Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

We had been promised all sorts of wildlife on this trip but have seen almost nothing.  Today, as we were approaching the outskirts of Tromso, we finally saw a couple of reindeer grazing on the grass verge.  Spoiler alert....their noses aren't really red! Last night we discovered that one of our riders had managed to leave a bag at the previous hotel.  Naturally it was the one containing their passport and between us and the passport was a ferry crossing.  Bugger. A driver was paid to bring the bag to the ferry where the crew took possession and handed it to me on the other side.  No harm done but it meant I wasn't on the road until noon.  It was then pretty much a race to get to Tromso before the riders where a reception committee formed up to welcome them. The group have ridden about 750km in 8 days which already puts most people to shame but the core of this group, about half, are living with Parkinson's Disease.  This cruel c...

I Can't Get No Satisfaction Here we are, 1.5 days from our triumphant entry into Tromso.  I have said enough about the whole price of beer thing.....but there is worse.  All tasty fermented beverages other than beer can only be purchased from state-operated off licences.  This means no competition and the inevitable high prices that this encourages.  There is more!.  These 'Vinmonopolet' only exist in large towns and we are a long way from a large town.  From where I am currently sitting a chap would have to drive 60km north or south should he fancy a bottle of wine.......which I do.   Now for the real kick in the balls. When I reach a large town (Tromso) it will be Sunday and the bastards don't open on a Sunday.   Let me repeat this.....it is early on a Saturday afternoon and there is no practical way of buying a bottle of wine until Monday morning!  It is the Norwegians who should be on the streets throwing p...

2 blogs on 1 day....I am spooling you! Whatever sights I was expecting to see today they did not include rocket launch facilities.  Actually that isn't true because, being a vaguely competent tour leader, I had done my research but it was still a surprise to see high-tech aerospace businesses, launchpads and tracking stations dotting this stretch of the coast.   I stopped to take photo and was immediately accosted by a guy with an Andoya Space shirt who told me I couldn't stop there because they were about to launch a rocket.  Woohoo!!  I managed to further down the road and, sure enough, they lit the touch paper. Now, if you are thinking Space Shuttle you need to come down a notch or six.....it was really more of a big firework than a small rocket.  BUT it was a rocket launch!!!! For some reason  logger doesn't seem to like video so I will post the video separately in FB

Brilliant Mistake 10 days of A-Ha songs was hopelessly over ambitious.  Nobody has heard of anything else from Morten's back catalogue and, anyway, the rest don't remotely fit what I have to say.  So it's back to normal from here on. A Growing Boy Needs His Lunch One of the Norwegians in our group lives on our route (in fact the whole ride was conceived by him) and, yesterday, he and his wife entertained us all for lunch in his garden.  His house sits on the side of a hill with uninterrupted views along a fjord and, with a hot sun and clear blue skies, the setting could not have been more perfect for an al fresco. Unfortunately, he built his house in slightly the wrong place, meaning that when they all left at 14:30 they still had 60km to do and the mercury was up to 28 degrees.  The last ones didn't roll in until 7pm but, judging by their soggy cycle shorts, they had detoured for a dip in the sea somewhere. Happy Hour Our acco...

OK, I give up.  I can think of no way of connecting this song to the blog content but, with so few 'hits' left to choose from, I just had to use it anyway. Sitrep: weather fantastic, scenery off the scale...yawn. Today we are riding from Svolvaer to Stokmarknes.....brief pause while you all move the little pins on the map stuck on your fridges.  This involved 60 miles, of which approximately 110% were achingly beautiful.  We even had a boat ride (an essential ingredient for a perfect day on a bike).  The hardiest souls then went kayaking while I checked that my beer supplies hadn't gone off. Big Red Barn I imagine that Norwegian paint shops are divided roughly in half with one half selling a colour which I believe they call Barn Red and the other half selling all the other colours.  Consider the savings in time and marital strife when the discussion about what  colour to repaint the house is replaced by just agreeing ...

You will be aware that I am burning through the really well known A-Ha songs fast; soon we will be down to the dross that only scraped into the top 40! Normally I see what the day brings then find a song to fit but now I am forced to fit the day to the song.  That's pretty easy today because the roads have been out of this world and staying on them forever would be a pleasure.  The scenery continues to be beyond the range of superlatives but today the road itself was an absolute joy.  Smooth, twisting and with enough gentle climbs to keep it interesting......all with the backdrop of rugged towering mountains, glistening fjords and picture postcard inlets. The last drag onto Svolvaer (a biggish town) was less spiffy but there was a good bike path. OK, that's all the soppy stuff done, back to business.  Norway is one of those infuriating countries where everyone speaks perfect English, everything works, the food is beautifully cooked and you...

Wow! When  going somewhere that has a reputation for being beautiful there is the worry, often realised, that it ends up being a bit disappointing.....not Lofoten!  I would have given just about anything to be on a bike today. I'm going to have to give the Thesaurus a good workout for alternatives to 'stunning'. Slartybartfast* earned that award! *this is a reference so nerdy that anyone who gets it should be ashamed of themselves. I am writing this in Nusfjord....a fishing village so pretty that they charge you 1NB to enter it. When it is gorgeous everywhere you look, charging ten quid to see some more is a ballsy ask! My wards have done their first 40 miles and have now boarded a chartered fishing boat for a 50 minute journey to circumvent a long, unpleasant undersea tunnel.  On the far side they are offered a short run to the hotel or an extra 12 miles to visit once of Lonely Planet's best European beaches.  ...

My optimism that we would be all set yesterday evening were premature.  No fewer than 7 riders arrived without their bikes and with little clue as to where they were.  After a worrying evening we managed to ascertain that they might be coming in on the last flight from Oslo so off I scampered to the airport to enquire.  To everyone's relief they appeared at around midnight and it was a short night as we then had to be up early to get them assembled and tested. Part of the problem may have been that the Arctic Race of Norway starts in Bodo tomorrow and all incoming flights had unusually large number of bikes on board.  Some of our riders were asked if they were here for the race.....presumably by people with some sort of visual impairment.  Chris Froome even put in an appearance at the airport! Our ride today was a magnificent 5km: 1km from the hotel to the ferry terminal then a further 4 from Moskenes to the hotel.  We are now on the souther...

My drive today from Narvick to Bodo involved finding a number of speciality items.  In  preparation for this I invented a new unit of currency....the Norwegian Beer (NB).   The exchange rate is about  £12 to the NB. Firstly, I managed to leave my only warm outerwear at Heathrow yesterday.  That's right, I am inside the Arctic Circle with nothing warmer than t-shirts.  I briefly considered a splendid Norwegian fisherman's jumper on sale at Oslo Airport....until I worked out that it was almost 15NBs.  Instead, I went to a place called Sports Outlet where a fleece cost me.....wait for it....ONE NB.  How can a fleece cost the same as a beer?   Next was the obligatory electric beer fridge.  Again the new currency works well and for just 3NB I  can now have cold beer whenever I want at the laughably low government off licence price of 0.25NB. Finally, on arrival into Bodo, I had to find a parking space....

Although I love to travel I am pretty agnostic about where I go.  I have a  'bucket list' but it is modest and mostly reflects the places I can't justify the high cost of visiting on my own dollar.  Northern Scandinavia is a case in point; but I now have an opportunity to tick it off my list at somebody else's expense.     I am sitting in Oslo Airport waiting for a connecting flight to Bodø to meet an international group of cyclists in order to support them on a 1 week charity ride up to Tromsø, through the region known as Lofoten .  The ride is entirely within the Arctic Circle and, judging by Google Street View, the scenery should be off the scale.   Sadly I won't be cycling but I will have plenty of opportunity to admire the view from the comfort of my rental van.  There are 22 riders, from the UK, Ireland, Canada and Norway, plus myself and four non-cycling WAGS and we will be doing a relatively mo...