Planning for the next motorbike tour is still in progress; fruits of my research are outlined for review below.

• The general plan is to pelt up to Nordkapp as quickly as possible, dawdle back along the Norwegian coastline, and then use Denmark and Germany to get rapidly to Switzerland and thence France, do the Alps with friends, and return to the UK.

• The challenge is in timeschedules and ferries; I have a fixed deadline to meet in the Alps, and a soft target to hit in Nordkapp.

• With this in mind it may be that I defer Finland for a later (Russian) tour and instead make landfall at Gothenburg, pelt up the inside-leg of the Gulf of Bothnia (much of which can be done in a single day, I am told by a local) and then cross over to Nordkapp.

• In a recent visit to Aberystwyth, returning through Rhyader I met a couple of other BMW owners (one of whom is snave1 from [www.ukgser.com]) who had done a Norwegian tour and confirmed that getting up/down the coast could be done in 7 days in reasonable comfort; this doesn’t leave me a lot of room to get from Nordkapp to Geneva in the 10..11 days available, but neither does it sound impossible.

  Likewise, another colleague (who previously worked for Ericcson and travelled extensively) informs me that insane taxi drivers get from Trondheim to Oslo in 2h30m and so it should be no major problem for me to do it more legally on the Beemer in 4h or so.

Mayhap I am still relying on rumour too much for my liking, but ideas are starting to gel into a plan. Novelty.

v4 draft map: [www.crypticide.com]