Me

I am 57 years old and ride motorcycles since I was 20 years old. 2015 was the last year I did a motorcycle holiday. Until then those were holidays of 2 weeks of riding in France, Germany, Italy, those regions. This trip to North Cape is something else compared to that.

The bike

It was clear to me that trip would be done on the Monster, the Brammo Empulse was obviously no option and the Skorpion is a bit too sporty and doesn’t have much luggage options. A Monster is not a logical choice maybe but that was part of the challenge.

The Monster got a new chain set and tires at Volare Motoren in Assen. When I collected the bike the mechanic pointed me to the left fork leg, it had some traces of oil so he asked me to keep an eye on it. Only the last Saturday before I would leave I could do a trip and quickly discovered the leakage was quite bad. I contacted Jarie and reported the problem. The day before I would leave all was fixed! Thank you Jarie and Ilja! The Monster did very well during the trip, only the free play on the clutch lever got more little by little. I had that fixed on day 13 but it is slowly is coming back.

Luggage

I already had a luggage rack on the Monster, made by Star Twin, so I was ably to carry some luggage. I bought a new set of XL moto saddle bags and a Kriega drypack. I also had a Ortlieb canoe bag lying around. After trying the saddle bags on the bike I saw they were not to my liking. I asked at Volare motoren if they could make an extension toe the luggage rack. That was no problem and they made a very nice extra support!

Route

I was ably to ride most of the planned route. Until the road closure in Senja it all went well. On Senja I had to improvise a bit. On day 10 I took an alternative road to avoid a part of the E6 and do a stretch of the RV17. After Stavanger I made a new route via Lysebotn to a campsite near Kristiansand. The original route went from Stavanger to the ferry harbour in Kristiansand but I arrived a couple of days ’early’ in Stavnger.

A little bit of bad luck

• Power supply Zumo was failing intermittently
• Tank bag carrier ring got loose
• OSCO tube melted
• The Zumo didn’t indicate all the highway exits I had to take
• Plunger OSCO got bent
• Warped brake disc
• Gas stove pump failed
• Clutch started engaging earlier