A big thank you so much to REV’it and especially to Rineke their head of Marketing for their generous support of our World Wide Ride. Opening this box and finding two Defender Pro GTX suits was better than Christmas. It was sad to say goodbye to our trusty 4-year-old Defender suits since they had performed so well, but a new suit is a beautiful thing! We were happy to see some of the new features including the redesigned and longer vents on the forearms, the improved closure system at the wrists, and the new covered front zipper. They also have the new SEEFLEX CE-level 2 flexible protection system!
We toured the city including the locks and the Trolhatten “falls”. This is where the water from the huge Vanern lake nearby is drained daily to control the levels and to generate power.
For the weekend we had borrowed an RV and we went to the coast at Smögen. This is a beautiful seaside summer retreat.
We had bike service booked here for the valve check, as we could not get this booked in Germany. This was done, but the 650 was then not running well. On the diagnostics they found the “air control device” was faulty. Luckily they could get the part and fix it the same day. A big thank you so much to the team at BIKE Trollhatten for fitting us in and doing such a great job.
Tonight we are in for some real Swedish fun. We are off to the Liseberg Amusement Park in Gothenburg. Monday nights there are popular Swedish Pop artists performing and they have the hugely popular Sing a long of Swedish folk music. They LOVE this stuff. Of course the fair also includes carnival games, but only here do you throw plastic herring to win huge Toblerones!
For some fun today we when to meet Orvar at one of his jobs and got a ride to town at the same time!
Swedish hospitality includes bike washing!
The big event today was to finally meet Gene and Neda from Lightcycle. We have been communicating on line since we all left on our trips 3 years ago, but despite that we had never met them in person. Orvar and Sara rode out to meet them.
We repeated some of our city tour for them and then had a big BBQ.
Orvar had arranged for the local Swedish newspaper to come over for a group interview of the “5 overland riders”. The reporter asked some great questions and the photographer seemed to have a good sense of humor.
