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The World of BMW Activity Brochure for 2010 has been released.

It contains full details of more than 20 professionally organised overseas motorcycle tours as well as BMW Off Road Skills & Rider Training courses based here in the UK.

Details & availability of all World of BMW Tours/courses may also be found here

The World of BMW Activity Brochure for 2009 has been released.

It contains full details of more than 20 professionally organised overseas motorcycle tours as well as BMW Off Road Skills & Rider Training courses based here in the UK.

Details & availability of all World of BMW Tours/courses may also be found here.

A significant element of my motorcycling enjoyment derives from the planning of our longer tours.

It gives me something constructive to do during the winter months and ensures we visit all the places we want to visit, travel the best biking roads and stay in the accommodation of our choice rather than having last minute & often late night compromises thrust upon us.

Although we’re not sure whether we’ll make this trip in 2009 or 2010, I spent last winter planning a return trip to Norway.

This will be the third time I’ve been to Norway, the last trip being in 2004, with friends, to the Nordkapp and my first trip alone in 2002 as far as the Arctic Circle & Sweden.

Executing planned routes has become much easier with the advent of portable GPS systems on bikes, which I have successfully used since 2002.

My modus is to start with locally sourced maps & guides which on this occasion were provided my motorcycling friends in Oslo who also gave much advice and even a highlighted road map to ensure we didn’t miss anything.

We decided that for this tour we would confine ourselves to southern Norway, fjord country, which we have passed through previously but have always wanted to explore in more detail.

The maps & guides used in planning this trip are as follows:

Michelin Norway

Cappelen Regional Road Maps (1,2 & 3)

Michelin Green Guide

Eyewitness Travel Guide:Norway

Plus, of course, the Garmin MapSource programme for fine tuning & transferring the completed route onto the Zumo 550 GPS unit.

For the reader to enjoy this article to the full you’ll need your own copy of MapSource installed on your PC plus Microsoft Word to be able to read the tour itinerary.

Here are my 5 steps to planning a successful tour.

1. Research Ferry Crossings. Previous experience tells me that there is no daily ferry service from the UK to Norway, so ferry timings are crucial to determining the overall length of the tour. The most direct ferry is operated by DFDS from Newcastle. It stops at Stavanger & Haugesund before finally arriving in Bergen. Crossing times are approx. 19, 22 & 25 hours respectively. At this stage I will decide on dates & make a provisional booking, to be confirmed after the route is settled. A cabin is essential because of the length of the crossing. Single sex shared cabins are an option if travelling alone or a private cabin if travelling as a couple.
2. Plan Tour Route. Using the research materials mentioned above I use MapSource to determine the overall route. In this particular case we are starting the tour in Stavanger and finishing in Bergen. We will have two nights in both Oslo & Trondheim which is as far north as we plan to travel this time. Not including the journeys from home to Newsastle and back, the total route mileage is around 2552 miles and the ferry timings indicate we have a total of 16 days in which to do them. This an average of around 160 miles per day. Take a look at my MapSource daily routes.
3. Plan Overnight Stops. Now that I’ve determined the rough daily mileage I use MapSource & the internet to locate suitable accommodation at the required intervals. I have previously used a booking system called Fjord Pass which offers significant discounts to holders of the Fjord Pass which can be purchased for about £10.00 at ferry terminals & travel agents. Locating accommodation is the biggest single factor in finally determining daily mileages as it’s rare to find accommodation exactly on the route at exactly the time & place you wish to stop. Take a look at my Norway Tour Itinerary which shows how the stops fit into our route. At this stage I’ll make provisional reservations for all the accommodation.
4. Confirm Ferry Bookings & Accommodation Reservations. Once I’ve received confirmations from all accommodation I’ll confirm the bookings as well as the ferry booking so at least the skeleton of the trip is settled.
5. Final Preparations. There are many internal ferries in Norway, even on major routes but crossings are frequent and rarely cause delays. It is possible to determine timings & costs for these crossings but I have found this to be unnecessary. In 2004 the eight internal ferries we used cost a total of £61.00GBP. Fuel costs around the same as here in the UK and petrol stations are frequent and often include reasonable café’s, toilets etc. Accommodation costs are also about the same as the UK, comparing like for like and most places will accept commonly used debit & credit cards. Norway does not use the Euro and the Norwegian Kroner (NOK) currently exchanges at the rate of NOK10.45 to one GBP. We found the most expensive element of previous trips to Norway to be the price of alcoholic drinks. Apart from taking your own supplies on the bike, the state owned Vinmonopolet outlets often found within supermarkets etc, are by far the least expensive sources.

All you have to do now is wait patiently for departure day with eager anticipation of the adventure to come….

PS: October 2008:Both DFDS & Fjord Line have now stopped their direct ferry service from Newcastle to Norway which means there is now no ferry from the UK to Norway. For those of us living in Scotland the extra time spent travelling by road to either use the Harwich to Esjberg (Denmark) ferry or any of the Channel ports means adding several days to what is already a three week tour.  Rumours abound that another operator will resume a direct Norway ferry service either from Newcastle or from Rosyth in Scotland but at the time of writing (31/10/08) nothing seems certain so our planned Norway trip will have to wait.