CREW SHOW - Europe, Sweden, Finland & Norway Ride Report - ADV Cannonball News

In this crew show, Taylor and Aaron go over part 2 of 3 of the epic Europe and Scandinavia adventure motorcycle trip. Hunter Wray #31 from the 2025 ADV Cannonball Rally calls in to discuss his preride of day 0. We also talk about his organization, ADV VET, and the fundraising he is undertaking this week as he rides across the USA. 

TouraTech Seattle Tech Rant. 

Episode 14 Main Sponsor - Colombia Motorcycle Rental & Tour Co

Europe, UK, Isle of Man, Sweden, Finland, and Norway Guides/GPX GUIDES

Transcript

Welcome to the ADV Cannonball podcast where we discuss all things on two wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle related nonsense. Season two episode 14. Welcome to Adventure Cannonball podcast. My name is Taylor Lawson. I am your host.

And today, I am joined by, nonetheless, Aaron Pufal. Welcome, Aaron. Hey, bud. Thanks very much for having me. Yeah, man.

It's always fun. I always look forward to this. And here, this is kinda cool. This is the first time ever that we've recorded this podcast and been less than eight hours time difference. That's right.

There's there's less math that has to be done to figure out what time we're gonna meet. Yeah. So just just as, to tell that sort of what goes on here behind the scenes. So Aaron and I are talking to each other on a video, and then we have the microphones, and we record this separately on microphones. And then, the files end up in one location.

Aaron does an amazing job editing. But what we have to do to make sure that we get the you know, like, in the in the just a movie set, you're like, and click action. So it's the same thing that we have to do here, except it seems a little on the yeah. We've had we we had one guest who's like, do I really have to clap? And the answer is yes.

So what we do is we count down. So we go one, two, three, four, and then clap on five. And then the person who's counting, of course, claps on five, and the person who is counting watches the other person count sometimes a full second later. So we are looking we're like, normally, I'm in Sweden. Now I'm on the East Coast Of The US in in Annapolis, Maryland, and I was like, I wonder if it's any faster now.

I wonder if there's less delay. We just talked about that. It's a a wildly geeky conversation that goes on here. But let's compensate geekiness with a little bit of top cutter IPA bail breaker. Alright.

So here's something that you can't come by very often in, Sweden. Nice. So what am I drinking, baby? Budweiser. There we go.

Nice. Well done, sir. Well done. Alright. I'm not gonna get that long cut.

I tell you that. Mhmm. Yeah. Okay. Now we can begin.

Alright. I'd like to begin this, I'd like to begin this episode with a little segment we're gonna call Tech Rant. Absolutely. I'm gonna tell you all about the legendary helmet that I've left pieces all over the world. What is it?

It's a Touratech Adventuro Carbon. It's the original one, not the Carbon two, Traveler. It's a modular helmet that flips up. It's six years old now, and everyone knows that I've left the peak in, in Europe with Taylor on the last trip, and then I Yeah. Actually, you got for me the conversion kit to make it like a like a sport helmet, so I don't have the ADV peak on it anymore.

Anyways, that visor that conversion visor broke. So I would articulate it, and it would it would fly off. And I had, contacted Touratech here in Seattle to to get to get it fixed, to figure out what parts it is, and then those guys actually called me right back, which I was so impressed with. And then we figured out that it was the visor itself. Now I'm not pissed off that it broke because this isn't what it was designed for.

Like, it was never designed to operate like a sport helmet. It was designed to have the peak on it, and the peak actually retains the visor. So, anyways, it was, like, $40. They shipped it to me overnight. I got the new visor on.

I will be more careful with it now that I'm using it, you know, in the way that it was not designed for. And, yeah, it's all fixed. They called me back the next day and shipped it overnight. So I'm super happy with with the result. You know, there's a lot to be said for good customer service.

You know, I think about, like, MoscoMoto, and I've dealt with them before. And every time well, if there's ever an issue, they're always right there. They're like, we back up our product. I mean, for example, MoscoMoto, they say, we just build it with the best products that are available, and then we figure that somebody will see the value in it, and they'll buy it. And and people do.

So it reminded me of a story, when I was in, I was work I was living in California, and I was working I was doing a training class. I was in my early twenties, and I was doing a a waiter training class. It's actually where I met my Swedish wife, at the Chart House. And we were doing this training class, and they did us they gave us the information from a survey, and they said, if you're in a restaurant and you have bad service or you have and and good food or you have bad food and good service Mhmm. Which would you go back to?

And it was about 90% said we'd rather have bad or mediocre food and great service. Mhmm. And so it just goes to show you it's the same thing anywhere, any product. It doesn't just have to be with dining. But people really like good service and the fact that you buy something, you may pay more for it.

But if when it breaks or fails, they stand behind it, you don't end up with two products that were cheap, two broken products, or you know? It's good. Good service pays off in the end. Yeah. And I also learned a lesson about you know, that was the first kind of expensive helmet that I've bought.

And just by using it, I'm like, this will change your life, buying a high quality helmet. And obviously there's legacy of customer service that goes along with that. So you're not buying some cheap helmet from Amazon and then something goes wrong, it no longer exists, or the company no longer exists. You can buy parts and people will call you back and they will and they will solve it. So sometimes a little, investment upfront with, with a quality product, with a quality brand will, will pay back dividends.

Now this is six years later, and and they're and they're still servicing it and calling you back, which is which is fantastic. Yeah. And, what's also interesting is if you look at that in Europe, for example, I don't know what this story is. Like, in Europe, when you when you, buy helmet, they say a helmet is recommended to be used for five years and five years only. And by then, you're supposed to get a new helmet.

And so anything older than five years, you're supposed to, I don't know, sell it to I don't like school buses. They just go to South America when you're done with them. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know what happens. Yeah. Well, that's you know, that's funny because there's all this helmet gossip, and I have a friend that's getting back into motorcycling. And, you know, I've dropped that helmet. I don't know how many times.

I've dropped it so many times that I've had to replace the inner sunglasses that flip down, which, by the way, changes your life. If you're if you're coming from a when I was a kid, I had to shove sunglasses in or change visors if I wanted to be cool, and this changes your life. Anyways, I've dropped that damn thing so many times that the inner sunglasses shield has broken several times, and I've had to pop new ones in. And, it is rock solid. It's carbon fiber and it's light, and I've dropped it a million times.

And listen, they say after you drop your helmet, you're supposed to throw it away. Listen, I've been dropped a few times, and no one's throwing me away even though they want to, but we're all still here. I was just gonna ask I was just gonna ask. It was like, when you drop the helmets, were you in them? Couple of times.

Were you in the helmet when it dropped? A couple of times. Yeah. What are you gonna do? Right?

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Or if you prefer to pay full pop, you can find it on Amazon.com. Nice. Hey. Let's fit in a little bit of Cannonball news if you don't mind. Let's go.

One of our competitors, number 31, he is, his moniker is the ADV vet. He actually runs his own rallies, and we're happy to work with him in a partnership. And he is going to appear on the podcast after the next commercial break and he is going to report in on running the whole cannonball route. So he's already done day zero on the Outer Banks and that already has resulted in some changes to the route. Having a second opinion is always, helpful.

So that's already, bore fruit. So we're very happy to have him. And after the next commercial, he'll come on for five minutes or so and tell us his plans, and he'll come on again in the next episode. He'll probably be three quarters of the way done. So he'll be in New Mexico or California by then.

So excited to, to talk to Hunter. Very nice. What's also super cool is that he's out there doing it. Right? He's totally behind this, and he's doing it in advance.

I mean, you couldn't really ask for more than from, from volunteer people to jump in and help out. That's fantastic. Yeah. And what a sounds real terrible that he's going for an awesome motorcycle ride, and it sounds like there are people meeting him along the way. You know, the vet community is is is is super good about, being inclusive with with each other and supporting each other and getting people out out of their houses and, you know, crushing miles.

So from my understanding is people are meeting him along the way. So, I'm, looking forward to hearing hearing his report. Registration is now open to the public for the next ADV cannonball rally. All riders on any motorcycle are welcome to join the adventure. Whether you're looking for an exciting and highly organized coast to coast ride with a group of like minded riders or a friendly competition for cannonball glory, it doesn't matter.

Everyone can participate. Head over to advcannonball.com to secure your rally starting position today. Now back to the podcast. Okay. We're gonna welcome Hunter Ray.

He's number 32 from the 2025 ADV cannonball. Welcome to the podcast. Hey. Thanks. I appreciate it, Aaron.

How are you? I'm doing fantastic. I'm in the state of Washington at the worldwide headquarters of ADB Cannonball. Where are you? We are on the opposite side of the country.

I'm in Virginia Beach. Yes. You are. You're at home. And, it's my understanding that you're helping us out and and and helping out some vets.

And yesterday, it's my understanding, you did date zero of the ADV cannonball. Perhaps you can tell us about that. Yeah. Absolutely. It's, it's about two hours south of the house to get down to the Outer Banks.

And so I decided to go ahead and run it. Went down to the hotel, hit ground zero, press start, and ran the whole 50 mile loop up and back. Weather was beautiful. 70 degrees, blue skies, really hard to beat for a day of riding. Yeah.

You're making us jealous. We finally saw finally saw the sun over here in the Pacific Northwest, and, it's great to hear that you had some fantastic weather for that ride. And it's my understanding that you already have some important intel to report on, on our proposed off road section. Perhaps you can give us, some feedback on that. Absolutely.

So the the on road sections are all beautiful. So everything the the hurricanes that went through there haven't closed any roads, so everything was wide open. The sands, however, have shifted and are incredibly soft. The first hundred I turned off, just inside of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore entrance into the first off road section where you could drive out onto the beach. And I hit it in first gear going up the hill, and I lost about a third of my front tire in the sand while I was plugging through.

So based on that feedback, I've immediately deleted the, day zero test, sand waypoints. And, I think you're going back or at at least I'm going anyways, later on in the summer. So we will have a optional off pavement test route and test checkpoints, figured out before day zero. We have a whole summer, so between the two of us, we will definitely figure out an alternative, to that. But the on road GPX files worked, and, you don't have the checkpoints.

Actually, no. There are sorry. There are checkpoints, but you were able to to to follow all that? Yeah. I was able to run the route.

All the GPS points were were perfect, spot on. I did not run the waypoints. So but, but, yeah, it was fun. Yeah. I'm going back down tomorrow, for some work.

So I'm gonna try and scout out some gravel roads, something where everybody can get their tires a little dusty, but maybe not, spend six hours digging their bikes out of the sand. Yeah. Let's not scare everyone, on the on the day zero that, like, what are we getting ourselves into? It's funny. I'm actually, every time I talk to someone, about the rally, about the ADV cannonball, and they're like, it's ADV.

Why isn't there more offer? And I'm like, listen, man. I've been planning stuff professionally for a long time, and everyone thinks they're gonna be a badass. And someone always says, well, let's just do the the TAT, the Transamerica Trail. I'm like, listen.

We're we're all older guys, and we have these giant bikes. Yeah. We're not gonna go across the country. So I always try to find that balance of being able to do a cannonball, do some off road. Just like you say, get your get your tires dusty, have that sense of adventure, but also have off roading for a purpose.

There has to be a vista or a pass or or something, along those lines. So but I have planned 2026 already, and I have increased the difficulty for 2026, but we're gonna be very clear to everyone that we are upping the difficulty, slightly. So, hopefully, based on, your your feedback, we're we are hitting the mark of having some fun, but nothing too crazy. Perhaps you can tell everyone about your plan for the next week or so. Yeah.

Absolutely. So as you're aware and we've talked about quite extensively, I am leaving Friday to run the entire route from the Outer Banks to LA. So I've been really studying the the route quite a bit, and and trying to figure out different, waypoints and things that I wanna highlight or or just verify and check. There's been a lot of activity in the Appalachian Mountains as far as flooding and things like that. But, you know, you say it's not necessarily made for, you know, us at twenty five on a couple of four fifties, but the roads themselves in the route as you really start to dig into it, you really understand where your head was at in that sense of adventure.

It's in, you know, just a range of climates, a range of vistas. You're gonna see and and experience so many different things. So I'm really excited about it. I'm gonna run the route as intended. So I'm gonna the the two days I'm gonna come on is seven and eight.

So it'll be a full seven day run from from stop to stop. And then, try and give you guys some ride reports on on what's happening out there and what things look like. On the alternate off road sections, I'm actually gonna ride the road route first and then loop back and do the gravel route. I have purchased a tremendous amount of video gear lately. So we've got drones and GoPros and all kinds of stuff.

So hopefully, we'll be able to give these guys a a glimpse into what they're going to see and get their spirits up for looking forward to doing the rally in October. The 2025 route specifically, I've actually ridden all of the paved and unpaved at some point in recent history. However, especially when it comes to the off pavement sections, you know, that can change dramatically with one spring runoff. So I'm really looking forward to get that, feedback from you. And hopefully, next week sometime, we we can reconnect on the podcast and we can get a, a mid ride report.

Maybe you could tell people, about your foundation that you're, that you're running, and I believe you're raising some some money on this ride. Perhaps you can give a little brief, intro to that and tell people where to go. Yeah. Absolutely. Before we get into that, just so everybody kinda has a baseline, I'm riding a 2024 BMW f 900, and I just switched over to the, g Motas Nice.

GPS tractionator, which is a true fifty fifty tire. So as I'm giving you feedback on what you guys are experiencing off road, you can kinda judge from there and and go from there. So that's that's the setup that I'm running. But, yeah, I run I run an organization called ADV Vets. You can find us on Facebook and groups and different things.

We raise funds for veteran foundations that are doing the best that they can to help PTSD and mental health issues for our veterans and first responders. So we've started a foundation on Facebook or a fundraiser on Facebook. And, we're gonna be trying to raise $10,000 over the period in which I'm riding. The first weekend, we were very fortunate and pulled $1,200 in already. So we're off to a raging start.

People are really getting behind it. Nice. It's a thousand dollars per veteran to put, one of them through these programs. And There's another guy out there riding with a fundraiser going, as well, if we both meet our goals, we'll be able to fund this organization for the next two years, which means a lot of help to the guys and gals that need it. Yeah.

And you know what? One thing we'll make sure that we do is, each year we run the ADV cannonball, we'll make sure to have some sort of component, to continue, helping these efforts and make sure, everyone everyone gets fully fully funded. And, plus, it gives us a reason to ride, which is which is fantastic. Oh, I really appreciate that, Aaron. And I also appreciate your donation already, so thanks for chipping in.

Let's we do what we can. We're, we're not the billionaires around here, but, may may maybe we can, we can beat the bushes when we're at the Touratech rally coming up here in June. Perhaps we can rustle up some more support for you. We are really, really short on time. Taylor and I earlier recorded Chapter Two of our Europe trip, and we're in the middle of that conversation.

If you don't mind, we're going to go back to that conversation, and hopefully we can talk to you again later in the week. That sounds great, Aaron. I appreciate the time. I look forward to letting everybody know what I see out there. Cool.

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We're doing Europe part two. Can you believe it? We've been talking about this since season two, episode two. We're like, we're gonna do part two and part three of Europe. Guess what?

We are there. We were just, discussing off air that we might even just try to compress this down to one because there's no way we're gonna get back around to. It'll be season nine episode 42 by the time we come back to this topic. Yeah. I know.

It'll be like, Europe's changed significantly since the last time you did my trip there. Which is interesting because because we got off the ferry, I was on the wrong side of the road, which is funny. And then according to my notes here, which, by the way, this part of the trip, I have a free GPX file on a dvcannonball.com under free GPX. And this particular portion of it is on the Grand Europe tour. So the Grand Europe tour, starts in The UK, it goes over to Ireland, it does was does the Wild Atlantic Way, It goes up to, Isle Of Man.

It goes up to Scotland. I think it's called the North 500 and then it crosses over, I believe, in Rotterdam, area and this is kinda where these two trips kind of converge. But, anyways, on this particular trip, we took the, the, Calais, ferry from Dover, and I got off the ferry. And my first stop, and speaking of changes in Europe, it was a great stop to stop in the Flanders Fields area to visit, in Belgium all of the World War one, monuments. It was really cool to, to see all that.

It was a bit sobering, but there's a whole day's worth of, you know, tourist things you can do in that area if you wanna visit some World War one monuments. Have you ever been there, Taylor? I have not been there. No. I was just thinking about it.

I before you said, you know, the serious bit about which made me really gonna reflect, I was gonna make a joke about, did you see any cannonballs there? But, you know, I thought I'd skip that. This was a little bit more technology. We get we get we get really good at killing each other by about World War one, so there's no more cannonballs, but hey o. Fair enough.

We managed to bring it in there anyway. Well, that's fair. Yeah. So, anyways, and then from there so there's a crazy Before you before you ahead. Before you jump, I wanna clarify.

You said I was on the wrong side of the road. Now quite often, you are on the wrong side of the road, but I wanna clarify. This particular time was because we went from a left hand drive country to a right hand drive country. Yeah. There you go.

Just to be clear, this time, it wasn't all your fault. Yeah. In both times or three, four times that trip that I switched back and forth, there was no, like, giant sign that says, hey, American tourist. You know, you're about to change sides of of the road. And I can't be the first person that's done it.

And, you know, motorcycles almost always get off the ferry first, especially if you're kind of aggressive about it. And, like, you're by yourself out there. And I'm, like, it's very easy to go on the wrong side of the road, so just be really aware of that when you get off a ferry, and maybe you you it was an overnight ferry, or maybe you've you've had a few cervezas the night before, and maybe you're not as as as keyed on. Just remember that you may be on the wrong side of the road, and, you know, it's it's not a joke. We're we're laughing about it now, but it you know, I was code brown for a minute for sure.

Get it's first mate. He gifted me my brown pants. Alright. And then you went down to The Netherlands. Right?

Yeah. Went up through Netherlands. So, there are some really cool single lane paved roads in this area. And if you go to the Grand Loop, web page with the GPX track, I recorded some of those. And it's really cool because they have those barriers, those land, dikes, built up because they they basically reclaimed all that land.

And there's little service roads, which are really interesting as someone from North America to go ride really interesting roads up on dikes. And it's you you almost feel like you shouldn't be there because it is so unusual. But as a motorcyclist, you can just do a reasonable speed and kind of enjoy that. And, you know, I was always, I still am, a super geek when it comes to to my TV documentaries, and I've always been obsessed with there's a there's a series called Europe from above, and it's basically just a helicopter goes around with someone with with your kind of voice, narrating. And they always do an episode in, in Belgium.

And when I arrived at Belgium, I immediately went and stayed at a hotel on the beach. And I don't know how to pronounce this, Ibis Styles Bredin. I'm I'm not sure, but it's on the document. And this is a brand new hotel. It's about a hundred and €50, and they have underground parking that's secure.

So it's a cheap hotel. It's right on the beach. You can walk to some great restaurants. In my guide, I have the restaurants that I went to, the ones that I liked, the ones that I didn't like, the pubs that I went to. So there's a lot of information on that really cool beach area in Belgium.

Have, have you ever done the Belgium beach beach area? No. I haven't. I haven't done a lot of, mainly my my trips down through that part of Europe or either in the train. Mainly mainly in trains, actually.

Mhmm. I actually haven't even driven down there. You know, we just bought a car after almost twelve years in Sweden. The summer makes twelve years, and we didn't buy a car until Christmas this year. And it was only for the reason to teach my 19 year old how to drive six shift.

But there really wasn't you know? Anyway, I'm just saying we haven't driven we haven't driven down there. So let me just let so let me just update, so where we are in the ship so far. So just to capture just to capture the highlights here, Aaron. So you you, you rode a ferry so that you could ride some dikes when you got there.

Is that what That's space. So much of understanding us, basically. That's basically that's the and and that's the end of the episode. Everyone have a great day. There we go.

Thanks for tuning in. Oh my god. Whenever you get through this. So, let's let's let's let's skip a couple days. I want to mention this this cool place in Germany.

It's another coastal place. It's, in Bremerhaven, Germany. There's a really cool port in there. They have some, World War two, ships. They have some tall ships in there.

It's a great place to walk around. I remember FaceTiming you from there because I was on my way to to see you. And the hotel is really awesome. It's called the Atlantic Hotel Sail City, and it's a giant, hotel shaped like a sail, and they have great underground parking for your motorcycle. And, you can just spend the day walking around.

But, of course, I, looked at a few ships and then immediately went to the beer garden. So that was the highlight of my, my my northbound Germany's day. I remember, the majority of the trip whenever we'd stop, we were kinda basing how prices were based on how much it was for a a pint or 32 centiliters of beer at the pub. And it was like and I was like, dude, wait till you come and pick me up in Sweden, and then we end up in Norway. I said, they're gonna be higher.

He's like, there's no way it's gonna be higher than I don't know where it was, Finland or wherever it was the highest, and I was like, it's gonna be higher. Yeah. Remember how much the beer was when we the, the IPA when we got to Norway? It it was it's outrageous. We are in, Oslo, and that's actually in the guide.

It's in both guides, the, Norway Southern Loop guide, which we're gonna get to in a minute. And those pubs in there, they're fantastic pubs. Don't get me wrong. And I guess you're making a ton of money when you're when you're living in Norway. But it was, like was it, like, 20 something euros for one pint?

Was that was that what it was? It was $20.25 euros. And and they weren't even in a pint. It was 33 centiliters. It was like a little a small glass of IPA.

And I remember I went up there and I was like, you got the first round. I was like, clearly, you bought the most expensive ones. And I went up and I was like, okay. Can I get something? What's the next one down?

And she's like, oh, this one. And it was more. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. We're never we're never gonna get to when we so we'd carry on carry on carry on with us the trip.

And then from there, I did a big day, and I go to Copenhagen. And in Copenhagen, there is a chain of hotels that have underground parking, and that's in wake up Copenhagen. It's kinda like a semi self-service, almost like a hostel, but it's really good. It's better than any kind. It's kinda like a Hilton here.

Nice. And then from there yeah. And from there, you can go do the classic open face sandwich thing. So try and get there early. Check-in time is at three, and like I said, underground underground parking.

Yeah. It's interesting. Some like, most of the motorcycle books that I've been listening to, people doing motorcycle travels, you know, Ted Simon, any of these that we're listening to, the main thing and also listening to your you when you talked about, your travels in, in Mexico, for example. It's like you're always looking for a place to put the bike inside. And, actually, the one I'm just listening to, and I believe it's someone that you're gonna meet with when you're in The UK in, and within the month, is they carry a string that's exactly the width of the bike on their panniers so they can just take that out, the string, little you know, roll it up.

They take the string out, and they measure the doors to to see if they can get the bike through without taking panniers off. Yeah. That's Sam Monacan. And all through that, all through that South America, and Mexico, Central America, there, they do the compound. So they have the walls, and they will bring your motorcycles indoors.

As a matter of fact, we're gonna have an interview maybe next week with the couple that I met on the ferry and, they reported back that that tradition is still alive and well and they're bringing your motorcycles inside. But, when it comes to Europe, if you try to talk to any manager of a hotel, they're gonna look at you like you're you're a freaking alien. So you are it is on to you to figure out the hotel situation before you go and it is a lot of work. So if people are going to these parts of Europe, go ahead and use my guide, and I and I've already done the work, and I can report whether it worked out or not. Sometimes it's a pain in the butt with smaller hotels.

Like in The Netherlands, there's a little hotel called the Anchor Hotel, and you had to go to another underground parking area, so it was a bit convoluted. But as long as you're patient, find some patience. I'm not known for my patience, but as long as you have some patience, you can always secure underground parking if you do a little bit of investigative work. Yeah. But, again, good point.

If you don't wanna do the work, just use Aaron's guide. Yeah. I've already done all the work. So I'm all about that. I like I like to use Aaron's guide, and I like to listen to the lady in the box.

The lady in the box. Oh my god. We're gonna have some conversation about that with, Hunter because he fell into the trap of trying to use turn by turn guidance when following the ADV cannonball route. And, that's someone who's not new to motorcycling. So it's a great lesson in the difference between the lady in the box and how to use that for a GPX file.

But that is a story for another day. So let's leave Denmark, and, this is where I head up into Sweden, and I opted to take the ferry. So if you come out of Copenhagen and you go west, you can take the ferry. If you go east, you can take that amazing engineering bridge and tunnel, system, but I took the ferry and, which was fine. You don't need a reservation for that particular ferry.

I don't think you can make a reservation, but with a motorcycle, you always just go to the front of the line. You'll find other motorcycles you're first on and you're first off. And then I went to a great place called can you pronounce that, Taylor? Karlstad? Karlstad.

Let me see. Yeah. Karlstad, Sweden. And that was a 325 mile ride and in this amazing hotel. It's called Elite oh god.

Elite something, Karlstad. And they also have underground parking, and you just need to call them the day before and let them know that you need one of the spots because the the underground parking is so small. And of course being Europe, they're steadfast on the rules, so you can't just put it in the corner somewhere. It has to be in an assigned spot or, you know, you're evil, you're evil doer. So make sure you call the day before with this hotel, but it is an amazing spot.

It's on a canal way. There just happened to be a graduation going on. It seemed to be for a high school, and there's an awesome little tradition in this area, and maybe you can tell me if you've seen this before in Sweden, where Yeah. I guess old guys who have American, convertibles, the kids seem to seem to charter them, and they drive around town with the music blasting and drinking champagne for several hours before their their prom or their formal. And they drive around town listening to to the local music and drinking champagne as graduates in the back of these American convertibles.

Those are really cool. Yeah. So I can I can comment on that? Two things. One, this is the, the elite Stadz Hoteliet in Kvorstad.

And, basically, it means the elite Stad means, town or city and the hotelette. So the elite town hotel in Carlstadt. And, yeah, the actual tradition what they do there actually is there's no, like, dance planned afterwards. We think there is because that's what the way it goes on in North America. But over there, there's the graduation ceremony, and then each class gets announced, and then they all throw their hats.

They catch their hats like little, you know, navy sailor hats. And then they get in trucks afterwards. Either get in trucks or if your parents, in a lot of cases, these parents or grandparents, there's they own one of these old cars. There's a huge, culture. Like, there's, you know, an ADV culture.

There's a huge culture for American classic cars. So the ones that are really beaten up, they're called, like rag. Mhmm. And, that's a it's a whole different cult unto itself. But the really high end ones are quite often the ones that end up in these.

And the kids get in there with their their favorite bestie, and then they drive around, and then they drink. And then the dad or the granddad or the or the mother or whomever is the one who drives around and gets to show off their car. So, yeah, it's it's a it's a thing for sure. Yeah. It was really cool.

And that's a nice little town where you can go, there's classic European squares. It's worth it's worth getting there early. It was only a 325 mile day for me, so I got there fairly early. Super nice hotel. It wasn't overly expensive.

It was a it was an errand type of type of night. That's for sure. And there was a pub in the Ground Floor of the hotel. So after I did my walk around trying to find cables and chargers and all those things I screwed up and watching the kids be be young and fun, I was able to, have a pint, in the hotel at the, at at the hotel, and it was wildly expensive. I think it was, like, €10 or something like that for a single pint.

Yeah. That's pretty standard. But then after that, like, they were all sort of when you got to that part of the world, then everything was about that. Yeah. For sure.

And then the next day, there's actually I went up. There is a ferry that runs between Sweden and Finland up in the archipelago. Not the main one that runs from Stockholm to, Finland's capital. I mean, the one that is further up, that archipelago. And, I couldn't make it in one day, but I went to this cool little town.

There's no way I'm pronouncing that. Maybe you could give a stat something. There's a lot of symbols above letters, and I'm not gonna try. You mean, after your overnight at the first hotel in in, Stad Stad in Skoldsvik? Yeah.

There you go. Whatever he said, and the hotel you want there is another elite. I went to a different hotel, and it was a nightmare. But across the street was another one of those elites, and that's what you want. In the guide, I updated that that that information for everyone.

And there's a beer garden there. It's a great little place. Things were getting expensive, so I had a pub, and that's where I started my tradition of having a few beers to, to observe local culture and then immediately trying to find the the kebab place that's open all night. So I would spend more money on beer, and then go get a kebab for dinner, and smash that in the hotel room. Smart.

Good plan. Yeah. That's all I can work. Yeah. Well, that's the way it goes sometimes.

You know? And either well, it was like, we we were eating those those bacon wrapped hot dogs at every service station. We stopped that in Norway. They were delicious. Absolutely, man.

You don't have to have frog lie every night. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm smelling what you're stepping in. Exactly. So and then the next morning, it was 60 miles to get to the ferry, and the fair oh, god.

God knows what that word is. But Okay. I'll get okay. This is a tough one because it's the it's the a with a circle above it. Yeah.

And and that's Umio. So it's a it's a sound. Yeah. Umio. So I ride to that ferry.

It's 60 miles away, and then I guess it's an overnight ferry. I don't really think it's an overnight ferry. Yeah. No. It's not that far.

It's I can make it across I can make it across in my little boat in four hours. Yeah. So yeah. Right. So, this is just a a ferry, and, it looks like it's a five hour journey across.

I I remember meeting a guy waiting for the the ferry. He was on a zero, an electric motorcycle. And, Oh, cool. Yeah. He was having fun doing that.

So, and then that hotel wasn't notable. The next one but they also actually, it was notable. I remember that hotel. This was the original I don't know. Can you pronounce that, Taylor?

This is a, original Socos Hotel, Vakuna. Yeah. So I found this hotel because, again, it had underground parking, and it was in a square right downtown in this in this in this town. And, that was really cool because you could walk around. The bike was safe underground.

The hotel was very basic, but it was super clean, and, it was fantastic. So, no, no complaints there. But, again, now that we're in Finland, it got a it got a little it got a little expensive. That's for sure. You know, it's interesting.

That particular area, Vasa, in, in Finland, that area is where Sweden comes closest to Finland in sort of mid, Mid Baltic. And, back in god, I don't know. I'm gonna get the year wrong, but, like, seventeen hundreds, Russia invaded Finland. Maybe it's earlier. Russia invaded Finland, and all the Finns just walked across the ice into Sweden.

Wow. That's crazy. That whole it froze all the way, yeah, all the way down there. So yeah. So, anyway, if you talk to so so the whole coastal area of Finland, they are brought up in in schools, and they are they're truly bilingual.

So they all of the coastal areas speak Finnish and Swedish because they know that likely their life will take them to the West. Sure. Wow. Good story. I didn't know that.

For those who don't know, Taylor has a little boat, in Stockholm, and he runs around the area. So one of these days, I'll I'll dig up a week somewhere, and we'll, we'll go drink beer on the boat and and maybe invade invades, Finland. Just do it. Just go back. So from there, if you leave that that place, Vasa, and you head down to, Helsinki, there is a must stop.

This was the highlight of Finland because there's not much going on in these roads, in Sweden and Finland. It's not exactly, you know, a biker's paradise. It's like, you know, riding through, like, pine forest type type of thing. But there is a stop. It is, a cafe, and it is a motorcycle cafe.

Lattice Lattice. Anyways, it's in the it's in the guide, and it's the only motorcycle stop. It's about 55 miles from Helsinki, and, you can actually take the TET, to get there. Which is the Trans European Trail. Yeah.

It's really cool. So when you come off the ferry, you can ride a few miles inland. You can hop on the TET, which is essentially just gravel roads, and will take you past millions of of little lakes, campsites, and it'll drop you right off at this cafe. The cafe is an old bus, and I had parked up with the motorcycle. And I think I got some dirty looks from some locals for tearing up those roads, but whatever.

And, and when I got there, the owner came out and took a picture of me and the bike because I had foreign plates, and they're like, you're the first furthest who's ever come here. So it was really nice to have a warm welcome at the motorcycle cafe. Nice. I wonder if that's one of those cafes that is that a is that a is that a Belgian couple that runs that? I'm not sure, but it surely is a couple because she was upset that her husband wasn't there to, to say hello to me, and that's why she took a picture was the pass on.

And she actually gave me a sticker, and, and that sticker is inside, one of my bags on my on my motorcycle. I was really cool over. That's really cool. I think about there's an episode that, Robert Balder, when he was Robert Balderger, now he's by he's on his own. But previously, he was with Nomad Sweden, and then he he went, but it was when he was with Nomad Sweden that he did it, like, a boys' trip there.

And, and he met the couple. I think I'll see if I can find that. We'll put that in the, in the show notes. It was a really good episode. It'll show you exactly where you were.

Yeah. And then after that stop, I actually spent two nights in Helsinki, because I desperately needed to do laundry, you know, maybe wash the motorcycle. Because you were stinky. Oh, boy. You know, when you're traveling alone as a guy, you don't you know, maybe maybe the reason why people weren't talking to me is because I had flies around me or something like that.

But, you know, after about six, seven days, wearing the same socks, it's time to take a day off and do some laundry. That's that's for sure. So so stock South Stockholm, Helsinki was a was an awesome spot to take that break. So just just out of curiosity, if we go back, you know, think flash forward October, running across a cannonball doing doing a Kitty Hawk to, Redondo Beach in LA. Are there any days in there where there's, like, laundromats close by, or is that just, like, you know, grin and bear it and just keep the fall apart?

There's no time for that. There is. Get to the hotel before dark, smash your beer, have something to eat, go over the, notices to riders if if they're up, plan your next day, get some sleep, you know, and get back on the road the next day. There are no laundry days in a rally. What kind of craziness is this?

You know, I was just checking in, just trying to find out, you know, for sure. And then, I wanted to tell you about one of the You'll you'll notice that a few times I I say that I've changed something in the guide or I made some mistakes along the way. And that's the great thing about doing these trips two and three times is that you really avoid these mistakes. So and then I had left to take the ferry from Finland over to see you in in Stockholm, and I had booked the wrong ferry line. So do not book the Viking line, book the other line.

Whatever other line is the other line. Cinderella. There you go. It's actually like a cruise ship and, it's quite nice. This ship was quite old.

It was I I, of course, had the cheapest room, so I was down in the I was below the engine room, I think, and the air conditioning stopped working and it it it was just gross. Like on that Titanic? Like, you were in steerage? Oh, I was fully steered. Like, if that boat was going down, they woulda locked me in there for sure.

No question about it. In just one look or smell of me, they would they would not have let me out anyways. But but it is cool. You can do the sail away out of, out of Finland, and, it's really cool to grab a pint on the aft deck. And I'll tell you the story, actually.

I actually thought I was on that other ferry. So I had done a bit of rip around town and I had gone to the ferry and they're like, we don't see your reservation, and they're like, you're at the wrong ferry probably. So the other ferry was on the other side of the port, so I had to double time it all the way around the port to get to my proper budget ferry, which ended up not not to be so good. But, yeah, make sure that you know which ferry you're on and where that is in the harbor because in the middle of traffic, it is hard to get around town even if you're lane filtering and stuff, but it's kinda hard in a European city with, saddlebags on and stuff. And actually, this is a great time to, for you to tell people about what to do when you get to an intersection with no traffic controls and no signs?

I'll tell you what I was doing, and you tell me what we're supposed to do. It's the right hand rule. So, right hand rule means the like like, in in the maritime world, like, vessel on the right, car in the right house right away. Okay. So I pull up, and if I see a car to the right, I stop and let them through.

But if there's no one to the right, I have the right away. Does that make sense? That's correct. Okay. Now now and also well, no.

Partly, in in theory, yes. But, technically, no. Because there's one thing. It was actually a a test question was, what is one thing that is not in the entire regulation on driving during that, you know, enduring any of the Swedish driving car or, or taxi or motorcycle? And the answer is right of way.

No one has right of way. Sure. People only have the duty to give way. Right. Okay.

Well, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Even in the maritime world, they're trying to get rid of the right of way terminology because at the end of the day, both vessels have the the the the obligation to avoid a to avoid a collision.

So what you're saying here on the road is even though someone should maybe go first, you both have everyone and every party has the the responsibility not to not to smash into each other. Right. Collision avoidance. Yeah. Main target.

So, anyways, I was in a rush, and I guess I haven't really been in in cities very much, and there's no signs. I'm like, well, I'm just I was probably dry riding around like a jerk. But I didn't see see a stop sign, so I just thought that, oh, I have I have the right of way. There's a stop there must be a stop sign on the other row on the other side of this intersection. But after a while I noticed that like, am I being a jerk?

And it turns out, yes, I was probably being a jerk. Yes, yes, you were. Fair enough. But for this one time, I didn't realize that I was being a jerk. So this one time it wasn't intentional.

Yeah. Oh, I wanna say one one thing. So the ferry lines that run between Finland and Sweden and and even, Tallinn, which, of course, is directly across if you look at a map, it's, directly across Tallinn is directly across from Helsinki, north and south. Just close enough. But the ferries, they'll run they'll do it's an overnight trip.

So wanna run it's like a day, b day, or, you know, even day, odd day. So one runs east one day, and the other ferry runs west the other day. So they they pass each other. So one is there, but you can get if you wanna get a particular boat, you may have to wait till the next day to get it because that day, it's departing from Finland if you're leaving from Sweden, for example. So that's the schedule.

So they it takes a day to cross and then day to get back. So over back, over back, over back, and so one day. It's a twenty four hour transfer either way. I didn't know that. Yeah.

And that's probably why I ended up on on that boat. But the way out of, Finland, Helsinki is a great ride, and the last hour into Sweden is is is great also. Everyone is in cottages. There's a a small boat culture. It's it is a beautiful, sail in.

So schedule a little bit of time to pack up your your your bags and be ready to go and enjoy that last hour sailing into Stockholm. It's really worth it. Yeah. It's like a it's like a full hour once you're in the archipelago, And these ships are running sometimes, they're running only a hundred feet off the shoreline because the shorelines are all made of granite, and it just goes straight down. So they're not worried about, you know, erosion.

You know, as I mentioned earlier, the reason the world is round. But there's no there's there's there's no erosion that's filling in underneath there. You know, it's granite. So the ships run right next to the shore, so you can it's quite cool to see. Yeah.

It was cool. So, and there's a BMW dealership in Stockholm, and that's where, I met up with you. And I had smuggled in some, parts for your t seven, and we installed the CAN bus, control the Denali CAN bus lighting control and some yellow LEDs on your t seven for the afternoon. Had a couple of cervezas caught up, and I think we stayed the night there. Yeah.

We spent the night there, and then you and I, did what is arguably the probably the most boring stretch, which is from Stockholm to Oslo, and that was all in the highway. It's five it's, what, 500 kilometers, so that's, five eight so 400 miles. Yeah. It was brutal. But, anyways, we had we had to do it.

But once you it's really interesting phenomena and, you know, as someone who hasn't hasn't been there before, when you or has been there some time, when you ride up that mountain into Oslo, Oslo is essentially just inside the border of Norway. There is a distinct, you know, ecological, you know, terrain feeling difference between Sweden and Norway, and it is apparent. And it was really nice to arrive into Norway, and, again, we stayed at the Anchor hostel. The recce next door, if you have the budget, connected to the same underground parking lot is the Anchor Hotel. A hostel there is not the same as you think of a a hippie hostel.

It's just a spartan hotel room that, will often have more than one small single bed inside each room. We had our own bathroom. It really felt like a hotel, but you, like, picked up your own sheets, and you picked up your own towels. There was a lot of young people there, but it's not it's not what we think of a, like, a European hostel. It's actually like a like a Spartan hotel, which is just fine with me.

Yeah. And I think in that one, there was also a small stove because I remember making dinner in there. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

I remember we had after paying for two beers, there was no money for food. So We were like, Yeah. We're gonna have to make dinner here. Yeah. Exactly.

Which is which is fine with me. So anyways, next door to the same parking garage is a is a nicer hotel if you so if you so desire. If your budget allows. Yeah. Exactly.

So I think maybe we should stop there. We weren't able to compress everything into, another episode. But in the next episode, maybe next time or a month from now, we will get into Norway. We have a a ton of tips, timing, where to stay, how to eat, how to, you know, buy beer, how to choose the routes, how to use our GPX files, how to get around, how to not get stuck waiting for a ferry, the difference between, the national ferries and the private ferries and ones you can make reservations at, the ones you cannot make reservations at. We have a lot of important information in the next Europe episode.

And beyond those episodes and and and based on what we've got coming up, I mean, you've got a bunch of interviews lined up, and then we always roll an episode. And the interview usually gobbles up the majority of a podcast. So, so maybe, like, I don't know, 2026, we'll finish up the last bit of this. No. We might even be able to do it next time.

If we think about it, we may be able maybe even be able to fix fit it in the next episode. So we'll get to it. And there's a lot of important information. And, yeah, I don't want people to show up in in August, you know, and then get stuck behind an RV and have the police chasing you around. There's a lot of important Norway information.

And as far as I you know, just to put a cap in this, as far as all my European motorcycle trips, Norway was freaking amazing. And there's a way to do it and a way not to do it. And if I if you're gonna go do your first Norway trip, it's either Norway, The Alps, but the Alps can get busy too, or the Picos or places like that. But it is up there, as a motorcycling destination. So I encourage everyone to come back and listen listen to that.

Alright. And with that, there'll be some great tips because I've got one that I will share next time. Alright. Well, listen, Taylor. Thanks so much for, for doing this, and I appreciate you, for hosting this podcast, man.

It's fun. Look forward to the next one. Alright. Roll the outro. Thanks for listening to the ADV Cannonball podcast.

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