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After a good night of a sleep in a slightly too hot room Biljana got up and cooked some coffee for the three of us. We had breakfast with her nice self baked bread, fried eggs and butter. After that I got downstairs and replaced the cable on the motorcycle and found a setting with less hand force and equal still not perfect separation, while Benni set up his suspension and moved the handlebar in a more forward position. Yesterday a short trail section in the forest with low hanging foliage and lots of insects showed me that a helmet with some goggles would actually allow decent breathing with eye protection in critical moments. So we drove to elit mc, almost forgot gloves there, but they had no nice helmets that fit well. Too bad since the dealer had products from many premium brands and as well as the finest selection of motorcycles: BMW on the entrance followed by KTM on the left side and Ducati on the right side. Depending on your rather on or off-road orientation.
So we drove to cross bike store, no Helmets with visors in sight and their garage was booked out for the next three weeks so they wouldn’t check out the slight front tire wobble Benni suspected. We were stoked about the MX-stuff in stock and that they really just serve non-steet bikes.
We tried the Arai X4 helmet at Handelsbotten in Mölndal, which were very nice but expensive. Like really too expensive. I wouldn’t know a more expensive helmet from the toop of my head.
Without getting anything done and a slightly ditched mindset (why seem so many drivers in cities not able to drive properly?) we got back to Biljanas. Benni tried to do some remote IT support to solve a mystery of missing, definitely saved files from the day before and the main offender: automatic windows updates. Meanwhile Niklas served 1.5~l of ice-cream in total (Kladdkaka flavoured) to lift the mood. Finally we were able to pack our stuff get going, but not without loosing one another of too many fights with our Garmin navigation systems and re-discussing the stuff to ‘really’ take with us and its distribution among the two motorcycles
We drove down until Ulricehamn on the highway and had a short stop in Borås asking for some bar risers at a KTM store (which also accommodated lawn mowers.). On our way to the TET we had some slight drizzles but did not get too wet. We rejoined the TET and our yesterdays fight with Garmin seemed to pay off, as at least Niklas was able to route* the track without major hiccups.
(*’routing’ in the technical terms of getting the navigation system to tell you when to turn and where)
So we followed the track along some nice gravel roads and twisty tarmac through the nice Swedish countryside consisting of lakes, forests and tiny villages and farms. When we re-checked our location after a couple of dubious turns and no gravel for too long we realized our routing didn’t work as expected. Bummer. So it was back to just follow the line on the map. We got back to the TET and when leaving a village the sharp speed bumps slingshot Bennis smaller luggage back of the back of the motorcycle and onto the road. It tumbled a bit and thankfully there was no traffic so we could salvage it without too much harm, still there was some broken herb bottles (it is the food bag after all) and some damage to DICK’s adventure pack (with us since our first tour together). We were also surprised by a random deer jumping into our way, clearly stopping in time would not have been possible and as it was too close for comfort. We followed the TET some more, now almost only consisting of gravel with some more difficult sections. We encountered my first loose sand. What a shock to feel so utterly out of control. We took a short break as we misturned anyway and while backtracking the sand felt fine. Instead of the usual firm-ish connection between handlebar position and direction of travel sand seems to need a loose and relaxed approach to turning while still maintaining decent momentum. Otherwise wild swinging of the rear or a washing out front occur. Lesson learned hopefully. We continued on the most difficult section for 2 more km’s and then had some easier gravel roads again. A clearing presented itself at a T-junction together with a bank to sit (it was our make-shift table for cooking) and we decided to call it a day. I put up the tent and Benni started cooking some rice with tomato sauce. It was sunny and except for the buzzing flies almost perfect. When we started eating the slightly burned rice (dosing the gas with new pots always takes some getting used to) the trail spitted out three more motorcycles ( a original Honda Africa twin, a newer Triumph tiger and a beaten Kawasaki dual sport). We chatted a bit with the three guys as the child stayed silent and they decided to move on for a bit until the next wind shelter to stay the night there. They too were following the TET. After dinner there was some coffee and a dessert müsli bar. We aired down our tires a bit (2.1 rear, 1.9 in the front for now), tried to use the compressor to air our mattresses to no avail and fiddled around on the motorcycles a bit and thus the active part of the day ended. Later on a weird howling could be heard, we think it should have been a dog, he sounded very hoarse though. Benni modified his helmet a bit to make his ears fit better while I worked on the diary.
