That’s the time I had.
I was hoping to go to Switzerland but anything south of the UK was getting toasty and I didn’t fancy that.
Let’s go north then, haven’t been that way.
I’d always fancied the Arctic Circle but trying to get up there and back down on a 125 in 18 days didn’t feel like I could do it comfortably (though retrospectively it was about the same mileage as I ended up doing).
Studying the map, Helsinki sounded like a good destination, and so a plan was birthed.
As I usually do, I left on a damp and grey day heading to Folkestone and getting off at the other end it didn’t really brighten until Dunkirk.
What then followed were multiple days of riding up to 330 miles per day heading up through Germany, Poland and into Lithuania. I was amazed at how flat everything was, at one point a gradient warning sign could be seen in the distance and as I got closer it was for a 6% gradient! Crazy, my driveway is more than that.
I stayed in Riga, Latvia for a night and then the next was up in Tallinn in Estonia. Both these cities were really interesting, a good mix of beautiful architecture, cheap prices, and slightly edgy post Cold War vibes.
From Tallinn I took the ferry across to Helsinki which was a great short crossing and then spent a few days relaxing and enjoying some of the Finnish food and countryside and visiting Porvoo for a day - A quaint old town, very picturesque.
The next part was an overnight crossing on the ferry to Stockholm. This was probably one of the worst to use a scooter on, the tie points were just to one side and designed to attach to the frame of the bike, and with a scooter all the frame is covered in plastic.
I did my very best wrapping about 6 tie downs around wheels, suspension and anything that might hold the bike still. A mildly rough crossing at night didn’t lend itself to a good sleep. I kept dreaming I’d find the bike on the side in the morning, though my lashing efforts held up well and the bike surprisingly stayed still.From Stockholm I rode down to Malmo over a couple of days, i particularly liked the vast forests though a large deer jumping out into the road in front of me did get my heart thumping. I visited Huskvarna and stayed nearby and then at Malmo crossed the bridge into Copenhagen, legged it down through Denmark and caught the ferry across to Germany. It was then just a few days down to Antwerp, then Calais, then the Chunnel across to the UK and home to Bristol.
It was an epic adventure, though I have to say I was surprised that the roads were nowhere near as exciting as the Alps, Dolomites or Pyrenees, and having spare time again I would definitely head south.
My chosen steed was my PCX125, a great bike for covering distance. It can hold a very nice steady 80kmph which is most back roads, it has an 8.1 litre tank, giving a range up to 240miles if you take it easy. 28 litres of storage under the seat gives you a lot of room for your gear, and with the back box for all my clothes it felt very safe leaving my gear on the bike for short periods of time. The foot board is quite long so foot placements can be varied and you can really wiggle around on the seat, which meant I could sometimes ride for three hours solid, and on the 8 hour days only needing to jump off for petrol or a toilet stop. The PCX125 also gets around 137mpg on longer trips which means fuel costs are significantly lower compared to a larger cc bike. Thereby reducing the cost of the trip and enabling me to spend the money on hotels instead.
I’m a stickler for documenting my expenditure and petrol filling so here are the stats:
18 days
3,163 miles covered
117.4 miles walked
£184 spent on petrol - yep, that’s true
140 best mpg
Lots of fun.
Cheers all
