Mayhem on the Road to Uppsala…

This Summer's European Collection is coming on nicely...!!

Before I kick off, today’s ride was for my daughter Robyn… A BIG, Cheerful and Loving  HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you  my darling…!! May you have many, many more…!! Looking forward to seeing you again in the not too distant future…

Even though it was off my route, I decided to take a last look at Simrishamn before heading north…

To me, it was that cool a place…!! I rode back through the little towns I had come to know quite well, Vemmerlov, Gladsax and Grostorp, then cruised down the main road and past the harbour…

I stopped outside the tiny white church on the northern side of town, looking over the neat and tidy cemetery that surrounded it… I never had a chance to walk around it to look for the graves of fisherman who were no doubt buried here long, long ago…

People think I’m a bit weird when I do this, but it gives me a sense of the history of a place when I see the headstones dating back centuries…

Locked and loaded again, we left Borge's home in Gyllebo...

On our way to Kristianstad...and far beyond...

I followed the coastal road all the way to the turnoff to Kristiaanstad, and then headed west and then north, to pick up the E4 highway at Sodra Arhult… After my little jaunt along the coast, I needed to make up some time…

Once onto this road that runs all the way from Helsingborg in the far south, right up to Haparanda on the Finnish border in the north, I lit the afterburners… At a total distance of almost 1 600 km, the E4 winds its way along the Baltic Sea on Sweden’s east coast for the most part, and runs for very close to the entire length of the country… I could have ridden all the way up the coast to Norrkoping, and hooked up with the E4 there, but this would have taken too much time…

After two hours on the road, our destination of Stockholm was still a long way off...

We hammered north, past Ljungby and into the Swedish Lake District. Rarely did more than a few kilometres go by without me seeing a lake on one or the other side of the highway, and sometimes, the road seemed to be built across from one shore to the other, splitting the dark waters…

At the foot of Lake Vattern, lies the town of Jonkoping, and here I stopped to refuel for the first time today… The road hugs the edge of this huge lake, the second biggest in Sweden, and then at the town of Odeshog, veers east to the harbour town of Norrkoping. A narrow tongue of the Baltic Sea runs inland to the town, and from the smell of the area, fishing keeps a lot of people busy…

The Big Fella sizes up the opposition...

Although I did not need any fuel, I pulled into a large Shell service station, and saw a great many Harley’s refueling… We stood watching them as they got themselves organized into a long line, and then headed back onto the highway… The Big Fella was all for tearing after them, but I stilled him with a hand on tank-bag, telling him to be patient, and at least give them a 10 minute start…!! Long after their ear-splitting roar had died away on the wind, and I had stretched my legs, I swung my leg over the saddle, and said,

“Show me what you can do…!!”

Like he needed any urging…!!

We thundered up the ramp leading back onto the E4, went quickly through the gears and then settled down at a very healthy clip, knowing that we were reeling them in with every kilometre we hurtled through… We caught up with the members of the No Name Bikers of Denmark sooner than we thought…

A member of the No Name Motorcycle Club of Denmark...

I saw traffic slowing down at the top of a long straight ahead of us…. Then I passed a helmet lying in the right hand lane… Skid marks made from two separate cars veered off into the bushes that separated the north and south bound traffic… A pair of bikers stood in the right hand lane, waving frantically to slow oncoming traffic down and funnel them into the left hand lane…

I saw a grey Volvo on its roof in the bushes to my left, and the trunk of a black Saab protruding from a thick stand of shrubs a little further on…

Then I passed pieces of a Harley Davidson…. And finally, with friends gathered around him, a biker lay… Blood spilling from his mouth and ears… His one leg was lying at an impossible angle, his arms thrown out behind his head… He lay unmoving, one of his mates bent over him, shouting something in Danish…

The looks on all the other biker’s faces told me that their friend was in a very bad way… Further ahead another Harley lay on its side, its front wheel was nowhere to be seen… A rider sat with his head in his hands a few metres from this bike, his helmet off and blood running through his fingers from a cut on his forehead…

I slowed down, not knowing if I should stop in solidarity with these fellow road warriors… I had bandages and a first aid kit that might be able to help until the ambulance and rescue services arrived… A big guy in full leathers gave me a small smile and waved me on… I could hear a truck gear down behind me… And then everything went quiet… It was as if the world’s sound system had been switched off… Or maybe it was just a part of my brain shutting down in shock at what I was seeing… It was all so close to me… I could have reached out and touched the crowd of bikers standing just beyond where the fallen biker lay…

The weather comes down to dampen our mood even further, but soon after it was back to bright sunshine...

The truck behind me hooted at me to get a move on, and this got the bikers angry, one of them hurled a water bottle at the cab of the truck, the bottle arching over my head and making contact with the windscreen of the truck…

Needless to say, the trucker did not stop to lodge a grievance with the bikers… I rode slowly into the right hand lane behind the long line of bikes that were parked there… I stopped and sat looking back in my mirrors, watching and maybe waiting to see if someone would call out to me…

Then the sound came back on again… I heard the cars revving as they accelerated away from the scene, the murmur of voices from the group of bikers behind me, and the smooth idling of the Big Fella…

“Still feeling so big and bold?” I asked him…

His silence spoke volumes…

I pushed softly down on the gear lever, hearing and feeling it click  into 1^st, and then eased out on the clutch and rode slowly away, stirred and shaken…

A short while later, the first ambulance passed me going south, then another, then a fire truck, followed by two police cars… The cavalry was on its way, and hopefully the biker would make a full recovery…

The Swedes are very proud of their fighter aircraft manufacturing industry, and planes like these are displayed in many places along the E4 motorway...

The end was in sight... Or was it...??

Another new Fanta, Dudes...!!

At Nykoping, I pulled over to take a break… A couple on an orange Kawasaki slowed down to check if I needed assistance, but I waved them on with a smile…

They had also ridden through the mayhem behind me, and were cruising just as slowly as I had been over the last 50 kilometres… Sometimes we needed to be reminded how vulnerable we are on our bikes… No seat-belts or air cushions are available to us in the event of an accident… If you come off, you are more often than not sent cart-wheeling through the air at the same speed that you were traveling at when you hit whatever it is that you make contact with…

Lots of deep breaths were taken at Nykoping…

The Germans are not the only ones to corner the market on signs that induce a bit of schoolboy humour...!

The last 30 kilometres into Stockholm were a bit of a nightmare… The highway was being widened and construction vehicles and detours made for slow going… Traffic was backed up for miles, and I threaded my way carefully down the centre of the two long lines of cars… Near the city centre, the northbound lane opened again, and I ducked into the first available service station to refuel and decide whether I should begin looking for a hotel here or not…

At 7.00pm, Sundsvall seemed like a bridge too far, so we stopped off in Uppsala...

Sundown was due at 10.30pm, and with five hours of daylight left, and seeing the amount of vehicles piling past me, I decided to skip the beautifully located city of Stockholm, and head further north of the maddening crowds…

We ran north, past Armanda airport, and then half an hour later, rode into Uppsala, a fairly large town. The first hotel I stopped at was closed for renovations, but further down the drag, Gi-Gi found the Park Inn, and after a long chat to the friendly receptionist, I was installed in a large comfortable room with free Wi-Fi… But it had come at the hefty price of R770.00 a night…!! This was the best price she was authorized to give, and when my eyes had bulged at this, had spent a few minutes on Expedia.com, trying to find me cheaper accommodation… I was so surprised at her willingness to help me, that I eventually told her to stop looking, and accepted her offer…

I had ridden a little over 750 kms, and the next day had even more ground to cover… I had a quick shower, and then took a short walk up the road to clear my head…

It had been a long day, and I was inching ever closer to achieving another goal that I had set for myself…

It was time again to take stock of what I was doing, and ensure that I got there safely…

The Big Fella takes pride of place outside the Park Inn...

©GBWT 2010