Denmark and back again http://www.routamc.org/journal/denmark-and-back-again/ Denmark and back again Midgard Components Framework - de.linkm.newsticker Home again Home again http://www.routamc.org/journal/denmark-and-back-again/home-again.html http://www.routamc.org/journal/denmark-and-back-again/home-again.html Tue, 29 Jun 2004 16:40:01 +0300 Rambo Early in monday morning we woke up to a thunderstorm, however once we got up for breakfast it as already winding down and when we left it no longer rained. We prepared ourselves for heavy rain which suprisingly did not materialize. We took mostly B (smaller) roads to Rostock taking our time and arrived to the harbour at around 7pm, check in was just opening and there was quite long queue already. There were plenty of other motorists on board Superfast VII as well. The boat trip was uneventfull adn we spent most of our time resting in the cabin, at times the seas were quite rough and we were happy that we had taken teh time to properly tie down our bikes. Yesterday the ship arrived some 15 minutys late to Hanko which (along with the archipelago) was shrouded with thick fog, but after we got farther away the weather was fine, around Kirkkonummi we had some droplets of water as we rode trough an edge of a stormfront that was further up north. We finally reached home (where my brother had visited earlier to heat up the sauna) at around 10pm. Radios We hadn't charged the radios this time and my radio died shortly after we left the boat, I think the battery is showing age and draining itself even when not in use (also they faced quite heavy use on monday, especially since Tarus VOX was a little too sensitive and activated on heavy wind and/or high speed). Early in monday morning we woke up to a thunderstorm, however once we got up for breakfast it as already winding down and when we left it no longer rained. We prepared ourselves for heavy rain which suprisingly did not materialize. We took mostly B (smaller) roads to Rostock taking our time and arrived to the harbour at around 7pm, check in was just opening and there was quite long queue already. There were plenty of other motorists on board Superfast VII as well.

The boat trip was uneventfull adn we spent most of our time resting in the cabin, at times the seas were quite rough and we were happy that we had taken teh time to properly tie down our bikes.

Yesterday the ship arrived some 15 minutys late to Hanko which (along with the archipelago) was shrouded with thick fog, but after we got farther away the weather was fine, around Kirkkonummi we had some droplets of water as we rode trough an edge of a stormfront that was further up north. We finally reached home (where my brother had visited earlier to heat up the sauna) at around 10pm.

Radios

We hadn't charged the radios this time and my radio died shortly after we left the boat, I think the battery is showing age and draining itself even when not in use (also they faced quite heavy use on monday, especially since Tarus VOX was a little too sensitive and activated on heavy wind and/or high speed).

]]> Home on the range Home on the range http://www.routamc.org/journal/denmark-and-back-again/home-on-the-range.html http://www.routamc.org/journal/denmark-and-back-again/home-on-the-range.html Sun, 27 Jun 2004 22:23:01 +0300 Rambo Wednesday we spent most of the day in Kalmar, visiting the castle and old city, then we set on to Karlskrona, suprisingly enough the weather good for most of the day, when we got to around 20km from Karlskrona it started to rain a little. In Karlskrona Skallen was kind enough to provide us with lodgings at his apartment, we also met Blixten who brought an extra mattress in between organizing his 50th birthday which would be on thursday, having got an impromptu invitation we changed our travel plans so that we would be able to participate the festivities. I also uploaded the previous journal and some photos using Skallens internet connection. Thursday morning was gloomy but it didn't rain, last night Blixten had promised to show us the way to a motorcycle store so we could get better/warmer gloves for Taru (the light summer gloves were not very comfortable in rain) so after breakfast we went to Blixtens place to offer him a break on the chaos of organizing everything, we found good gloves at the second store and then back to city for lunch, after this we walked around the city center as there was a fair also. After this we went back to Skallens to change clothes and then took a bus to Blixtens place for the party. When we got to the bus it started raining, also the weather was rather windy which caused some problems with the tents but that didn't matter too much. At the party we also got to see Blixtens new bike (not yet in riding condition but almost). Friday morning was beautiful in Karlskrona but not far away it started to rain, rest of the day was spent in rather heavy rain which left us soaking wet and very tired when we finally reached our hotel in Denmark (Vingsted, 18km from Billund) around 9pm. Regardless of this the great bridges (Øresund and Stora/Lille Bælt) were rather impressive. Saturday started as gloomy but around noon it got sunny and continued that way until late in the evening, we spent the day in Legoland which was great fun, got some bricks to take back home as well... This morning we got up around 8 and left the hotel about 9:30, we took a scenery route down the west coast of Dennmark (thought the wather was far from perfect, luckily it did not rain much, mostly light showers and drizzle), around 8 we found a motel near Husum (which was where we had planned to spend the night) and set in for the night. Tomorrow we ride to Rostock and take a ferry back to Finland. Radios In the heavy rain after some hours water found it's way to both my intercom-helmet connector and Tarus intercom-helmet or intercom-radio connector causing severe glitching so we disconnected them intercoms and continued without, this proved that the connectors should we switched to truly weatherproof ones (though they tend to be bulky and expensive) or sealed somehow (which means disconnecting is not really possible anymore) if reliability in bad weather is an issue, as stated before our radios themselves are weatherproof. As an experiment I have changed my radio connector to IP67 (slightly overkill but the next class of readily available connector was not good enough) rated one (mostly because there was some problem with the original connector, the connection is made under the seat, so it's relatively safe from the elements), it works like a charm but is a lot more bulky (especially much longer) than the original, this might be a problem with the helmet which has quite short lead to the connector in that en Wednesday we spent most of the day in Kalmar, visiting the castle and old city, then we set on to Karlskrona, suprisingly enough the weather good for most of the day, when we got to around 20km from Karlskrona it started to rain a little. In Karlskrona Skallen was kind enough to provide us with lodgings at his apartment, we also met Blixten who brought an extra mattress in between organizing his 50th birthday which would be on thursday, having got an impromptu invitation we changed our travel plans so that we would be able to participate the festivities. I also uploaded the previous journal and some photos using Skallens internet connection.

Thursday morning was gloomy but it didn't rain, last night Blixten had promised to show us the way to a motorcycle store so we could get better/warmer gloves for Taru (the light summer gloves were not very comfortable in rain) so after breakfast we went to Blixtens place to offer him a break on the chaos of organizing everything, we found good gloves at the second store and then back to city for lunch, after this we walked around the city center as there was a fair also. After this we went back to Skallens to change clothes and then took a bus to Blixtens place for the party. When we got to the bus it started raining, also the weather was rather windy which caused some problems with the tents but that didn't matter too much. At the party we also got to see Blixtens new bike (not yet in riding condition but almost).

Friday morning was beautiful in Karlskrona but not far away it started to rain, rest of the day was spent in rather heavy rain which left us soaking wet and very tired when we finally reached our hotel in Denmark (Vingsted, 18km from Billund) around 9pm. Regardless of this the great bridges (Øresund and Stora/Lille Bælt) were rather impressive.

Saturday started as gloomy but around noon it got sunny and continued that way until late in the evening, we spent the day in Legoland which was great fun, got some bricks to take back home as well...

This morning we got up around 8 and left the hotel about 9:30, we took a scenery route down the west coast of Dennmark (thought the wather was far from perfect, luckily it did not rain much, mostly light showers and drizzle), around 8 we found a motel near Husum (which was where we had planned to spend the night) and set in for the night. Tomorrow we ride to Rostock and take a ferry back to Finland.

Radios

In the heavy rain after some hours water found it's way to both my intercom-helmet connector and Tarus intercom-helmet or intercom-radio connector causing severe glitching so we disconnected them intercoms and continued without, this proved that the connectors should we switched to truly weatherproof ones (though they tend to be bulky and expensive) or sealed somehow (which means disconnecting is not really possible anymore) if reliability in bad weather is an issue, as stated before our radios themselves are weatherproof. As an experiment I have changed my radio connector to IP67 (slightly overkill but the next class of readily available connector was not good enough) rated one (mostly because there was some problem with the original connector, the connection is made under the seat, so it's relatively safe from the elements), it works like a charm but is a lot more bulky (especially much longer) than the original, this might be a problem with the helmet which has quite short lead to the connector in that en

]]> We almost missed the rain... We almost missed the rain... http://www.routamc.org/journal/denmark-and-back-again/we-almost-missed-the-rain---.html http://www.routamc.org/journal/denmark-and-back-again/we-almost-missed-the-rain---.html Tue, 22 Jun 2004 21:57:01 +0300 Rambo Yesterday morning our ferry arrived to Stockholm and we set promptly to SciFi Bokhandeln to get a book for Taru to read on evenings (and while waiting for rain to pass), after this we headed towards Kolmarden where we arrived two hours prior to closing time, this proved to be just enough to see almost everything (the Delfinarium was already closed when we got around to that end of the zoo), after this we rode some time down the "old E4" and since the weather looked to be worsening we took a cabin (as opposed to just setting up our very small tent) at a camping area just outside Norrköping, this proved to be a good idea as there were heavy rains during the night. In general we against all odds managed to stay mostly dry, only very short and light showers and little drizzle on our path (and ominously looming stormclouds never far away). Tuesday we got up quite late after a good nights sleep, we packed our bikes and headed to the Norrköping city for brunch, after this we set on the road towards Kalmar, this time we managed to get wet, we spent about 1.5 hours waiting for the rain to pass at a cafe near Valdemarsvik, after this we continued on our way, near Oskarshamn (at Fårbo) we hit heavy rain and stopped at a gas station to put on rain gear and warmer clothes underneath. Shortly after the rain ended but since the weather was quite cold after the rain we didn't get hot enough to bother to change back. At Ålem we noticed that there is a small coastal road that actually started already at Mönsterås that is much more interesting ride to Kalmar than the E22 around these parts. We reached outskirts of Kalmar around 20:00 and decided to check in at a motel in stead of going camping (being cold and wet, plus bad weather ahead influenced the decision), we went to KalmarRaste (which has Homerun wireless, though I didn't bother walking back to the reception to get access codes [I found about it by chance when I turned my computer on]) Side note: Radios On monday we had some glitch with my radio and didn't bother to look into it (seems to be bad connecting wire: it doesn't work in some angles, temporarily fixed with some duct-tape, earlier I though it was the actual connector that was bad so I changed that to a better one and tested the system to work), on Tuesday the radios worked rather well and were very useful for coordinating stops etc, I had gotten Taru the same Autocom Pro-M1 intercom system as I have on my bike (It was last piece of an old model so I got the fancy version much cheaper then a simple version of the new model that I first had in mind when I rode to Tokimoto) and Kenwood ProTalk PMR446 radio (very robust [milspec] radio, little on the expensive side but extremely reliable) Yesterday morning our ferry arrived to Stockholm and we set promptly to SciFi Bokhandeln to get a book for Taru to read on evenings (and while waiting for rain to pass), after this we headed towards Kolmarden where we arrived two hours prior to closing time, this proved to be just enough to see almost everything (the Delfinarium was already closed when we got around to that end of the zoo), after this we rode some time down the "old E4" and since the weather looked to be worsening we took a cabin (as opposed to just setting up our very small tent) at a camping area just outside Norrköping, this proved to be a good idea as there were heavy rains during the night. In general we against all odds managed to stay mostly dry, only very short and light showers and little drizzle on our path (and ominously looming stormclouds never far away).

Tuesday we got up quite late after a good nights sleep, we packed our bikes and headed to the Norrköping city for brunch, after this we set on the road towards Kalmar, this time we managed to get wet, we spent about 1.5 hours waiting for the rain to pass at a cafe near Valdemarsvik, after this we continued on our way, near Oskarshamn (at Fårbo) we hit heavy rain and stopped at a gas station to put on rain gear and warmer clothes underneath. Shortly after the rain ended but since the weather was quite cold after the rain we didn't get hot enough to bother to change back. At Ålem we noticed that there is a small coastal road that actually started already at Mönsterås that is much more interesting ride to Kalmar than the E22 around these parts.

We reached outskirts of Kalmar around 20:00 and decided to check in at a motel in stead of going camping (being cold and wet, plus bad weather ahead influenced the decision), we went to KalmarRaste (which has Homerun wireless, though I didn't bother walking back to the reception to get access codes [I found about it by chance when I turned my computer on])

Side note: Radios

On monday we had some glitch with my radio and didn't bother to look into it (seems to be bad connecting wire: it doesn't work in some angles, temporarily fixed with some duct-tape, earlier I though it was the actual connector that was bad so I changed that to a better one and tested the system to work), on Tuesday the radios worked rather well and were very useful for coordinating stops etc, I had gotten Taru the same Autocom Pro-M1 intercom system as I have on my bike (It was last piece of an old model so I got the fancy version much cheaper then a simple version of the new model that I first had in mind when I rode to Tokimoto) and Kenwood ProTalk PMR446 radio (very robust [milspec] radio, little on the expensive side but extremely reliable)

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