. That's Norway. It is really more like a plateau in the middle with rivers and fjords carving canyons. That is what we crossed, and the treeline is at a mere 3000 feet. Compare that with the US, where the treeline is about 9000+ feet. The tallest, Gladhøpiggen, is a mere 8100 feet. Thus, the grandeur of Norway doesn't come from tall craggy peaks, but rather where the water meets steep cliffs along the fjords and the intricate topography which follows.

It is on top of this central plateau where we were going to spend the night, at Haukeliseteren. This translates into a named mountain lodge. To keep prices down, we considered renting a bed in a common room (ironically, in a stabbur) for $100/each, but figured a $250/room was thus a better value as we didn't have to worry about locking our stuff up, we'd have some privacy, our own showers, and wouldn't be woken by everyone going in and out.

We checked in, ate the rest of our of pizza (I think ... my memory is going), bought some chocolate and I enjoyed one of the best Imperial Stout's in the world, made by Norwegian microbrewery Nøgne Ø. At $28 for a 22oz bottle I could only justify one ... especially considering that they are $10 back home. How is that for irony ... Norwegian beer is MUCH cheaper in the US than in Norway!!

At some point, maybe 1am, we retired to our room. The view of the lodge above, with the grass roof, next to the lake, with the mountains in the background, was taken at about 1am. Welcome to the land of the mignight sun ... we never experienced that it was dark during our stay.

Before we traveled over the mountains to grandmother's farm on the west coast we spent a few days in Oslo. I won't go into details, just post some photos:

Ruins from the middle ages

Olso Opera House

An old hotel near the ski jump where we ate apple pie and had hot chocolate

And the ski jump ... new! They replaced the old one.

Russian musicians on Carl Johan

People on Carl Johan. We lucked out with the weather!

More people on Carl Johan, looking towards the royal mansion which we toured.

Visiting the Old Country ,,, Norway!

As most of you know, I was born in Norway. Throughout my youth our family lived in Norway, then Rochester, then Hastings, back to Norway, a short summer in Wanamingo, then Hastings again. By the time I had transferred from the University of River Falls to Mankato State University, my parents had moved back to Norway. They spent a few years in Kirkenes (go see how far north that is!), Drammen, Tranby, Sylling and now Bygdø. Dad has retired .. mom is retiring next year, my grandparents just turned 90, I haven't been to Norway in the summer since .... 1989 !!! ... and Jennifer never has, we figured this would be a good destination for our 2012 "big vacation".

The first challenge is getting there. I have a bazillion miles on Delta and enough status to get upgraded to first class. Plus, since we usually Delta because that is the main carrier at MSP, I try to get my frequent flier miles on Delta. I have some on the other airlines, like US Airways, but since they don't fly out of MSP often they usually expire. So the obvious first choice is find tickets on Delta.

When flying on Delta to Europe it invariably goes through Amsterdam and is operated by KLM. I had no problem finding reward flights to Amsterdam, but Delta doesn't fly from there to Norway so I'd have to purchase separate tickets for that. So, total, I'd have to spend 105,000 miles, $700, and sixteen hours of travel, to fly on Delta.

The obvious alternative is Iceland Air, but with no status we'd be in coach and we don't have the frequent flier miles to use. Total, we spent $2000, no miles, nine hours of travel. It was a no-brainer ... plus we managed to schedule a 3-night layover in Rekjavik. Yippee!

To add to the complexity, Jenn was scheduled to work for a week in Germany before our trip. We managed to  get her a flight from Ramstein to Paris to Oslo which was supposed to land twenty minutes before my flight. We had it all figured out!

On the day of travel, I was lugging along two large suitcases. Things are expensive in Norway, and that means I bring along lots of things at the requests of our relatives. The big suitcase was for just that. The little suitcase had two weeks of clothes for myself. Being an international flight, it is standard to allow each passenger to check two bags. Which I did. Also, being an international flight, it is standard to serve beer and meals, even in coach. Which Iceland Air did not. After a couple hours into the flight, while sitting comfortably on my REI Sit Pad (because coach seats have no padding), the lights dimmed, and I realized ... I was hungry and they weren't serving food. Dammit. $10 later I was munching on a warm ham'n'cheese baguette before settling back into my Nook. And no beer. Oh well. After a six hour flight I was in Keflavik, seeking breakfast and my next flight. A few hours after that, I was in Oslo, with my parents! Yay!

But no Jennifer.

Air France was an hour late leaving Frankfurt and thus she missed her connection to Oslo. The next flight, after four hours, was full. They booked her on the last flight of the day ... eight hours after the one she was supposed to be on. At least she was upgraded to first class ... Air France is a Delta partner, and after flying halfway around the world a couple times last year, she has a high status for that to happen. But still, being eight hours delayed stinks.

So ... mom, dad and I decided to make the hourlong drive to Oslo and do some grocery shopping. We stock up on beer, crabs, shrimp, bread, chocolate, etc. Basically anything that looks good. When I try to pay with my credit card, the cashier asks for a PIN code. hm. I don't have a PIN code on my credit card. None of my credit cards have PIN codes. They also require RFID chips in the cards, which my cards don't have. Well, ok, my parents end up paying, and we find an ATM. Well ... none of my bank cards work either. We have checking and savings accounts in two banks and neither work in the ATM. Dammit.

Anyway, we head back to the airport and get my wife and then head to my parents' home, where we are renting an apartment for a couple nights, at 350 NOK a night (about $70). This is a steal!

At some point I called US Bank to figure out what my PIN code is. They tell me that they can't tell me, but they can send it to my home address. Obviously that does me a lot of good, so I get online and see if I can set a PIN code on their website, but it is clear that US Bank credit cards don't have PIN codes ... only debit cards do. I don't have a US Bank debit card because I don't have a US Bank checking account ... only a credit card. I call US Bank back and get another representative on the line to confirm this, and learn that Europe has switched over to a new type of credit card with an RFID chip and a PIN code, and they are in the process of rolling out new cards for all of us. Well gee, thanks for staying on top of this one.

The next call was to our banks to learn why we can't withdraw any cash. They checked their records and did not see any transactions at all - so the ATM's here aren't even reaching our banks. 

... so there we were, no functional credit cards and no Kroner. Wonderful. But, we were at least united with my parents, and could borrow from them if needed, so it was, at this point, a minor inconvenience. Oh yeah, it was cold and rainy, and coming from hot and humid MN, we did not bring sufficiently warm clothes .... so we borrowed some.

Civilian Police Motorcycle (CPM) Class

In July, Paul and I took the Civilian Police Motorcycle (CPM) training course. It is offered by the Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Foundation as a "next step" beyond the Experienced Rider Course. You can read about it here:

https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ots/mmsc/rider-training/Pages/civilian-police-motorcycle.aspx

Having completed the Lee Parks Total Control a couple years ago, we were looking for something "more", and this was it! I always wanted to learn how to shoot and ride at the same time... just kidding .. this class is more about strategic cycle handling skills in difficult stress-induced and tight, narrow situations.

Our instructor ... Mike ... I think it was ... was excellent. He was always enthusiastic. He greeted us at the range when we arrived, provided water and snacks and set up the course cones. He rode a large Victory Vision and demonstrated the exercises for us. I figured, if he can do it on his giant bagger, I can do it on my little FJR1300....

The mix of students was interesting. It ranged from experienced to ... well ... could use some more experience. Two women, ten men. A couple Harley's, a couple sportbikes, a couple adventure touring bikes, a couple Gold Wings, and my Yamaha.

The first thing we did was to protect the bikes. It was made clear that he expected some of us to drop our bikes, and he had fire hose and gorilla tape available. The spills would be low-speed, so it only necessary to cover up the parts that touch down.

First up we did a figure eight then swerve followed by a swerve, using no more than a 28-foot wide space (i.e. the space of two road lanes). This lead immediately into a 90-turn in the width of a sidewalk. Most of us performed well on these, tightening up the figure eights to as little as 18-20 feet. The girl on the Harley had a particularly hard time with this, dropping her Harley frequently. Paul and I did well, and the guy on the Yamaha Super Tenere blew everyone away!

Next up were the offset cone weaves. There are two versions - the 30 mph one and the very slow but much tighter one. This is where most people had problems - the guy on the Harley ex-police bike dropped it at lease once per trip through the slow offset cone weave. I quickly learned to wait until the other participants were mostly through it before I entered it, or I'd have to have slow down and wait for them exit. The idea is to keep moving and use the inertia of the bike to keep it upright ... but some of the less experienced riders (like the little BMW F650GS) tended to go slowly through the cones, using lots of clutch and balance skills, keeping the bike nearly upright, to make it through.

On the 30mph weave, Mike had a radar gun which he used to verify we were hitting high enough speeds. He would us this later too, on the 45-mph brake and escape exercise.

Once in a while we would be gathered into a string and just rode in large circles for five minutes at 30mph to get some airflow, to help cool down the bikes. It was about 103F on the tarmac on this day.

Next we did some group riding techniques using hand signals, lining up, taking off, etc. We don't ride in large groups nor demand this type of conformity so this was sort of pointless to me.

Next up, we did the "Iron Cross". This is a little more complicated so I drew a diagram:

And .. Paul filmed me riding it:

We did it both ways. I like this exercise quite a bit!

Throughout the day some of the previous exercises were still available, so while we were waiting for students to get through one, we could go back and practice another.

Another exercise we did was the "immediate left or right turn". From a stop, with only ten feet in front of the bike, we had to start and make a hard left or right turn. After this Mike made it a bit harder ... we would come to an "instant" stop then continue. An "instant" stop was tough ... imagine slowing down, then hammering both front and rear brakes to completely stop the wheels, and as the suspension rebounds, continue forward into the hard left or right turn. Without putting your feet down. This takes some practice!

We also did the Keyhole exercise, which consisted of entering a very tight space, turning the bike around and then exiting. This wasn't too tough .. until we had to get OUT of that tight space! This involved a quick jab on the rear brakes to straighten the bike and "dip" it the other way to quickly change directions. I've attached a video I found online (we did it with both hands!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVAz5Zk3PFE&feature=related

Ok ... brake and escape. This puts everything together. We started at slower speeds (25 mpg) then worked up to 45 mph or so. The idea to ride fast, then perform an emergency braking exercise, followed by a hard right then left swerve, then a series of 180-degree turns. By themselves, each part wasn't tough, but putting them together WAS tough. I would enter the exercise with the "hard braking" exercise which invariably gets my adrenaline going. Then, the hard swerve and 180 degree turns requires a different mental state. Making this transition in my brain was tough, and Mike explained that was the point of the exercise. It also simulated a traffic crash ... let's say the car in front of you stops very fast. Then, to avoid being smashed by the car behind you, do a hard left/right swerve and get between the cars in front, down an alley, or off onto the shoulder. A common way to die on a motorcycle is to get rear-ended by a doofus not paying attention ... this exercise teaches us the skills to prevent that.

At the end of the day we had a few fun competitions. The first was a "slow ride". I failed miserably the first time because I misunderstood the instructions ... "no clutch" I thought .. so I idled through it and beat everyone. Second time I got it right, but just couldn't balance the heavy FJR1300 very well. The winner was the guy on the F650GS who feathered his clutch through all the exercises.

The second competition was a relay through the Iron Cross. Mike split us into two teams. I think he was hoping to make them even, with Paul and I on opposite sides, but we got the guy on the Super Tenere. The rules were as follows:

1. Each team rides half the Iron Cross. There are potential collision points!
2. Knock over a cone, and you have to straighten the cones before you can hand off the flag.
3. Put a foot down, and you have to start over!
4. You can leave the Iron Cross, but you have to re-enter where to exited it.

Thus ... the strategy is to never ever put your foot down. It is better to leave and re-enter than to put a foot down. It is better to knock down cones than to put a foot down.

This turned into a game of blocking the path of your opponents, trying to cut them off so they have to put their foot down. Also, half-helmeted competitors had the upper hand in being able to bite into the hose (used as the relay flag) with their teeth to make the flag handoff fast. The rest of us were fishing around in our jackets for it.

Paul's team got a great start, despite my attempt at blocking him. Then I fumbled our flag. But the guy on the Super Tenere was our ace in the hole, and we won.

So ... what did I think? I think this was a great class! The cost of the class was $75. Mike explained that it usually $150 but they received a grant from the Fed's and were able to reduce the cost. In my opinion, this class should be taught by two instructors. Despite Mike's skills and enthusiasm, he didn't have much time to coach individual riders who were having trouble. Had there been a second instructor available, that instructor could focus on the students who were having trouble. Therefore, I can only recommend this class to someone who has already taken and grown bored with the ERC and also completed a course like Lee Parks' Total Control. While that class costs $300, there are two instructors and there is a lot of time with them to really learn the some of the more advanced techniques. This CPM class, with one instructor, is thus more geared towards practicing and fine-tuning your existing skills.

There is a Level 2 of this class, which is about 5 hours and costs less. It reduces the space in which we can perform these exercise, and also performs some of them side-by-side. We'll see whether I take that class ... I think next year I'm going to focus on the Zalusky DCTC sessions again, on the SV650.

Final day and almost stranded

Leaving Sioux Falls was difficult, not just because of the great hospitality we received, but because the prior day's 96F/100% humidity was 80F/200% humidity in the morning. Better than hail, I guess...

There's not much to write about here, and we didn't even get any photos. Sorry.

Oh yes there is!

Instead of interstating it all the way home, we hit Hwy 60 north through Mankato (where Rob and I got our bachelor degrees, at different times). Paul and Amanda continued east to Rochester, on I-90, with a stop at the Spam museum (highly recommended, BTW) in Austin, MN. The next day, in Rochester, Paul's VFR would not start: the rectumfryer quit. Talk about good luck! ... making it all the way there, where he could leave it and pick it up later. These VFR's are notorious for burning out rectifiers, in fact Thor's VFR burned one last year (at 97,000 miles).


Just west of Mankato we stopped at what used to be  BMW dealership in Clear Lake, MN, Judson Cycles. We get there and it appears closed ... all the bikes are in the shop, none outside. We enter through the mechanic shop, and learn that the little storm we rode through was predicted to create hail and they put all the bikes into the showroom ... which means no room to go anywhere.

Rob buys oil for his new R1200GS (I guess they're supposed to burn oil for the first 20k miles) and we get free wife-beater shirts. But what is interesting about this shop, is that it used to be an official BMW dealership. However, according to the sales person we talked to, BMW required them to purchase a $15k diagnostic machine in order to repair the new S1000RR. Since they don't sell those bikes in the middle of Harley-Davidson-Cruiser-Land, they decided to give up the BMW franchise. Instead they are converting inexpensive 250cc Chinese scooters to be trikes, and selling/repairing moto-guzzi's. There were also quite a few interesting old BMW's for sale there....

So ... after that we rode home.

Thanks to all for a great trip! We're already planning next year's Walt Ride ....

The End (for now)

On the road again ....

After a few short days we had to bail on the Black Hills and head east again.

We checked out of the KOA but this morning we went to town for breakfast. The food was delicious and less expensive than the KOA's Chuckwagon.

Full up, we rode out of town. At Wall, Paul and Amanda left us to check out Wall Drug and the Badlands - we would see them in Sioux Falls. Maybe. (the rest of us had already seen Wall Drug and the Badlands). This was not clearly communicated to all, as we lost some of our riders. We have been using the Sena SMH10 bluetooth helmet transmitters, which in the past have worked great. But on this trip they haven't worked too well, and we just gave up on using them for intercoms (my unit was inconsistently reachable ... and will be going back for warranty service/replacement soon). We also had a snafu with Rob, and Bill, and a Bee, which I don't entirely remember the details of. In any case, we met up in Interior, SD, to tour the Missle Man silo. My brother didn't have as much vacation as us and weren't planning on staying in Sioux Falls, so he pushed on through and was home at a reasonable hour.

So. The Missile Man Silo. Apparently, this National Park or Monument or whatever apparently is officially at the Interior exit. They a little exhibit. But .. the silo is back west 15 miles at Wall Drug, and the control center, 20 miles to the east, with tours a couple times a day which we weren't willing to wait a few hours for. What a disappointment. We rode on.

And we rode.

And we rode.

Holy crap I-90 in South Dakota is boring. We stopped at a gas station. Brett and Mark left us here, and pushed on home.

Then in Sioux Falls, Tim showed us the way to his in-laws. These gracious hosts put a bunch of us up for the night, fed us meat and potatoes and broccoli salad, ice cream nuts chocolate dessert, AND breakfast the next day! These are great people - with a Norwegian heritage, we had some nice discussions, and ooogled their new lawn tractor next to our bikes in the garage.

I should also mention that Paul and Amanda arrived as well .. and then Chuck did too. Our last night of the trip, Rob came through with a case of good IPAs!

Touristy stuff

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Chuck had joined us from Oregon. He was taking care of his sister's dogs and thus couldn't ride out here, but he was able to jump in her car and join us (with the dogs). While we rode he spent time with the canines in various places and we all enjoyed beer and stuff. He slept in the car with the pooches.

Bill is excited about the Needles!

Another morning, another night with snorers. It promised to be a hot day, so we had decided to ride in the black hills, which has a higher elevation and thus was a little cooler. Breakfast was again taken at the KOA, and since some of us had a slow start the other group went into Custer for some cheap coffee, where we met them as we proceeded on our ride.

Stoic Tim

First up was the Crazy Horse monument. I couldn't discern any progress since my last visit here a few years ago so we skipped it and proceeded into Custer State Park. We paid our dues and entered, and the first stop was the Needles Highway. These metamorphic rock formations are part of the Black Hills dome which has been lifted then eroded, exposing the granite.

Next stop was the wildlife loop, and on the way there we got our first view of bison, then a bunch of mules.

Bill points at animals.

But the twistiest road was Iron Mountain Road. Before we were allowed to enjoy this we had to wait for a herd of buffalo to cross the road. At one point, a minivan was blocking their progress and it appeared that it would proceed through Thor's motorcycle ... but then it changed its mind and went around the minivan instead. Phew!

Iron Mountain Road. This would be a great road if it weren't for two things: Poeple and speed limits. Most of it is 35 mph and I would agree that this is appropriate for the corners. These are very tight corners, leading into one-lane tunnels and wooden pigtail bridges. But the problem is that there are other people on this road traveling at far lower speeds, and in particular Harley's who stop in the middle of the road or pull onto the road without checking to see whether someone was coming.

Bill points at other animals.

In Keystone we stopped for a BBQ, and chatted with a group of sportbikers, one of which was from the UK and brought along his girlfriend from Hillsboro, OR. They clued us in on the "good" section of Nemo Road to the east, which I had never been on.

A couple of us zoomed up to the Rushmore monument to get a photo from the side of the road ... while admittance is free, there is a concession parking facility which charges $12/vehicle. We felt that was too steep and thus admired it from the side of the road before returning to Keystone.

Nemo Road was on our list of trip highlights, but a couple of us felt it was time to retire for the day, so we split up. One group went back to the KOA, the rest of us hit up Nemo Road. Apparently there was a miscommunication on how much of Nemo Road we wanted to do, as I lead the group to the eastern end and was about to do the turnaround to ride the western end, half of our remaining group decided to split and head back to Custer. To be honest ... there are some nice sweepers on the east side of Nemo Road, but the speed limit of 35 mph was stupid, and the pavement leading up to it was crappy. The rest of us proceeded to enjoy the much better western end of it. At the termination of the road, Mark and Brett went north to Deadwood and I went south to the KOA.

Once at the KOA, and not yet having found dinner, and being somewhat low on beer, Paul, Amanda, Rob and I went to the local brewpub. While chatting with the bartender (who teaches archeology during the school year) and bartenderette (who wants to get into the restaurant business and once lived in Apple Valley, MN) we had a few of their brews on tap. Eight of them, in fact, in 4-oz servings, and some weren't week. That was followed up by a trip to the local pie shop which we had spied each time we went through town, and yes, the pie was excellent! In fact, it was so good that Paul and Rob molested the pig ... although I suspect the beer was the primary culprit that lead to that. Amanda and I maintained our dignity ....

Alien Molestations

Today we set out to do what we came here to do: RIDE!

But first we had to get up, and in doing so, we discovered that our plan of putting the snorers in one cabin and the non-snorers in the other didn't work so well. The snore-cabin housed Mark, Rob, Tim, Brett and Bill were in one cabin, with the bunks in the front room and the queen in the back. In that group was a master-snorer who forced some of the less proficient snorers to wear earplugs.

In the other cabin, the one with the queen room in the front and bunks in the back, we had Paul and Amanda in the queen and me, my brother and Scot in the back. But ... there was a snorker among us.

Fortunately I had earplugs and could endure it until the sun came up, at which point I went out and bid adieu to Ron, camped next to us, as he packed up and puttered down the road on his GS. BTW Ron ... your exhaust is WAY loud and not worth the 2 extra MPG. Just sayin.






The cabins worked great. We paid $54 (or so) each for three nights of lodging. Can't beat that. But they have a flaw, in that the latches and doors transmit sound everywhere. It is impossible to not make noise when getting up to pee, turning over in bed, etc. We woke Paul and Amanda every time we had to go through their queen room to get in/out of the cabin. In retrospect, had we known the cabins were different, we would have swapped so Paul and Amanda would be in the back.


Breakfast was at the KOA chuck wagon which a dad and a kid ran. I think he had three kids, and while the prices were a little high for South Dakota, the food and service was excellent! We also had some discussions with the guys running the place and they were always happy to stop by and have a chat with us. We even got to borrow a garage with a flat concrete floor to help listen to Scot's FZ1 for a chain rattle and then adjust it.




After breakfast we went west, then north, to Devil's Tower. We took our time and hiked around it, mosied around, passed a bunch of Harleys, and then took the backroads to Spearfish Canyon.








Yeah ok I was wrong, in yesterday's post I wrote that we did Spearfish Canyon but we actually did it the day we went to Devil's Tower. Bite me, I'm not Orwellian enough to revise that entry.

 Back at the KOA we continued where we had left off the previous night, with beer, bourbon, lies and more damn lies.

We did not get any photos of the alien molestation. But Mark found a previously molested rattlesnake.