In 2016 I was fortunate enough to ride a Harley for three days in California. Once it was pointed in the right direction with the cruise control on, you could curl up on the seat-couch and have a nice doze, only waking up to grab a well-earned drive thru Happy Meal. So I’ve always been a bit scornful of our Iron Butt US cousins, who head down some laser-straight, heartland highway and casually watch the wheat fields blurring past for the next 1000 miles, with Kissin’ Cousins FM warbling from the console speakers.* It all seemed a bit, well, easy. And I don’t like easy 
So, I thought I’d go the other way for my first SS100 in 2018 and deliberately make things challenging: five countries, a ferry crossing, a massive toll bridge, all mushed together with mad, August traffic. The Hook of Holland to Ringebu, Norway on a Burgman 650 scooter it was.
I live in Ipswich, so the Harwich to the Hook of Holland is a no brainer. It’s the last remaining ferry to “northern” Europe from the UK after the last UK to Scandinavia route, Harwich to Esbjerg, was canned in September 2014.** All the other UK-Scandi routes were closed long before.
So Harwich to the Hook of Holland is now the only sensible way to get to Scandinavia from anywhere in the UK.*** I’ve taken my bikes over to the ‘Hook’ a few times and always pay for a cabin, even for a day sailing. The goblin mode bestowed by a private, chilled space; a hot shower; and a crisp-sheeted bed has a massive physical and psychological impact on the next leg of your trip. While everyone else is out in the sun (or in the karaoke lounge if overnighting) drinking overpriced lager, you are in an air-conditioned cocoon, abluted and catching a power nap. Treat yourself.
Ostensibly, the starting time for a SS1000 shouldn’t matter too much as it cycles through a whole day. My gut feeling, however, is that starting early morning for a bit of peace, and empty roads, is psychologically soothing. Like a being in a floatation tank with Ben Wa balls tinkling gently up your bum.**** Ferry crossings don’t always sync with this though, and I arrived in the Hook late afternoon when it was buzzing, and frankly irritating as hell: annoying goddamn tourists who wanted to tootle along seeing the goddamn sights and all that, when I was on a goddamn mission! Because of the traffic I decided to delay the start of my SS1000 attempt until well out of the slow town traffic. (For some reason I delayed it too long and rode 70 miles before officially starting—I still don’t know why or how this happened. Curious.)
But now here we go! Let’s hit the road! So long suckers! I immediately took a wrong turn from the A30 on to the A1. This added a few miles and I had to get fuel from the Esso station on the east carriageway to evidence this. So long suckers indeed. The rest was straightforward until Germany. Whilst many autobahns allow you to make progress (as mandated in the Police Rider’s Handbook of course), Lambos smashing past you a few feet away at 200mph in the dark can give your hermetically sealed, boil-in-the-bag Frank Thomas trousers a good testing. It is terrifying. But on we go.
Just before the Puttgarden-Rodby ferry, my fuel gauge/last bar started flashing: on the Burg 650 this means you have about 2.5 litres/25 miles left. It’s basically laughing at you, knowing that it is likely you will end up at the side of the road at 3 a.m., fuel-free and sobbing for your mum who is 1000 miles away. Reliable UK 24-hour pay-at-the-pump petrol was a distant memory.
It was not problem of course! The satnav showed a lovely open petrol station, that was very open, in the open town before the ferry. I went off route to take advantage of its openness. It was closed. For a biker, there is nothing worse than wasting precious petrol to go searching for petrol that does not exist. Fuel anxiety was setting in. Also, the town was suspiciously dark, as if I had been lured to an abandoned film set just to be mugged and molested. I rode on.
I arrived at the ferry around midnight, but I’d just missed the last one by minutes and so had to wait an hour or so, which I calmy… and casually… and THOUGHTFULLY added to my trip log. Cursing under my breath, I had a root around under the seat***** for an energy bar. I’d proudly made these myself, figuring that I could calorifically tailor them for a long ride so I didn’t have to spend much time buying food. It turns out that I cannot actually make energy bars: the f#####s crumbled to dust in my hands, like Dracula on a Tango-sponsored sunbed. It was at this point that I started to wonder what I had got myself into…
At 1:14am I finally bought my ticket (€57 for a 45 minute crossing—pirates ahoy!) and wibbled off to the ferry to get my head down on the sticky carpet in the bar. Rejuvenated after a power nap, I headed north where I found a 24-hour petrol stop just after the ferry terminal and filled up. Generally though, I found unmanned Scandinavian fuel stations to be a pain: rejecting (good) cards; not printing receipts; receipts having no fuel details, just time and location; pumps not working etc. There is no planning around some of this so I was glad to have five litres of fuel stashed on the bike.
I pressed on to Sweden with no major problems, stopping once for a short kip in the lee of my bike. Even the Oresund bridge behaved itself—when I went over it 10 years earlier on a V-Strom I had to lean at 45 degrees to counteract the wind (which was genuinely hilarious, I could not stop laughing).
I headed up the E6, and some 13 hours and 640 miles into the trip I had a rest stop, and a burger, just short of Gothenburg. I’d done 2/3 of the milage in about half of the time, but I was flagging. I rang my wife and wondered whether I should get a nice place in Gothenburg, do some sightseeing and have few cold beers in the evening. She told me to stop feeling sorry for myself, to get a f###ing grip, and reminded me that I had be planning this (and banging on about it) for years. That was me told so I cracked on.
Back on the E6 I entered Norway, and all went swimmingly. Until the Queue of Existential Doom at Hamar. This was an endless stop-start single file roadworks that had been abandoned for the whole summer. Even on a bike with retractable mirrors and no panniers, there was no progress to be made. I’m not sure how long I was wedged in that abomination, but at this point I started worrying about both time and petrol. Eventually, I got off and used my emergency fuel stash (2 x 2.5l Givi cans under the seat). The car drivers behind didn’t even beep as the queue was so slow.
Amusingly, before knocking off for a month, the digger drivers had parked their vehicles facing the road and had painted “god sommer” (good summer) on all of the buckets. Stuck in a non-passable queue in 25oC heat, that cheered me up no end. Honestly. I didn’t really want to get off my bike and torch them all, no siree bob.
Eventually, we escaped and it was a clear road past Lillehammer, the site of the 1994 Winter Olympics, and then 35 miles on to my destination. Because of the delay in starting, I had to tweak the route at the end by going some 15 miles past Ringebu, where I had a room booked, getting fuel and then coming back. All was good, and I returned to Ringebu and withdrew some cash to evidence the finish. I rode up to the hostel, where the owner signed my finish document (I don’t think it was necessary for SS1000, but couldn’t hurt), but she gave me the side-eye when I said I’d just come from the Hook of Holland in one go. I crashed for a few hours and then went for a wander and a cold beer (ten Euros, it still hurts to this day).
And that was that: 1,026 miles in 22 hours 44 minutes. Cutting it slightly fine, but that’s what Iron Butt UK is all about—our roads are neither straight nor flat nor empty (and nor are Scandinavia’s) The next day, I rode up to Kristiansund and then headed south via the Atlantic Bridge. Norway is an amazing country and it was an amazing ride. But that’s for another time.
*I love you all really, I know it’s not all like that. Sometimes you have to stop for really cheap petrol and an all-you-can-eat BBQ for a tenner.
**And what a great route that was: strap down your bike; sneak some kiwi-melon Mad Dog 20/20 into the bar for the quiz; have a sleep; and wake up in Scandinavia.
***Unless you live in the South East—the Channel Tunnel has hundreds of empty miles on both sides for the rest of us.
****According to a friend.
***** In a Burg 650, large enough to fit a week’s shopping, or two small pigs.
The route
[Nice pics of Norway coming soon. But don't hold your breath--this took me five and a half years to post]
So, I thought I’d go the other way for my first SS100 in 2018 and deliberately make things challenging: five countries, a ferry crossing, a massive toll bridge, all mushed together with mad, August traffic. The Hook of Holland to Ringebu, Norway on a Burgman 650 scooter it was.
I live in Ipswich, so the Harwich to the Hook of Holland is a no brainer. It’s the last remaining ferry to “northern” Europe from the UK after the last UK to Scandinavia route, Harwich to Esbjerg, was canned in September 2014.** All the other UK-Scandi routes were closed long before.
So Harwich to the Hook of Holland is now the only sensible way to get to Scandinavia from anywhere in the UK.*** I’ve taken my bikes over to the ‘Hook’ a few times and always pay for a cabin, even for a day sailing. The goblin mode bestowed by a private, chilled space; a hot shower; and a crisp-sheeted bed has a massive physical and psychological impact on the next leg of your trip. While everyone else is out in the sun (or in the karaoke lounge if overnighting) drinking overpriced lager, you are in an air-conditioned cocoon, abluted and catching a power nap. Treat yourself.
Ostensibly, the starting time for a SS1000 shouldn’t matter too much as it cycles through a whole day. My gut feeling, however, is that starting early morning for a bit of peace, and empty roads, is psychologically soothing. Like a being in a floatation tank with Ben Wa balls tinkling gently up your bum.**** Ferry crossings don’t always sync with this though, and I arrived in the Hook late afternoon when it was buzzing, and frankly irritating as hell: annoying goddamn tourists who wanted to tootle along seeing the goddamn sights and all that, when I was on a goddamn mission! Because of the traffic I decided to delay the start of my SS1000 attempt until well out of the slow town traffic. (For some reason I delayed it too long and rode 70 miles before officially starting—I still don’t know why or how this happened. Curious.)
But now here we go! Let’s hit the road! So long suckers! I immediately took a wrong turn from the A30 on to the A1. This added a few miles and I had to get fuel from the Esso station on the east carriageway to evidence this. So long suckers indeed. The rest was straightforward until Germany. Whilst many autobahns allow you to make progress (as mandated in the Police Rider’s Handbook of course), Lambos smashing past you a few feet away at 200mph in the dark can give your hermetically sealed, boil-in-the-bag Frank Thomas trousers a good testing. It is terrifying. But on we go.
Just before the Puttgarden-Rodby ferry, my fuel gauge/last bar started flashing: on the Burg 650 this means you have about 2.5 litres/25 miles left. It’s basically laughing at you, knowing that it is likely you will end up at the side of the road at 3 a.m., fuel-free and sobbing for your mum who is 1000 miles away. Reliable UK 24-hour pay-at-the-pump petrol was a distant memory.
It was not problem of course! The satnav showed a lovely open petrol station, that was very open, in the open town before the ferry. I went off route to take advantage of its openness. It was closed. For a biker, there is nothing worse than wasting precious petrol to go searching for petrol that does not exist. Fuel anxiety was setting in. Also, the town was suspiciously dark, as if I had been lured to an abandoned film set just to be mugged and molested. I rode on.
I arrived at the ferry around midnight, but I’d just missed the last one by minutes and so had to wait an hour or so, which I calmy… and casually… and THOUGHTFULLY added to my trip log. Cursing under my breath, I had a root around under the seat***** for an energy bar. I’d proudly made these myself, figuring that I could calorifically tailor them for a long ride so I didn’t have to spend much time buying food. It turns out that I cannot actually make energy bars: the f#####s crumbled to dust in my hands, like Dracula on a Tango-sponsored sunbed. It was at this point that I started to wonder what I had got myself into…
At 1:14am I finally bought my ticket (€57 for a 45 minute crossing—pirates ahoy!) and wibbled off to the ferry to get my head down on the sticky carpet in the bar. Rejuvenated after a power nap, I headed north where I found a 24-hour petrol stop just after the ferry terminal and filled up. Generally though, I found unmanned Scandinavian fuel stations to be a pain: rejecting (good) cards; not printing receipts; receipts having no fuel details, just time and location; pumps not working etc. There is no planning around some of this so I was glad to have five litres of fuel stashed on the bike.
I pressed on to Sweden with no major problems, stopping once for a short kip in the lee of my bike. Even the Oresund bridge behaved itself—when I went over it 10 years earlier on a V-Strom I had to lean at 45 degrees to counteract the wind (which was genuinely hilarious, I could not stop laughing).
I headed up the E6, and some 13 hours and 640 miles into the trip I had a rest stop, and a burger, just short of Gothenburg. I’d done 2/3 of the milage in about half of the time, but I was flagging. I rang my wife and wondered whether I should get a nice place in Gothenburg, do some sightseeing and have few cold beers in the evening. She told me to stop feeling sorry for myself, to get a f###ing grip, and reminded me that I had be planning this (and banging on about it) for years. That was me told so I cracked on.
Back on the E6 I entered Norway, and all went swimmingly. Until the Queue of Existential Doom at Hamar. This was an endless stop-start single file roadworks that had been abandoned for the whole summer. Even on a bike with retractable mirrors and no panniers, there was no progress to be made. I’m not sure how long I was wedged in that abomination, but at this point I started worrying about both time and petrol. Eventually, I got off and used my emergency fuel stash (2 x 2.5l Givi cans under the seat). The car drivers behind didn’t even beep as the queue was so slow.
Amusingly, before knocking off for a month, the digger drivers had parked their vehicles facing the road and had painted “god sommer” (good summer) on all of the buckets. Stuck in a non-passable queue in 25oC heat, that cheered me up no end. Honestly. I didn’t really want to get off my bike and torch them all, no siree bob.
Eventually, we escaped and it was a clear road past Lillehammer, the site of the 1994 Winter Olympics, and then 35 miles on to my destination. Because of the delay in starting, I had to tweak the route at the end by going some 15 miles past Ringebu, where I had a room booked, getting fuel and then coming back. All was good, and I returned to Ringebu and withdrew some cash to evidence the finish. I rode up to the hostel, where the owner signed my finish document (I don’t think it was necessary for SS1000, but couldn’t hurt), but she gave me the side-eye when I said I’d just come from the Hook of Holland in one go. I crashed for a few hours and then went for a wander and a cold beer (ten Euros, it still hurts to this day).
And that was that: 1,026 miles in 22 hours 44 minutes. Cutting it slightly fine, but that’s what Iron Butt UK is all about—our roads are neither straight nor flat nor empty (and nor are Scandinavia’s
) The next day, I rode up to Kristiansund and then headed south via the Atlantic Bridge. Norway is an amazing country and it was an amazing ride. But that’s for another time.*I love you all really, I know it’s not all like that. Sometimes you have to stop for really cheap petrol and an all-you-can-eat BBQ for a tenner.
**And what a great route that was: strap down your bike; sneak some kiwi-melon Mad Dog 20/20 into the bar for the quiz; have a sleep; and wake up in Scandinavia.
***Unless you live in the South East—the Channel Tunnel has hundreds of empty miles on both sides for the rest of us.
****According to a friend.
***** In a Burg 650, large enough to fit a week’s shopping, or two small pigs.
The route
[Nice pics of Norway coming soon. But don't hold your breath--this took me five and a half years to post
]
