Where have all the bikers gone?

Are there any bikers in this community? As someone who likes to tour around England, Wales, and Scotland on a motorcycle, I wonder where all the biker stories are in the Vocal Wander community. I haven't seen anything. Is there any community interest here in motorcycle touring?

Next year, I am planning a trip outside of the UK, and one that will take me across (or under) the English Channel from Kent to France. From there, the network of European roads could take me as far North as Arctic Norway, as Far South as the Mediterranean and beyond into the Middle East and the great African continent. I could even head East and end up a far as the Bering Straight, right before the International Dateline at around 180 degrees east. As such, I would have travelled a full 180 degrees from London (on the Greenwich or Zero meridian) to the far side of the Northern Hemisphere.

Where I am planning to go is not quite as ambitious as that. My intention is to head from London, across the Channel to France, and then through Beligium, Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark before crossing the Øresund Bridge and tunnel to Malmø in Sweden. From there, a short trip to Ystad and then home taking a more direct route. The map above shows the route and Google calculates a roughly 1800-mile, 36-hour round-trip. At an average of, say, six hours per day, that makes a six day holiday, assuming no more than an overnight stay anywhere along the route. In making this estimate I make no allowance for the effects of saddle soreness.

If I take the trip next year, it will be the farthest I have ever travelled by motorcycle to date. My record so far is a 1,000-mile journey to Dunfermline in Scotland and back, stopping on the way to visit family in Yorkshire, but taking the return ride of some 450 miles in one day. This 8-9 hour drive, I took in my stride. Or at least I would have done, were it not for an additional two hours or more trying to cross the Thames at Blackwall.

When I plan a longer break, however, I don't want to spend all of my time in the saddle. I fully plan to stop at Ghent in Belgium, for instance, to take in some art and culture. I will then overnight in Germany, perhaps at Bremerhaven, before heading to somewhere like Esjberg in Denmark where, again, I would expect stay at least one night.

The next and final leg before my return home would be the most exciting. From wherever I end up in Denmark I would head straight for Copenhagen and then over the Øresund crossing into Sweden.

A road trip from London to Ystad in Sweden and back would take in six countries outside of England. My provisional stopovers would be Ghent, in Belgium, Bremerhaven Germany, Esbjerg Denmark, then across the bridge to Malmo and Ystad in Sweden. The return journey would be more direct with longer rides per day and fewer stops. This is because I know I will be keen to get home to see my family again.

This prospective trip to Denmark and Sweden is a cut-down version of an even more speculative trip I had considered some years ago. The plan was to head for the midnight sun in June. Destination, the Northernmost point of mainland Europe at Nordkapp in Norway, well within the Arctic Circle. At 5,000 miles and 96 hours' drive, I have pretty much decided that this trip would be impractical and, unless I could gather a party to travel together, a little lonely. A good two to three weeks on my own which could also leave me more than a little bruised as well as homesick. Then again, who knows? Maybe I will give it a try someday.

What interests me right now, however, is not so much planning a motorcycle route to the Nordic states but the question of whether there would be any interest in a written account of the journey. Biker travelogue anyone? Please let me know what you think. Perhaps I should turn the trip into an Art tour, stopping off at key museums on the way?

Certainly, I would intend to keep a record of my journey, with lots of photos of places of interest along the way. Perhaps I should also get a helmet cam to record sections of the journey for later editing. It is just a question of whether anyone in this forum, or more widely, would be interested in reading it. As I say, please let me know by commenting here.

If you think a written or video record of such a journey would be interesting, or if you don't, please let me know by commenting below.

Thanks for reading

Ray, August 2023.