Quit our jobs, sold our home and everything in it, gone riding...

[Lightcycle]

Canadian forest scenery continues in Norway

These roads really remind me of Vancouver Island

The relatively flat lands of Sweden have now been replaced by the mountains. These are the raised fingers of land that conspire to make up the famous fiordlands of the west coast of Norway.

Bikes on break, we're roughly following the Otra River on our way west

Single file through a switchback. The roads are really nice here!

Some dead mosquitoes are gumming up Sara's forks. Dan is using a thin plastic card to dig them out

Dan takes really good care of their bikes. We are so lazy in comparison... I think back to all the problems we've had because of poor maintenance - dead batteries, broken chains and bald tires. Puts us to shame!

 

[Lightcycle]

Waterfalls all around us, remind us of New Zealand

So in the space of a few hundred kilometers, we've seen Northern Ontario, Vancouver Island and now Milford Sound in New Zealand. The more traveling we do, the more familiar things start to look around us everywhere we go!

These "turf-houses" with their grass roofs give us our first taste of Iceland-deja-vu

It only makes sense that a lot things we see here remind us of our ride through Iceland. After all, the Vikings were originally from Norway!

And then the road climbs higher and snow starts appearing on the ground beside us. Oh yeah, and sheep...

It's the middle of the summer! Crazy!

Stopping to admire the scenery. And more sheep.

 

[Lightcycle]

Neda hanging out with the dandelions

Catching a breather in the middle of the Norwegian wilderness

We are running a very fast pace with Daniel and Sara! Much faster than we are used to. Before we met them it was like we were walking beside a railroad and now it's like we've grabbed onto the back of a fast moving train as it whizzes past us!

More Icelandic-style scenery

I have a million pictures from this ride, so difficult to pick just a few for the blog

There are hundreds of these tiny lakes, the rain and the meltwater trapped in the wells of rocky terrain in Southern Norway

 

[Lightcycle]

Nature-Girl Neda is totally enjoying herself!

Gorgeous scenery!

Conference call

Would have been nice to link up all our comunicators, but since we're all using different brands, every now and then we stop to have a face-to-face "conference call" to figure out where to go next. Well, at least those guys do, I'm just the staff photographer...

Lysebotn Harbour

There's a tourist restaurant at the top of Lysebotn Harbour. We went in to warm up and to see how expensive the food was. Holy crap. €6 for a coffee. That's $10 CDN. Holy crap. We left feeling very poor. On the way out we met some Swedish tourists and we all commiserated about how expensive Norway was. Okay, if the Swedish feel poor as well, then I don't feel so bad. $10 for a coffee. Holy crap!

Lysevegen Road leading down to Lysebotn Harbour. This is going to be fun!

[video=youtube;TGRlp6qeGbA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGRlp6qeGbA[/video]
Lysevegen Road: In just 8.9 short kms, you've got 32 hairpins and a vertical drop of 840m! Yeah, baby!!!

Yeah, the Count is a bit wrong because we had already done a few switchbacks before I thought to myself, "Hey... this would make a really cool video..." Love our Sena Prism camera, it makes shooting on the fly so simple!

I found an aerial view shot of the Lysevegen road on the Internet! This is what it looks like from the sky!

Remember the "Carpal" Tunnel? It's that huge drop where you don't see any hairpins because they're hidden underground. It doesn't look like it in the video, but it was friggin' steep! We were basically engine braking the whole way down.

Man, if the rest of Norway is going to be this awesome, I'm gonna explode!!!

 

[regder]

Holy ****!!! That's incredible

btw, may possible be time for a new windshield...

 

[tiborgh]

Pula mea!

Lol

 

[Roadghost]

A road like that and I would be going up and down it all day, just to let it all sink in. Great pics. Looks like balls of fun.

 

[Jayv]

 

[Lightcycle]

I know how old you are now.

 

[RockerGuy]

Can you do knee down with those saddlebags attached?

 

[Riceburner]

He can do saddlebag down ...... lol

 

[viper84737]

Mathematics shows that if you're over enough and your leg is long enough you can knee down at any non-90 degree angle. But being on a distant trip in the middle of nowhere and crashing your bike is not something high on a priority list that's reasonable, and having been there myself and even succeeding at it at some point, I would recommend against it. Parking lots and race tracks are the best places for that.

 

[Riceburner]

..... and your leg is long enough you can knee down ....

My legs are too short to get my knee down...that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!!!

 

[Lightcycle]

Can you do knee down with those saddlebags attached?

Yep. Usually followed by hip down, shoulder down and then helmet down...

He can do saddlebag down ...... lol

Yep. And pictures to prove it too...

 

[Lightcycle]

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/243.html

At Lysebotn Harbour, we have to decide whether to ride for a couple more hours to our intended destination for the night or to camp out here. Although the riding days are long and we are in no danger of running out of daylight, the clouds are getting very dark and threatening rain, and because we've already ridden many hours, we decide to stay here overnight and then do a short run tomorrow.

Then we see the campsite and we know we're making the right decision. Nice!

The rain is imminent now and it's a mad dash to get the tents up just as the first drops of rain are falling on our heads. Then it's time to reward ourselves with a hot meal!

Isn't it good? Norwegian food.

Actually, not Norwegian food. It's food that we've brought in from Sweden. One great benefit of traveling with other people is that you can pool your food and camping recipes together to try new stuff! We dragged a picnic table under the awning of the washroom building at the campsite and had ourselves a feast! Livin' La Vida Hobo!

World-class view at Lysebotn Harbour. Shame it's so rainy here.

It rains 2 out of 3 days in Lysebotn at this time of year, so the weather is not too unexpected. This whole area of Western Norway gets a lot of precipitation because the warm air from the North Sea hits the steep mountains of the fjordlands and as it is forced upwards, it cools, releasing all of its moisture as rainfall. Brekke, a few hours north of here gets 3500mm of rain a year. Three and a half meters of rain! That's almost 10 cms of rain a day. Crazy!

Peering out the tent in the morning to see if it's going to be a good riding day or not

One nice side effect of all this precipitation is that there are waterfalls everywhere on the high cliff walls of the Lysefjorden. This large one just outside our tent provided a nice white-noise effect that lulled us to sleep last night.

 

[Lightcycle]

Drinking water is the cheapest thing we could find in Norway

Trying to find patches of sun in the dark skies above us

With the clouds slowly dissipating, we try to get our tents as dry as possible before packing them in. No success at all. It's such a gross feeling packing a wet tent away. It's like putting on wet underwear. Ugh.

Got our wet underwear packed and ready to head out for the day! Bye Lysebotn!

Back on the Canadian Express through Southern Norway! Choo choo!

With all the rain here, everything that can cling to the rocky terrain is so lush and green

We're hanging onto the back of Sara and Daniel's convoy by our fingernails. We can't keep up at with the pace that they're running, so we just let them go ahead and we'll meet them later on in the campsite. This allows us to dawdle at our own pace, and lets me stop and take some pictures too.

 

[Lightcycle]

This reminds me *SO* much of Iceland!

Sheep crossing. Getting hungry...

Dinner bell?

Rains create so many waterfalls along the steep cliffs around us. Very pretty, but it'd be nice to have some dry weather

It just keeps on raining without any break, the water bouncing off my tank bag and coming up underneath my helmet. I think my left boot is developing a leak, the tip of my sock feels a bit wet, but I'm not sure if it's just cold or damp. This is not the time to have our waterproof gear fail on us!

Ugh, so much rain!

It occurred to me that for the last two years of our trip we have been followed by rains. But this time it's different. It feels as if we've followed the RideDOT.com rains back to their home and we're on its turf right now. Ugh.

 

[Lightcycle]

Ah, the home stretch. We catch the ferry from Lauvvik and it should let us off close to our campsite

Guess who we run into on the ferry? Sara and Daniel! We caught up to them!

Thankfully the ferry staff let us park under this awning. It is *so* wet!

I walked around the ferry as it took us across to the other side of Lysebotn Harbour while Neda paid the ferryman (before he got us to the other side!) They're very organized, walking around to all the vehicles with their wireless credit-card machines, collecting everyone's payment in the short hop from Lauvvik to Oanes.

The toes of my left foot squished in a tiny pool at the tip of my no-so-waterproof-anymore boot. Gross.

Just another half-hour of rain till we reach our campsite

We all pull into the Preikestolen Campsite in the pouring rain. All we want to do is get warm and dry, so we pile inside the camping lodge watching the waterworks outside. My left sock has completely wicked up the water inside the boot and is completely soaked up to my calf and the boot is waterlogged. Ugh. Now we're just waiting, trying to find a small window of time when the rain lets up a little bit to put up our tents, which are also completely soaked in our "dry" bags. Ugh. Camping in the rain sucks.

I hate when people read over my shoulder when I'm blogging.

We've been getting to know Sara and Dan a little bit more over the last few days. Sara is the documenter for their trip, and everytime we find wifi, the two of us are banging out blog entries while Dan and Neda engage in camping gear comparisons/competitions (Isn't it good? Norwegian feud).

I'm a night owl and I'm discovering that Sara is as well. Many times, I'll do my final 2AM run to the washroom before crawling into our tent and I'll see that their tent is softly illuminated from within by laptop light.

 

[Lightcycle]

We have to eat outside because we're not allowed to bring our own food in the lodge and everything on the menu is too expensive for us

Why is Norway so expensive? They were actually a very poor country - about 750,000 Norwegians emigrated to the US and Canada from 1825 to 1925 to escape famine, war and poverty. Then they discovered oil in 1969 and have been inflicting famine, economic warfare and poverty onto tourists ever since.

Sara and Neda on the way to Pulpit Rock

Neda, Sara and Daniel do some hiking! Without me! YAY!!!!

One of Norway's most famous sights is Preikestolen, otherwise known as Pulpit Rock. It's a 25x25 metre square outcropping of rock high above the waters of the Lysefjorden and the straight drop is completely unhindered by any railing or safety precaution.

The Pulpit Rock is about a two-hour hike from our campsite. Since I'm suffering from bad allergies (and I hate hiking), I beg off this walk, and I'm so glad Sara and Daniel are hikers so they can keep Neda company.

People do all sorts of crazy things for a picture at Pulpit Rock, but surprisingly,
there has only been one confirmed accidental death here. Lots of suicides though...

About a quarter million people tourists make the trek to Preikestolen annually. It's also a popular place to do BASE jumping.

Neda the Brave, dangling her legs over 600 meters above the waters of Lysefjorden

 

[Lightcycle]

Back at camp, we're drying everything out as soon as there is a little bit of sun

Neda's panniers are leaking really badly, just like my left boot, so when the sun comes out, we spread out all of our belongings on the grass around our tent to try to dry them out. Redneck Yard Sale.

We escape Norwegian poverty by eating food smuggled in from Sweden. Thank you, Abba!

Abba, other than being a 70s pop group, is also a brand of canned seafood that we picked up while doing cheap grocery shopping in Sweden. We have developed a liking to salted herring, so our favorite lunchtime meal is herring sandwich. Yum! Other than campsite fees and gas, I don't think we've spent any money in Norway. Can't afford it...

Money, money, money, must be funny, in a rich man's world.