BikerThomas.com

Elk signs are very popular among German tourists, they sometimes take them home mistaking them for free souvenirs…

Those of you who read my blog regularly already know that I live in Norway and that I often ride locally in the weekends. I’ve checked my blogs’ statistics and it turns out that a lot of you readers are American and some of the feedback I’ve gotten from you is that you like the landscape/nature pictures because it’s different from what you have at home, so I’ll keep on posting photos of the Norwegian nature :)

It’s middle of summer in Scandinavia and it’s quite warm during the day, but when the night comes it’s often cold to ride, so it’s useful to bring an extra sweater and some warm gloves for when the sun goes down. Just trust me and my frozen fingers on this one!

The aim of today’s trip was to see my family’s cabin in the inland, I drove E18 from my home town Kristiansand to Arendal, this is the main road around Norway so it’s quite boring. On the way back home I took the inland road which is a lot more interesting, heaps of neck-breaking turns, roads that look like they’ve been hit by a herd of Tyrannosaurus Rexes… and farms with cattle, sheep and horses. Look out for the local rev-heads/petrol heads – they’re driving like lunatics.

All in all though, a fine trip!

Vegårshei (left), Moo-moos (right). The cows were rather disturbed by the engine noise, all of them stopped eating and looked at me as if they were going to gang up on me and eat me and my bike instead…

Toudalsåna (left & right)

My bike at Toudalsåna late in the evening.

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Team Agni won the first inaugural TTXGP, a race for electric motorcycles, thanks to electricmotorsport.com for the picture.

This is kinda old news since the race was in June, but hey, it’s still interesting! Indian based Team Agni won the very first electric motorcycle race, TTXGP, that I wrote about in a previous post (click here to read that one).

Their bike was a modified 2007 GSX-R600. The average speed for the bike around Isle of Man was 140,7km/h (87,434mph), not bad for something that runs on a battery! Thomas Schönfelder took second place in his battery powered Laverda and he also had the top speed during the race, a gasping 171,5km/h (106,5mph)!

A new race next year is confirmed and it will be interesting to see what batteries they’ve come up with then!

Hit this site for lots of cool photos of the motorcycles that participated: EV Racing News.

Isle of Man electric motorcycle race

 
Inspection before the race starts, no petrol here! (left), Team Kingston University (right)

Links:

More Photos of the bikes: EV Racing News
MotorcycleNews: TTXGP: Team Agni blitzes field in first practice
HellForLeather: Team Agni wins inaugural TTXGP

Parked outside the Tower of Ayia, Naxos

I’m on holiday on Naxos, the largest island in The Cyclades which is part of Greece. Me and my girlfriend hired a 250cc quad bike (Kymco MXU if that tells the enthusiasts anything) and drove around the island, it was great!

“Fun Car” at the docks rent out bikes at €20 per day, helmets included.

We drove from Naxos City (also called Chora) to Apollonas at the north of the island and then headed south to Mesi, Aperanthos and Chalki before heading back to Naxos City. There are a lot of nice beaches to see. We stopped at Agias Tower which is a defense tower from when the Venetians ruled the island. We also stopped at a local pottery where my girlfriend went nuts and bought lots of local crafts from two elderly women (one which I’m sure was half-crazy, she became angry at us for not eating more than a few of her peaches…). They were crafty though, the pots and stuff that we bought were quite nice.

The quad bike handled all right, but I have a feeling that it likes dirt roads better than the paved roads that I drove on. I’ve driven a quad once before, many years ago on a farm in Australia, and it’s a whole different experience. South of Naxos city towards Mikri Vigla there are lots of dirt roads next to the beach so if you’re ever around this neck of the woods a quad bike is definitely what you should go for, not a 125cc scooter!

Enjoy the pictures, the surroundings were spectacular!

Nice terrain (left), Naxos City/Chora (right)

Sphinx (left), My girlfriend looking fine in a helmet :) (right)

Leftovers of Apollon Temple in Chora and a giant version of BikerThomas trying to move it…

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