Jan 20 2010
North Cape 2006 Intro
At the Dutch 2006 MotoNewz fair, 2006 Sjaak met fellow adventurer Marcus Kingma. Marcus is known from his records like -Around the Netherlands (937mi/1.508km) within 1 day- -Motorcycling through 15 countries within 24 hours- Marcus asked Sjaak if he would like to celebrate New Year on a wintry North Cape. Only just a few months back from his R1 world travel Sjaak enormously missed being on the road. Besides that, he already thought for years about the plan to ride once the time was right very far towards the north. This was a wonderful opportunity to gain experience. Enthusiastically he immediately agreed.
During the preparations Metzeler tires were fitted with stainless steel bolds to bring grip on the icy and snowy roads. Given the fact that the widest available knobby tire is only a 150, he needed a narrower rim. Motor Service Vierlingsbeek donated for this purpose a Yamaha TDM rear wheel and even adapted it to fit the R1.
Hyperpro changed the oil of the shocks with some that could cope with the expected low temperatures, while Sjaak put Arctic oil from Putoline inside the engine. After the power cables were fitted for a heated vest and gloves of Klan and for a heated Arai visor, the much too short preparation time was expired.
On 23 December 2006 the team that was named Snow Squad started the challenge. To capture the adventure on film there was except Sjaak and Marcus a third person, Hans.
He drove in a car that was placed at their disposal by the owner of Carpointer.nl, the Track & Trace system which made it possible to follow the bikes live on the internet. Hans was not allowed to help them, but he did have the two sets of wheels on board with their spike tires.
From the mild wintry Netherlands they went on to Germany. Via Denmark and the three long bridges they reached Sweden.
There they chose for inland route 45, because lots of snow was predicted on the Norwegian E6 that runs partly along the coast. Once ridden into the winter weather, from Mora on they faced roads which were not salted anymore. Because of the fitful winter there lay almost no snow and the top layer existed out of black ice.
Therefore they mounted their spike wheels. With fantastic grip they rattled along, but on lower levelled areas they got problems. Due to mild winter weather the ice melted and once the stainless bolds came in contact with the tarmac, their spikes wore out quickly.
According to the locals it would take at least 310mi/500km before they would enter stable winter weather. Swopping the wheels every time when they would hit ice free road wasn’t an option.
Removing the tires from the rims to mount new spikes would also be about a days work each time. Besides that, many miles/kilometres of tunnelled road lay ahead of them and at every single tunnel they would have to swop the wheels. Their spikes tires worked perfect on ice and snow roads, but for a trip towards the North Cape they simply didn’t do the job.
Well, the words ‘giving up’ do not exist in Sjaak’s way of live and he was sure he would make it, but lack of time made them decide to return.
A heavy snow shower and a real storm later, they stood even before the New Year started back on Dutch soil, being determined to accomplish the challenge during the next winter!