Day 21 – Vik Norway

Day 21

Trondheim Norway – Vik Norway

First let me answer the question that is at the forefront of everyone’s minds. The answer is forty-two. (Note to self double check your work)

After spending all afternoon on my hands and knees in the unforgiving Nordic sun I passed out around 8pm which is how I found out that it was fully light at 3:30 in the morning. I took a walk around the harbor near my hotel for an hour or so and went back to sleep till 8:30 in the morning. When I pulled into the Yamaha dealership (Ride Trondheim) Torgeir By the head mechanic informed me I was late for work.

A poster on the WildGuzzi forum said he had the same symptoms as I did and resolved it by cleaning the connectors on then cylinder temp sensor. Torgier proceeded to remove the temp sensor and remarked that it wasn’t in there very tight. Examining the threads in the cylinder they appear to have been stripped and previously Lock Tighted into place. Torgier proceeded to clean the sensor and the contacts before wrapping the sensor with some thread tape and putting it back in place. He then synced the throttle bodies. Hopefully the fix on the sensor will hold. We then discussed MotoGP for a bit and I said I was going to visit the Trondheim Cathedral. “To pray for the Italians” he remarked meaning the Guzzi and Valentino Rossi.

The Trondheim Catheral is very impressive and well worth a visit. No photography is allowed inside though. The Cathedral took over 150 years to build but in truth has never been finished. Legend says that if the Cathedral was ever finished Trondheim would fall into the sea. To prevent this from happening there is a statue of a mason holding a brick in front of a hole in the wall. Or so I’m told, I couldn’t find the statue.

With some trepidation I left Trondheim and started heading north. I took the advice of a Norwegian member of the WildGuzzi forum and made my way to Namsos and started following the coast northwards. The scenery is simply fantastic with roads to match. After hearing horror stories about Norwegian speeding fines I’ve been trying to keep the Guzzi on a short leash. I swear if I get a $500 speeding ticket for going 3 kph over the limit I’ll place the final brick in the Cathedral myself.

At the first ferry crossing of the day (around 8:30pm) two young bicyclists I had passed a while ago showed up. I noticed they were flying a French and German flag so struck up a conversation. Edgar the Frenchman had written to Bremen from Lyons where he met up with Phillip and both of them cycled up here. We discussed how outrageously expensive Norway is and when they whipped out there cooking gear to boil some noodles I offered to buy them both a ($20) burger and fries. I figured so many people have gone out of their way to help me I would try to pay it forward. They were quite grateful and mentioned it was the first meat they had eaten in over two weeks.

When I finally pulled into a campsite around 10:30 pm a Norwegian cyclist came over to talk to me about motorcycles. As it turns out his wife/girlfriend’s son is a mechanic at the Yamaha dealership in Trondheim. Small world.

The other news of the day is that the Guzzi started every time on the first try. I could get used to this. I gave the bike a little pat and pep talk each time. Not that I think it will help, but it’s a good idea to be nice to machines. It’ll only be a short time till they rule the world so we should get used to it.

I could learn to love my little red Italian tomato but my red lemon makes me want to kill an Irishman. Which would be bad.

BTW it’s 12:30 in the AM as I write this and it’s still light enough to read by.

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