欧州自転車レース追っかけ日記

As far and long as I can

I have an idea. The last time I checked (last year amidst COVID-19 fiasco), it was perfectly OK to just put up my tent out of nowhere in Norway to overnight as long as you keep certain distance from the private properties. I think the situation is similar in Sweden and Denmark.

How about Finland?

I have an idea. How about just I drive as far and long as I can (physically and mentally possible) and when I get tired, I stop and put up the tent and sleep only to resume driving the next morning.

Is it possible to drive across those four countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) in 2 weeks (of course I have to drive across Germany to get to Denmark in the first place).

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Drive as far and long as I can ]の続きを読む

テーマ:海外旅行 - ジャンル:旅行

1. 2022/05/22(日) 22:28:14|
2. Camping in Europe
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Arctic circle of Norway

Norway and Sweden are vast in terms of their territories. Out of curiosity, I measured a route between "Larvik", a port not far from Norway's capital Oslo and closest port from the tip of the Jutland Peninsula and "Nordkjosbotn", a small village well inside the Arctic Circle but not too deep into the furthest point on Garmin BaseCamp.

To my surprise or dismay, it was over "1,900" kilometers. Moreover, the route that BaseCamp suggested was not a scenic (so I assume) Norwegian costal route but a route inside Sweden and through the hills (see below).




I don't know the profile of the route (ups and downs or altitude). I am guessing that the route goes though hills and valleys.

I also don't know why BaseCamp recommends this route. I am assuming that this route follows "bigger and faster" roads. I know that BaseCamp does not care about the route altitude at all. Sometimes the shortest route can be a route that crosses a high mountain path.

Actually this happened to me a lot while driving in France and I was frustrated and anguished when that happened. This is why I decided to buy a Garmin Camper 660, a relatively expensive device usually used with bigger automobiles like campers or cars with trailers. One of its key features is inclusion of topological maps. When in doubt (that I might be drawn into a lonely steep mountain path), I simply check the profile of the route on it.



This route is 1,690 km long.

I was looking into the point between Sweden and Finland where I can easily drive to from Nordkjosbotn and found these two cities. They are described as "twin cities" according to the Wikipedia.

Twin cities of
Tornio, Finland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornio

Haparanda, Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haparanda

I was looking into the ferry lines between Helsinki and Stockholm and found handful connections between them.

More expensive lines are direct connection between Helsinki and Stockholm but inexpensive lines are between Turku (or Naantali) and Stockholm. Turuku (or Naantali) is located around 180 kilometers from Helsinki.

Ferry prices drops around to half when I drive extra 180 kilometers to the West.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Arctic Circle (66 33 49 0) of Norway]の続きを読む

テーマ:海外旅行 - ジャンル:旅行

1. 2022/05/20(金) 15:32:14|
2. Camping in Europe
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Summer holidays: Where to go?

My spring holidays were mostly spent on following the road bike races in France (Paris - Roubaix) and Belgium (la Fléche Wallonne and Liège -Bastogne - Liège).

My summer holidays (not the period that I really want, instead the period that my work place closes) will be spent on visiting the Scandinavian countries. Actually, I had planned this Northern visit last year but it did not materialize because of the COVID19 fiasco.

So this year I am going to visit them if I can.

If I can? Not as I have been wanting?

My summer holidays will be around two weeks. It takes almost a half day to drive across Germany (Deutschland) to get to the border of Denmark. There are two main routes to get to Denmark.

First, simply by road, of course as it is connected to Germany by Jutland Peninsula. From there you have to use huge bridges to get to its capital city, Copenhagen.

Secondly, by ferry between Puttgarden (Germany) - Rødby (Denmark). This is a quicker route to get to Copenhagen.

Last year, my plan was to watch part of two road bike races on my way to tour those three countries. This year the period that I am touring these countries, there won't be any bike races around. So my plan will be free of any shackles.

I have to call the inclusion of watching the bike race events shackles because of the race event venues inevitably put restrictions. I could not drive to Stockholm nor could I drive further than Bergen in the tentative plan.

For the moment I have roughly two touring plans. One is going to tour in this order: Luxembourg - Germany - Denmark (by road via Jutland) - Norway (by ferry) - Sweden - Denmark (via toll bridge) - Germany - Luxembourg.

The other one is to tour in this order: Luxembourg - Germany - Denmark (by ferry - Copenhagen) - Sweden (via toll bridge) - Norway - Denmark (by ferry - Jutland) - Germany - Luxembourg.

My concern for the moment is the gasoline prices in those countries. I already know the prices are very high in those countries even before the current (May, 2022) issues (Ukraine -Russian war).

This year I want to drive as far away and further as I can in those (at least two of them anyway) countries. In those countries camping is tolerated almost anywhere. I can drive as far away as possible and when I am too tired to drive anymore, I could put out the tent and sleep there.

The only concern for this type of overnight staying is my dear Hannah. She won't be happy if she is confined in the small car all day (while driving) and in the small tent (while sleeping). I have to let her go sometimes. If I could find a B&B place where the hosts accept small animals, I can let her go in the room.

I don't want to let her go freely outside when camping on the roadside. I know she is smart and won't go away but there are still concerns that some wild animals might harm her.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Summer holidays: Where to go?]の続きを読む

テーマ:海外旅行 - ジャンル:旅行

1. 2022/05/17(火) 12:47:42|
2. Diary
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It is time to rewire the electric system

Garmin Camper 660 is not working well.

I am using Garmin camper 660 on my Mazda MX-5 and this device is powered by (is connected to) a Mini USB cable coming from the Fuse Box located at the side of the clutch pedal. I wrote about this back in 2017 (August).

I noticed that for the last 6 months or a bit longer period of time the Camper 660 (GPS navigation device) has been acting increasingly exasperatingly erroneously. How is it working erroneously?

While in use, it suddenly switches itself into computer connection mode (data transfer mode). Or the screen the dims itself.

In essence, the device considers that the power level from the power cable is too low and decides to save power by dimming the backlight. Or the device thinks that the dwindling power level from the power cable is cause because the device is connected to a computer and decides to turn itself into data connection mode.

I am not 100 % sure of this but I am assuming it is so.

To make things worse, the two USB A connectors located on the dashboard is not powerful enough to power devices that needs 2A DC current such as iPhones or iPads.

If I use another cable connected to one of these week USB ports to feed Camper 660, its screen goes dim (at 30 % level too dark to recognize what is on the screen under daylight).

I suspect the converter (DC 12 V to USB 5 V) has gone unstable after 5 years and the output power level has deteriorated.

So I think that the refreshing the electric devices would make the pesky situations go away.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Time to renew the USB tapping devices after 5 years]の続きを読む

テーマ:愛車と日常 - ジャンル:車・バイク

1. 2022/05/01(日) 00:05:59|
2. Mazda MX-5
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