Sunday, September 7, 2014

Trondheim tyre change

Still half asleep, I'm walking into the toilet building and see two oversized men side by side at their wash basin wearing nothing but hideous boxers shorts… Both have exactly the same small block pattern, he is in blue/white, 'she' is in pink/white. As I enter the building they simultaneously turn their head towards me, both are about the same age, have a pale white complexion, piggy type face, shaved hair and square thin brimmed glasses. For a moment I'm thinking my brain is playing tricks with me but then I see the pick/white block pattern again and enter the toilet cubicle, making sure I locked the door behind me… It woke me up alright!

The plan had been simple enough: ride to a campground close to Trondheim so that we could fit new tyres the day after at Terje Vold. The first half hour was pretty much 'on schedule' but then the rain started… It didn't stop either, it was belting down for the rest of the day. Mike donned his overboots as he wasn't going to find out if his boots were actually waterproof or not. Chicken! 

The ride wasn't going to be that long, or so we thought. When we arrived at the campground the GPS had found for us, it turned out to be a dump. Of course nothing looks good when it's soaked but this place had some serious problems. Drunken permanent inhabitants for starters. It looked more like a bad example of a gipsy camp than anything else. The price for putting our tent up would be 300 kroner, or US$56,-, a night… we left. I had seen another campground signposted a little while before so we might as well find out what that was like. Not only was it much better, but also 1/3rd of the price…! I still can't work out the Norwegian pricing system. 

The rain kept coming down all night and continued the next morning… great. Luckily the good people from Terje Vold gave us room in their workshop to work on the bikes, so that we could at least work on them without getting soaked. They helped us break the bead and fit the new tyres on their machines too and all for no charge. There are some seriously friendly people out there!

Wide view, great when it rains too…!
Cooking in the rain wasn't an option, so we relented to McDonalds… where we met a fisherman from Trondheim on a Harley. Nice guy. We talked bikes for a while and then headed further north. On the parking area outside McD we met two Germans on a BMW. They were frozen… and absolutely soaked. It made me realise how good our clothing is! Non of us had even the slightest leak anywhere. Not in the jackets, not the gloves and not the boots. Everything that Rukka has put in their suit, like the storm collar, the double cuff and the waterproof zippers work as they should. The petrol receipts in my pockets weren't even wet! The Alt-Berg boots complement
them very well. I hadn't used my overboots at all and not a droplet inside. 

We continued north until we found a community operated campground with a heated kitchen… Guess where we spend the rest of the evening :-)