Europe India Trip - Day 18-19: snow day in Fjellstova & Fjellstova to Kristiansund via Atlantic Ocean Road [Apr 30 - May 1, 2023]
Best day of my ride. Atlantic Ocean Road was awesome but the real joy was getting a lot of help from near strangers in Kristiansund
This is part of my Europe India solo motorbike trip . Please read the post for more context.
I woke up & saw falling snow, but I thought to myself, it isnt a big deal as it was snowfall yesterday as well. Only when I came out, I figured the snow has become pretty deep. Some amount of gloom around uncertainty filled me. I decided to make myself a coffee in the hut & kept looking outside.
I saw Harry (owner of Fjellstova .. refer to my previous blogs) cleaning pavement snow. He waved at me when he passed by.
I did go out around 10 AM & spoke with Harry & Hilda if it is ok to ride. They suggested that I can possibly try riding around a bit so I took my bike out for a spin. It was hard taking it out as the snow was a bit deep around Fjellstova but on the road, it was ok. I remember Hilda mentioning that the road opposite their place connects Oslo to Alesund & it was kept clean & operational all through the year.
They also mentioned that it is illegal to ride during snow without winter tires & the insurance isnt valid. They also said that the police may catch me & fine me if they see me riding without winter tires. The challenge was that my bike’s front tire has actually less tread depth in it so that added to my fear.
I then went ahead to make myself lunch (soup with bread) but did this in the kitchen & not in the room as the day I came in to the place. I also slept off in the afternoon as I had nothing to do & felt sleepy. When I woke up at 3 PM, the weather was clear. It did cross my mind that I can leave for Kristiansund, which was just 100+ kms away. I messaged the Airbnb host about it but she responded saying there is a storm in Kristiansund. So I decided to stay put that day.
I went to the Fjellstova restaurant in the evening, ordered myself a coffee & wrote a pending blog post. I realized I could have used the day to write more of them but I think I was a bit pensive / sad / scattered to be able to put myself together to write one. I dont have much memories of the rest of the day but I would have come back & slept.
Oh yes, I remember now. I was looking for some biker groups on Facebook in Norway & came across Bunk A Biker Norway . I joined the group & it had a link to a map of pins indicating house of bikers who are willing to host traveling bikers. I found a place in Kristiansund & dropped an email to Vibeke. To my surprise, I got an email response in an hour & Vibeke was happy to host me. I emailed her about pointers for getting a new front tire in Kristiansund & the CHEC problem to which she said that I should talk to her husband once I am there (I actually then realized that I was talking to a lady :) )
The next day, I was up & saw some snow still falling, which worried me a bit. But when I went out, I realized a lot of snow has actually melted. So I readied quickly, loaded up stuff in my bike, went in the restaurant for my favourite (& cheap) chicken panini for 79 NOKs with coffee :) & then headed out for Atlantic Ocean Road by like 10 AM.
I remember stopping at a shell petrol pump around Vestness to fill petrol. I figured the Shell petrol was much cheaper compared to the other pumps. Not sure why.
I soon reached the ferry point to Molde . I remember that my timing was near perfect as most vehicles were already loaded & the ferry was about to depart in 3 min. So I dint have to stop & rode straight in.
So, I have registered on ferrypay.no but I was charged only once so far. I think it has to do with my reg number being confusing (it is PO 11 but people dont understand if it is O or number 0 … if it is number 11 or double L or I) or they can see the UK sticker. When I was charged, I was actually standing next to the bike & the guy came in, asked me questions about the reg number & was able to enter it into the system. What I do now, is to quickly dash inside (you see the resting area gates at the far end of the pic) & more or less, the motorbike number never gets recorded. So I end up using the ferry for free :) .. nice little hack if you end up riding your own country motorbike in Norway :-D .
We reached Molde in no time. While in the ferry, I noticed a view point in Molde & I was like - I have enough time, maybe I can ride to the point. It was a bit of ascend but the bummer was, the vehicle has to left 3 kms away from the view point. Google map did not show it & when I reached the parking spot, it started to drizzle. So I decided to skip & started to ride towards Atlantic Ocean Road.
I remember coming across a cafe on the roadside in Eide & stopping there, only to figure it was closed. It was May 1 (Labour Day) & everything was closed. I just took a pic & moved on.
I reached Atlantic Ocean Road by like 2 PM. I was getting a lot of request to shoot video of great experiences so decided to shoot the entire ride on my GoPro. I dont think it came well but well, thats what I got.
Atlantic Ocean Road goes through a lot of small island & the main attraction is the tall bridge at the end.
The entire road is a few kms. I was at the end pretty soon & there is large parking area with walking trail. I parked there & took few pictures.
I then continued towards Kristiansund. I noticed Best petrol station had a bit of crowd & figured they have the cafe open. I have not had any coffee so far & probably had come the longest without a coffee in a day in my trip, so you can guess what I did :).
I emailed my host Vibeke & she asked me to come right away. Vibeke’s had a pretty big house & I got a very lovely room. Vibeke actually came out to greet me & during my entire stay, I got treated pretty much like a member of the house.
Soon Olav (Vibeke’s husband) came out & said that we can get a new front tire if I want. I was like - the shops will be closed today as it Labour Day, but Olav said the shop owner is his biker friend & he will be ok opening the shop.
I had earlier thought of getting my tire changed in Sweden but then I figured, if I am getting expert help, I should go ahead. I had read reviews of some of the tire shops like Dekkman as to how people had left there wheel for like a week & they dint change.
So I told Olav I am ready for it. We drove to the tire shop in Olav’s car, bought a Bridgestone tire & brought to the house, all in like 20 min.
Then Olav opened his garage & we got into action to take the front wheel out. Olav put together an interesting hack of holding the handle from the top through a hook & opened the bolts to take the tire out. It was pretty neat.
We then drove to Olav’s friend, Kenneth, who has the tire replacement machine. Kenneth was ready when we reached the place & it took him like 10 min to get it all done.
At the end, I requested Kenneth for a picture of his garage which looked very well equipped. Plus it had like 4 bikes in it including a very old Goldwing.
We thanked Kenneth & headed back to Olav’s place to fix the tire. Olav suggested that we should also clean the brake piston & here I ended up using some of my effort (so far it was all being done for me). We put it all back together. I requested Olav & Vibeke for a pic & they agreed.
You could see a motorbike with sidecar in the background. That is their motorbike. It is a custom made bike from some French guy who sold a few hundreds of these before going bankrupt. Olav mentioned that he bought one for himself & eventually got it for a few of his friends in Oslo. They ride to Italy on this during their riding vacations which include a 900 km crossing Germany in a day.
I requested for a pic with the bike but Olav was shy this time. So Vibeke posed by herself.
I think we were done by like 8 PM (I had come in at like 4 PM & for past 4 hours, Olav & Vibeke were just engaged in helping me out). In the evening, Vibeke offered me some dinner (well, I started to feel a bit bad because of the unrestrained favours I was accepting but well, I guess I was too lazy to do anything about it :] ) followed by wine in their living room (ya I know what you thinking).
Norwegian houses are so charming from both inside & outside, but what got me this time, was the functional design. Olav showed a rotating vase structure fitted under the table to keep things concealed & that is where they keep the wine bottles. I was like - now this is some functional thinking :-D
It was a fairly action packed day & I forgot about the blog. In-fact, I decided to let it flow rather I taking control. So it got late soon & we headed to bed. I had decided to ride towards Sweden as all my planned stops in Norway were done. Olav suggested a more straight eastern route but then when we checked temperature, it turned out that taking a southern route towards Oslo & then a detour makes sense. Little did I knew that I will end up being at Oslo because of my misplaced passport. More about it in next blog.