A Piss Pot Holds More

Just when you think you have everything sorted, something comes along to drop a spanner in the works. Two spanners in this case. Not massive ones though, fortunately. And now, hopefully, it is all sorted.

The first one, I came across as I was trying to plan what cash we'd need, when in Norway. I was trying to find out the costs of the ferries we'd be taking but on the Norled website, although they showed the timetable, there were no fares, for the region we would be riding/sailing through. So, I dropped Norled a little note. They duly came back with two fares and the information that one ferry no longer ran, because they had built a bridge. Trying to find out details of the bridge's location proved difficult. I assumed it would be near to the ferry crossing. This was quite important to know, as I had built in a fuel stop, just before we reached the ferry. After little success, I posted a question on the Fjord Norway facebook page. Thankfully, they came up with the goods, showing me on the map, where the bridge is. Hmm, 7 miles south of the planned fuel stop and adding a further 20 miles, to the next! 20 miles I couldn't guarantee Grizzly would make, given he rides one of those cruiser style bikes with a gnats bladder for a petrol tank! A little bit of re-jigging though and the addition of a fuel stop just after we ride off our first ferry of the day in Tau, now means Grizzly won't have to worry.

And worrying is what my little Irish chum has been doing, since I sent him, what I thought were the routes we'd be using.

You see it seems I had over-estimated the size of gnats in Ireland and Grizzly, whilst looking through the routes, was worried that his cruiser wouldn't make it between some of the fuel stops I had put in. I usually work on 150 miles between fill-ups (the Sprint can go 200 before the warning light appears) but with some long motorway stretches planned, it seems that even 150 is a stretch for a fully loaded Shadow. Better to be safe than sorry though, so I have gone back through the routes and added a few extra stops for the wee fella and his steed. Hopefully, he won't now query the number of coffee stops  (over 30) I've built into the schedule.

A shade over 4 weeks till the off. Fingers crossed everything remains on track.