Summer holiday?

A question asked by many of us who have regular office jobs is 'what am I going to do for my holiday this year?' You know, that couple of weeks in the year when you can escape the normality of working life. Should you follow the sun, lie on the beach or head for the Tuscan hills? Well, for me the ride to Sardinia last year reminded me how much I enjoy long distance bike journeys and whetted my appetite for more bike trips, so In the depths of winter I began mulling over options for another bike trip. Given financial limitations and geographic restrictions, it would have to be somewhere in Europe, so it was time to get the maps out and the thinking cap on . . .

I racked up about 7,000 miles over the winter on the new Tiger, fitted heated grips, a chain oiler, an end can and some metal panniers. There's been motorway slogs, single track mountain roads & green lanes. I now know have the right bike for a trip to most places. New tyres are on and there's a couple of weeks to scrub them in before the first little trip of the year. 

For a few of us it has become an annual pilgrimage to wend our way to the lovely Isle of Man at TT time. This year four of us are booked for most of race week. A beautiful farmhouse will be our lodgings and I'll get to find out exactly how fast a Triumph Tiger 800 will go on the mountain mile!

Swiftly on the heals of that jaunt will come a ride from Bristol up to Scotland for the northernmost round of the British Superbike championship at Knockhill. More watching bikes racing, but this time staying in a cow shed!

Just a couple of weeks after that comes the main event, the trip I have been planning for the last few months. I've got that couple of weeks of holiday and I wanted to go somewhere a little different. Trips to Spain, Italy or Austria did not feel quite adventurous enough. A route quickly formed in my mind as I turned my gaze to the more northern areas of Europe. That part of Europe offered lots of opportunities for firsts for me. I've never been to the Norwegian Fjords, never knowingly crossed the arctic circle on land, never experienced the midnight sun, never been to Russia. A circuit around the Baltic Sea would allow me to do all these things and more. As it turns out, there are no passenger ferries across from the UK to Scandanavia anymore, so that's another opportunity for a first - travelling on a commercial ferry.

So the plan is: two weeks to go through Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland (possibly the Czech Republic), Germany & France before getting back to the UK. That's about 4,500 miles by my preferred route. More than the average UK biker's annual mileage in 14 days. And I plan to free/wild camp as much as possible too. That sounds like enough of an adventure for an ordinary bloke who spends his days at a desk. Not an average summer holiday then.

The space on the ferry is reserved, I am waiting for confirmation of a Russian visitors visa and I am just trying to get insurance for Russia sorted out, although I understand you can buy it there. Then, all I need to do is go! I'll be blogging and tweeting - @dynamobang - when I can. I'll also be videoing and will post short clips while travelling if I can, but there'll certainly be video footage on my YouTube channel (dynamobang) when I get back.