The chance discovery of the event and a couple soon-to-expire United Airline flight credits were all the motivation we needed to fly off to Sweden to catch the tail end of Winter and hang out on a frozen lake watching motorhead Swedes participate in their version of land speed racing.

Much like their (significantly warmer) Salt Flat-racing brethren in Utah, Swedes love to go fast. Lacking any ancient, dry lake beds to race across, they turn to something they do have plenty of: frozen lakes in Winter. And so for the last few years in the small town of Mora, 250 miles north of Stockholm, and a little less than 400 miles south of the Arctic circle, they hold Speed Weekend (their abbreviated version of Bonneville’s Speed Week).

A pair of long, straight tracks are cleared on Lake Mora and people start lining up with whatever they’ve brought which in this case is everything from a Ducati 998 running spiked racing slicks to a massive pulse jet with handlebars and skis attached.

There are highly-modified Volvo 240s with studded tires tearing around an autocross track, pitching sideways through the corners and spraying ice in all their boxy, Swedish glory.

Quite a few of the cars look like they’re set up for rally racing the rest of the year; there are a handful of American muscle cars, race bikes, rat bikes and every once in a while some guy flies overhead in a little orange airplane/helicopter combo about the size of a Smart car. It’s quite the scene.

It’s all accompanied by a steady stream of enthusiastic, Swedish, color commentary by a pair of announcers who seem like they’d be hilarious if we could understand them; luckily it’s amusing enough to listen to the sounds of their Swedish banter, so everybody wins.

The ice track is cleared by what look like typical road clearing plows, which do not leave anywhere near the surface finish you’d get from, say, a Zamboni. The track has a couple noticeable hills and dips to it and the ice is much closer to a reasonably smooth dirt road than pavement.

The takeoff area around the start is quickly chewed up by modern, turbo-charged Porsches and other rally cars whose studs rip through the ice, trying to lay down way more torque than the conditions can stand. The old, vintage cars fare much better and usually leave the line with the throttle pinned and minimal wheel spin.

It’s terrifying watching some of the motorcycles head down the track. It’s a pretty bumpy ride heading down the track and, spikes or no, you’re still riding on ice. We didn’t see any injuries and somehow managed to dodge any groin pulls ourselves which was amazing considering that we spent the afternoon wandering around an ice cube with a thin layer of melting water on top.

If you’re considering a visit yourself, there’s not really anything to warn you about. Despite snow on the ground the roads were clear and the Swedes are by far the most patient and safe drivers we’ve ever seen. Besides that everyone, every single person we met, everywhere we ever went spoke nearly perfect English. We learned absolutely no Swedish phrases or expression, which we usually love doing, because even attempting to speak Swedish seemed ridiculous. Supermarket, museum, comic book shop, restaurant, hot dog cart… everyone.

Prices are definitely steep compared to the US. Meals seem to cost about twice what they do here and gas is nearly $8 per gallon.

Aside from that though, of all the motorcycle-related foreign travel we’ve done, this was by far one of the easiest. Scroll down for more photos or check out the entire Flickr Set

As part of some fabrication research in vintage issues of Popular Mechanics (thanks Google Books) I came across this great 1950 ad for name-brand hammers.

What brand you ask? Nope, no specific brand, just an ad touting the benefits of name-brand tools.

Click image to go to the original ad, I’ve written out the text below.

“That Hammer? You’re kidding!”

“It’s a fact, Bill. I’ve been using this same hammer for 29 years. It helped to build the house you were born in.”

“Well I don’t know how you do it. I hardly ever use a hammer, and yet I’ve broken two of them in the last year or so.”

“That so? What kind of hammers were they? What brand, I mean.”

“Gosh, I don’t know. Guess they didn’t have any brand names. But they were good bargains.”

“That’s where the trouble is, Bill. Look… see the name on this hammer? Whenever you see that brand name, you know it’s a good hammer. Stick to the well-known, advertised brands when you buy tools, and in the long run you’ll safe a lot of money.”

“That makes sense, Fred. I’ll remember it.”

“And do your buying at the hardware store, where they don’t try to sell you anything but quality tools. That way you’ll always get your money’s worth.”

…

Also, I’m going to start doing more of my fabrication work with a jaunty pipe.

 As part of this long-term motorcycle customization project I’m in the middle of (the early middle… in fact, let’s just call it the start) I’ve been doing a lot of fabrication research lately.

I was reading a write-up of a custom Suzuki in an issue of the British motorcycle magazine Back Street Heroes (a good magazine, despite how terrible their website is) and came across this paragraph:

Unsurprisingly, it’s of completely one-off construction, hand-built using the traditional method of sand filling the tubes and capping the ends before bending them into the required shape (I refer you to a fine article called “What You Can Do With Sand” in the December 1934 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. Honest.)

That’s all they mentioned about the process and so, wanting to find out more about this mysterious sand technique I Googled the magazine name, article title and date and seconds later, on page 941, was reading the exact article they were referring to.

From said article:

You will find frequent use for a small quantity of clean, dry sand in your workshop. For example, it may be necessary to make a uniform bend in a length of small pipe or tubing. If you fill the pipe or tubing with dry sand and cork the ends, the pipe may be bent easily without any danger of collapsing at the bend.

Ta-dah.

The internet isn’t all that new at this point, but it still blows my mind that at a moments notice I can find and freely read an article that appeared during the golden age of radio, when my Grandfather was still a teenager. All the Popular Mechanics back issues are organized by decade and all seem to be fully searchable.

Pretty awesome.

If you’re into that kind of stuff the blog Knucklebuster Inc. posts modern and vintage technical articles on a pretty regular basis. A great collection of wisdom from the ancients.

If you’re into that kind of stuff.

The annual Sturgis Rally isn’t super high on our list of motorcycle must-do’s but western South Dakota is stunning and the area in and around the Black Hills National Forest has some fantastic riding.

We passed through the town last year a week before the rally and stopped at Gypsie Vintage Cycle a great little shop space that dates back to 1938 and the start of the Sturgis Rally. They sell some t-shirts and provide some bike services, but mostly it’s worth a visit just to browse the bikes scattered around the shop and the collection of old posters on the wall.

On a recent trip to Seoul I took an afternoon to check out wander around the moto district. A lot of monkey bikes and some pretty cool 125cc choppers.

Click here to go to the flickr gallery.

PROFESSIONal from VITA BREVIS FILMS on Vimeo.

This has been out for a while now, but it’s a beautiful video and inspiring subject matter.

The likelihood of finding yourself in Ely, Nevada and in need of accommodation for the night is low. Ely (pronounced e-lee) is one of 3 towns on the 300 mile stretch of Highway 50 (the Loneliest Road in America) that runs West from the Utah border. The town isn’t really on the way to or from much, and although that stretch of highway is stunning in the late afternoon as the sun goes down, there’s not much going on in Ely itself.

Which is a shame because the Hotel Nevada is a great little roadside find.

Approaching Ely well after dark (trying to squeeze in a few more miles heading home from Bonneville this year) we passed an alternating stream of billboards for Hotel Nevada and the Ely Motel 6. When we finally hit the Ely city limits we had a tough decision to make. We were exhausted after a full day on the salt and Anjel’s contacts were killing her thanks to having washed them in Utah’s mineral-heavy water. Do we make a left for Motel 6 – which we knew would be bland but probably have clean beds and a reasonable shower, or roll the dice, head straight and give Hotel Nevada a chance.

We fired the bikes up and decided to roll the dice. Pulling up to the Nevada we were greeted with a giant glowing marquee and a hotel that wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. To hedge our bets Anjel stayed with the bikes and I walked in to check it out. As soon as I walked through the doors though I knew we had a winner.

Stuffed wolf?

Check.

Antler chandelier and Buffalo head?

Check

Corner full of cowboy memorabelia?

Check.

Yep, we were good to go. But it only got better.

The room was a very reasonable $45, and when I asked where we should park our bikes for the evening she said “Oh, you’re bikers? We give a 10% discount for bikers” and suggested I just park them right in front of the hotel, along with the others.

The Hotel Nevada opened in 1929 and at 6-stories was the tallest building in the state. In fact, as we were told by a hotel pamphlet “for many years our hotel was a favorite stop-over for the Hollywood set traveling between California and Sun Valley, Idaho.”

Why the Hollywood set was traveling to Sun Valley, Idaho, I can’t tell you, but the walls are indeed covered with plaques of famous people who stayed there over the years. In fact, all the the rooms are celebrity themed. Not like Madonna Inn themed, but named after- and hung with- pictures of stars of a bygone era. We got the Ken Maynard room, star of such Westerns as Boots of Destiny, Whistlin’ Dan, and Phantom Rancher.

Most of the posters also touted his “wonder horse” Tarzan.

The rooms were basic, but for $40 we were thrilled. The bed was comfy and there was a flatscreen on the wall that we could use to catch up on the local newscasts and basic cable.

If our room was anything to go by, you’ll also find several signs (and cartoon drawings) in the bathroom warning guests that they’re staying in a 100-year-old hotel with 100-year-old plumbing and that the shower temperature can be a bit uncertain. It was indeed; yo-yo-ing with some regularity between pleasant, freezing and not-quite-scalding, but it was a small inconvenience, they were up front about it and it just added to the character.

In the morning we enjoyed a great roadhouse breakfast, loaded up the bikes, and went on our way.

Should we find ourselves needing Ely accommodation again, the Hotel Nevada’s a pretty sure bet.

Hotel Nevada
01 Aultman Street
Ely, NV 89301-1578
(775) 289-6665
www.hotelnevada.com

It has been much harder to work out a viable dirt-road route to Alaska than we originally hoped. I was discussing the problem with my sister when she said “You should do research on the Northwest Passage. They had the same problem.”

I vaguely remembered the Northwest Passage from my High School days so I did some searching to see if there were any good books on the topic and Anthony Brandt’s The Man Who Ate His Boots seemed to be at the top of the list.

In the early 1800s the Northwest Passage was a much-sought-after sea route which would allow mariners to sail from Europe to Asia by going up and over North America, rather than down and around Southern America.

In theory the route would shave thousands of miles and months of travel time off the journey. In practice… well, theres a reason that Brandt’s book is subtitled “The tragic history of the search for the Northwest Passage.”

The problem, of course, is that sailing north of North America means navigating through Arctic waters and these were expeditions setting out in the 1800s, traveling in wooden sailing ships.

Aside from the expected troubles of unpredictable winters, terrible cold, starvation and the difficulty of keeping a shipload of sailors occupied while spending a year stuck in a ship, locked in an ice flow, expeditions suffered from a complete unwillingness to use the survival techniques of the native inhabitants.

Sailors never adopted the technique of cutting igloo shelters out of the ice; preferring to lug heavy, cumbersome, waxed cotton tents which were almost useless against the cold. Parties consisted of dozens of men where small groups would have had a much better chance of surviving off the land and Captains shunned the idea of scouting routes by dogsled; the idea of traveling by dog power too undignified to even consider.

Regardless of their cultural prejudices (which were common for the time) the bravery, dedication and perseverance of the men was amazing. Captains and sailors would return home, turn around, and set out again on voyage after voyage; even when trips consistently lasted months or even years longer than anticipated, and inevitably ended in starvation, frostbite and death.

In telling the story, Brandt does a fantastic job of presenting amazing amounts of historical facts, while still weaving a fantastic tale of adventure and discovery. It’s a great read especially if you’re looking for some adventure inspiration. It certainly added the far-Northeast to our list of places to go.

We just got back from a very successful scouting run for our Alaska Trip. 12 days of riding, 3300 miles and 7 nights of camping. We’re thrilled to say that though there’s still a lot of planning to be  done, we’ve returned from the trip re-inspired and re-invigorated.

To be clear, this wasn’t a dirt run, this was strictly information gathering. We took our road bikes through California’s Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Tahoe and Eldorado National Forests visiting ranger stations and administrative offices to talk about our plans. (actually, we rode all the way north through OR, WA and up into Canada, but that was a side trip to our Alaska research )

Across the board the people we spoke to at Ranger Stations were interested in what we were doing and I’d go as far as to say that most of them were actually excited. The best comment came from Dana in the Modoc office who sent us an email a few days after we talked to her saying “I really am blown away wandering through your website!  You really are going to dirt bike that route from the bay area to Alaska!”

Dana gives us the inside scoop.

Most forest maps can be bought online or even at some large bookstore chains, but talking to people in person was invaluable. It was interesting to find that although we’d always thought of the national Forests as one large entity, each forest is managed individually and often quite differently.

The rangers at Eldorado (just east of Sacramento and southwest of Lake Tahoe) said that theirs is actually a very “urban” national forest. “It’s more like a park than a forest,” they told us. “There’s boating, fishing… We get a lot of people that come out for the weekend or even just for the day as a getaway.” Modoc on the other hand was much more remote and tended to have very different use groups.

We learned about using “township” and “range” to find one’s position on a forest grid map (basically latitude and longitude), how most trails are clearly marked “until hunting season when the hunters tear all the signs down,” and to keep an eye out for yellow k-tags on trees which show you your location on the grid map.

As far as trail maps go, online research originally pointed me to Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUMs) as the definitive legal map to use when travling through forests.  They’re freely available online and we’ve linked to them in our Logistics section, but they are very difficult to use – something that was confirmed by more than one ranger. “They’re terrible. I know the forest and I can’t even tell people where to go on these.” One of the big problems seems to be the complete lack of recognizable landmarks included on the map. It’s as if someone created a map of California that listed every major freeway, along with lakes and rivers… but didn’t mark a single city or town.

Regardless, we got great help. The rangers suggested which maps would be best, and in a couple instances, just gave us an extra atlas they had.

The best news we got was that Lassen already has a 180 mile, dirt road, Backcountry Discovery Route running through it. So we’ve been able to effectively check that stretch off the list.

While most of the Rangers were immediately on board with what we were doing, one or two seemed a little confused at first. There was one back and forth where we were told that this was the only map we’d need for the forest since it listed “everywhere that cars could go.” “That’s great,” we’d say, “but we’re really hoping to spend most of our time where cars can’t go.”

Or we’d explain that we were trying to do the trip entirely on dirt roads and they’d point out several roads that would take us through the forest. “Perfect, this will run us right through. And are any of these trails paved?” we’d ask; “Yes of course, they’re all paved! we were told excitedly. “Well, these stretches here will be gravel, but it shouldn’t be too bad.”

But as we said, these were the exceptions and most people were super-excited by the idea.

The next step is going to be to put together a few sample routes and then test them out – possible a Plumas to Lassen run. We still need to get the bikes out there and start to find out what it’s like to ride for multiple days with everything strapped on the back.

Exciting!

On our way home from a recent moto trip to Canada, we pressed our luck one evening trying to squeeze in a few more miles before we lost the light, and ended up in the little town of Tulelake, CA.

Light had started fading well before we pulled off the highway looking for the road which would lead us to the campsite marked on our map, 10 or 15 miles west of town. So after a few u-turns we pulled over to ask a local resident who was out mowing her lawn.

“That park’s out a ways, but there’s camping out behind the fairgrounds.” she said.
“And where are those?” we asked.
“Right there” she said, pointing across the street

We circled the block and found a gravel driveway leading to some of the best kept grass you’re going to find outside of the PGA. We had the entire place to ourselves and spent a fantastic evening sleeping on a grass featherbed.

The next morning we swung into town for Anjel’s coffee fix and found The Tractor Stop Espresso and Coffee.

Aside from coffee and espresso, window signs tell all passers-by that they can also drop in to pick up: Belted Chain, PEER Bearings, Hay Parts, Flagpoles, Tools, Shirts, Hats, Gifts and Art & Photography.

We spoke with a few older gentlemen inside who were hanging out and talking over their morning coffee. While we ordered one said: “Whelp, I should be getting on” and the three said their good-byes to us and the woman behind the counter and made their way outside… where we found them a few minutes later, standing casually around their trucks, continuing the conversation.

“You guys didn’t get very far.”
“Nope.”

Though the downtown was only a few blocks long, there were some great examples of signage including the library and plumber:

the two word: “Super Market”

The seemingly defunkt “Tule Lanes”

And the local bar “The Homestead”

One of the best parts of motorcycling is searching out the fun, winding backroads which inevitably lead to sleepy towns like Tulelake.

So if you happen to be heading across the CA/OR border on 139 swing by and grab a cup of coffee. And maybe some new bearings for that tractor wheel you’ve been meaning to look after.

Tulelake, CA