Category: Reflection

Our hotel in Lübeck was nice and the only downside was the traffic that woke me up rather early. I’ve had a hard time sleeping lately since it is hard not to worry about my stupid feet issues so I need every hour I can get. Today we had a nice breakfast and I even spotted a Swedish actor, Johannes Brost, in the small breakfast room. The first destination of the day was the biker stores Polo and Louis. I was in search for boots, with softer and thicker soles. Unfortunately, I did not find any and realised that I won’t be able to find any new shoes that suit me now when my issues are so bad. I can hardly walk with any shoes without them pressing on the upper side of my feet and causes tickling, finding new ones seem impossible at the moment. This really dampened my spirit and I lost motivation to shop at all. In the end, I bought a wind stopper scarf, with the motivation that I can use it while hiking as well.

While riding I was meditating on the thought of vibrations. While I never have had problems with vibrations before it is a fact that twin engines vibrate. But what has happened now? Has the bike changed or have I? Am I more sensitive to vibrations now? I feel them all over my body while riding and I can’t really say if it used to be like this. I have travelled long distances before without these problems. But, and now I quote a bunch of people, “just because I have been able to do something before does not mean that I can do it now.” And if the bike has changed, what caused that? It is clear that the vibrations comes from the engine, because it varies with rpm rather than speed and disappears when I pull the clutch. Another problem that appeared is the angle of my feet/knee and the nerves that get pinched when I bend my leg. This causes a more direct problem than the vibrations but is also a problem I never have had before.

I was thinking about this for many kilometres and compared different options and ways to handle it. What in the end picked up my spirit was the queue to the Elb ferry, well, not the queue itself but the fact that we could surf a 3 km long queue and get right on the the ferry. Suddenly I felt the benefit of riding a bike. After the short ferry ride we rode up to Cuxhaven for a meal and then on to Bremerhaven. And finally, I enjoyed riding again. Unfortunately my left foot behaved weirdly once I got off the bike and we started our evening walk.

A rather depressing post today, but in Cuxhaven we had really nice meal and the riding after the ferry was inspiring and scenic. Sometimes I have a hard time finding the good bits, but there is always something if I put an effort in finding it.

 

The thanks of the day go Anneli who put up with my sulkiness.

I have been in Sweden more than a week now and it is time to get organised for the next step, “Heading out”. My plans for Sweden were to fill up my energy levels with sleep, food and exercise. Then, of course, to meet as many of my friends as I could and ride my favourite roads.

Things didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted them to. Since day 2 on this journey I have spent time and energy worrying about my feet and the numbness. In Sweden, I went to a doctor and I was told that my the numbness is caused by nerw damagecaused by vibrations. Why this happened now and never before the doctor couldn’t say. Possibly, I was weaker this year since I was very sick with fever and stomach issues during spring, who knows? The doctor ordered loads of tests and after worrying a couple of days I got the results. I’m completely healthy, except that I can’t feel my feet. I was allowed to continue my journey but should take breaks more often and reduce the vibrations for the sake of my feet.

This is an advice quite hard to follow. After searching information on the internet and asking in a lot of bike shops I have got a lot of suggestions of reasons to the numbness and possible modification to do on the bike etc. However, I’m not able to modify my bike myself and in Sweden all garages are fully engaged due to the short riding season. So, I needed easy doable super solutions. From a (for me new) forum, the Ducati Monster Forum, I got some new input. I could change boots to some kind of touring boot – they have softer soles. So today I been to the centre to search for this type of boot. Now, I need to point out that I actually hate shopping and boots are normally hard to find. Now with this stupid problem it’s even harder. Plus, I must have really tall boots, otherwise there will be a gap between boot and rouser leg –  stupid long legs. And to buy new trousers is out of the question after all the time I spent finding these. Needless to say, I was not successful. I will check Bike in Trollhättan on Monday and then maybe in Gothenburg… or later on in Lübeck… What I have managed to do is some kind of soft, hopefully vibration-absorbent isolation on the foot pegs. The efficiency is yet to be tested.

I didn’t ride as much as I planned to do in Sweden. Riding has not been comfortable the last week. My feet start to tickle when something presses on the skin or when I bend the feet. Therefore, it is difficult to find a comfortable riding position. Normally, I rest the toes on the foot pegs but now my feet immediately start to trickle when I do so. I’ve try different options but then my knees don’t fit in the shallowness of the tank. I also try to lift my feet and relax my leg as much as possible. All this plus the monitoring of the rmp to keep it on a “good” level makes riding not quite as relaxing as I would like it to be.

I feel grateful to get company for the next leg of my journey. That will hopefully help me keep my spirit up and also implement the idea of breaks. I will possibly eat better than during the “Going North”-leg of the journey, and if Anneli brings a GPS we might not even get lost as much from now on.

Today, I went to Karlstad to run some errands and see what has changed since my last visit. This was my home town 10 years ago, but now I can barely find my way around here. Some things are the same, though, like the nice river that runs through the town.

The symbol of Karlstad is a sun and it is a common misunderstanding that this implies that Karlstad has a generally sunny weather Unfortunately, this is not true: the sun in Karlstad was a waitress with a sunny personality. You can see the statue of her in the background.

Before finally choosing this place to park I circulated the city in search for an assigned motorcycle parking but without success. Parking in Sweden can be tricky since different cities have different rules and I’m no longer sure of any of them. I do know that motorcycles easily get parking tickets and it’s not as motorcycle friendly here as in Spain. The observant ones will notice the PacSafe net on the bike, where I stored my jacket and back protection before walking of to enjoy Karlstad.

If you want to know more about this nice little town Wikipedia has some useful information.