Fjord focus

Nick Beetham from the UK spent two weeks taking in Norway’s magnificent views and thrilling roads on his Road Glide^® ST

It was August 2023 and about 15 days into Gary France’s Tour1 Ride Romania trip around Central Europe when he let slip there was a spare slot on his 2024 Magnificent Norwegian Fjords tour – was I interested? I was pretty sure that after riding through some of the world’s finest motorcycling roads, such as the Tranfagarasan Highway and Grossglockner High Alpine Road, Norway would have to work pretty hard to live up to them. But I’d hankered after a trip to Scandinavia for years, so I was all in and 11 months later it was time to pack for the trip.

If you’re based in UK, it’s definitely a schlep to get to Norway, and after two nights and two days of travelling from our meeting point in Essex, we rode off the ferry in Stavanger. We had our first Norwegian breakfast and started the tour properly. It didn’t take long to be blown away as we rode east on the Hunnedalsvegen road into the countryside. The landscape is so immense and anything you’ve seen on screen doesn’t do it justice – you have to experience it first-hand to appreciate it. The roads are a motorcyclist’s dream, and if you like waterfalls you’ll be spoilt rotten.

Riding on to Lyseboten via the famous Lysevegen road was a great experience – 27 hairpin bends with a mile-long tunnel in the middle and a great spot for a photo at the bottom. We lingered in the café at the top, enjoying lunch with a fabulous view, and left for an afternoon riding twisties and single-track roads (watch out for the sheep!). Even when the rain came, it didn’t dampen our spirits and we arrived at our hotel tired and a bit damp but happy.

The landscape is spectacular and varied. We rode on glass-smooth bands of tarmac, sinuously curving their way left, right, up and down mountains, through forests, passing snowmelt-swollen rivers and calm lakes. My Road Glide ST performed brilliantly, never complaining and seemingly always ready for more. Single-track roads took us to lunar landscapes at the tops of mountains where the views were literally indescribable.

The sights of glaciers and snow-capped mountains reflected in the lakes were extraordinary. We rode a mild uphill gradient for a mile or so and the incredible view ahead of us was almost a shock it was so beautiful. Other highlights included the remarkable colour-changing Laerdal Tunnel between Flåm and Gaupne and the Atlantic Road with its eight bridges. Trollstigen, a bucket-list ride for many, was shut following landslides. We could see the road from the viewpoint at the top, and although it would have been great to ride it, I don’t see how anybody could have felt deprived given the quality of the routes Gary put together for us.

We took the wonderful Road 55 from Gaupne for a morning run before turning left on to Road 15, leading us towards Geiranger. Turning right off Road 15 we picked up some more twisties, the road becoming clogged with cars and coaches transporting tourists to and from the viewpoints from their cruise liner moored at Geiranger. A particularly fond memory of this part of the trip was when the tour back-marker and I came up behind a line of dawdling traffic, including 20 or so sports and ADV bikes, and blasted past them on our fully loaded baggers, making good progress to our hotel at the bottom.

If you find yourself in Geiranger, you owe it to yourself to visit the viewpoint at Dalsnibba. A handful of us left early in the morning to ride the empty twisties to get up there. One of our number remarked, “How could anyone see this view and not believe in God?” I had to admit I fleetingly questioned my own atheism. We needed our waterproofs from time to time (the weather in Norway is changeable!), but we were super-lucky with great sunshine, or at least nothing worse than an overcast sky, for a lot of the tour. A rest day at Geiranger was an opportunity to explore, and I took myself and the ST for a 130-mile round trip through tunnels, down a series of almost unbelievably perfect wide hairpins, along gorgeous undulating roads hugging the banks of the fjord, pausing to pinch myself over a coffee and ice cream (laughing inwardly as I anticipated the return journey). There is a dilemma: ride the roads for peak enjoyment or stop every couple of miles for a picture of another breathtaking view? The only solution I can find is to return. See you next year, Norway!