Tag Archives: Motorcycling

A new blog baby is born!

One that will talk about two-wheeled adventures – only. It is called Elisatravels.com – Why that name? You may check that out yourself over there, please. On this note I’d like to give a special thanks to @Maex for his idea with name finding (“Take the name of your motorcycle!”).

An “About”-page and also the first two posts are online, lots more are being prepared by myself and by my beloved @Swedephotog. He is another motorcycle nerd who is sometimes worse than me in that respect.

Anyway – you have more of a choice now: Wha’ever or Elisatravels!

Hope you enjoy the read either way!

Jammin’ away!

Yes, I plead guilty. I did not update Wha’ever! for over a month now. Time to let you know I was on holidays, eh?

The motorcycle enthusiasts amongst you might be curious to know that there soon will be a new blog starting just with motorcycle posts. I will be running that one together with Swedephotog, who is equally crazy (if not worse) about two-wheelers.

Why we want to start a motorcycle blog? Well, somewhere we have to post the stories from this year’s 3-weeks-tour down to Northern Italy, don’t we?

Apart from enjoying a great summer tour on two wheels, there was a lot of jamming involved over the last week. Or making jam, to be precise. Redcurrant, blackcurrant, gooseberry, strawberries and all that sh..e ;) . Very sticky, I tell you, but also very sweet – like a few other things in life. Just very different.

This year’s jam edition consists of:

- Redcurrant with Gooseberry and Whisky
- Redcurrant with Madeira
- Redcurrant with Cranberry Juice and vintage Vana Tallinn 45%
- Redcurrant with Cranberry Juice and Cognac
- Blackcurrant with Grappa (last years consumer’s favourite)
- Strawberry, raspberry, rhubarb, cranberry juice and vintage Vana Tallinn 45%

Raw ingredients in terms of fruits were:

4 kilos redcurrant
1 kilos blackcurrant
0.5 kilos gooseberry
0.5 kilos strawberries, raspberries
0.5 kilos rhubarb

resulting in in total over 30 glasses of jam.

“Sylt” (a lighter Swedish jam to have with i.e. pancakes) has to be added to this list with:

2 kilos redcurrant
0.2 kilos blackcurrant

All in all almost 9 kilos of fruit. Good that I did not think about all this while dealing with it ;) . But the results are just heavenly – especially when you can enjoy them later on a dark winter night, bringing back memories from that summer… Or so.

Some samples of this year’s range:

Thought on the side – next year I might start selling some of it. Too much otherwise for our family.

Finally! The Swedish MC Season is on!

This is what the opening of the motorcycle season looked like for us yesterday – about 10 centigrades plus, a stiff breeze as one could see, which required double jackets. Us, that are members of the Swedish Ducati Club who live in Norrköping. My Guzzi is appreciated, too, of course – Italian sisterhood, ya know…

After a traditional Fika (Swedish for Coffee-break)  at “Fräcka Fröken” in Norrköping all of us set off northbound direction Jönåker via the old E4, then across to the East and down again. We took a ferry across Bråviken, like one can see in the picture above. All in all it was a trip of approximately 115 kilometres in total, just about right for not getting too cold on the bike in these temperatures.

We look forward to slightly warmer weather, though… ;)

This is the route we took.


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Heels On Wheels

After a backlash with quite some nippy days just above 0 Celsius combined with snow showers, the sun came out again today, and it is slightly getting warmer, giving hope that the 1st of May next week won’t be the coldest one in the last decade.

1st of May? Yes. That is when the motorcycle season starts in Sweden.

And since I know of at least two women who contemplate since years whether to take their license or not – here is my advice: Just do it!

If you need some more inspiration, here you go:

I borrowed the title of this video partly for the blog post – describes it best, I thought.

And if you are already out and about on your own two wheels, then you might enjoy this one:

On Youtube.com is loads more material to make you want to go out now – just search for “women motorcycle ….”

Have fun, and I hope to see some of you around on 1st of May and during the season :) .

Springtime soon?

OK, one cannot complain really. Spring is coming. Today we have the first noticeable plus-degrees here. The snow is melting, but no flowers in sight yet. Apart from the ones you can buy.

But – there are certain videos one can indulge in while awaiting the new motorcycle season. Like this one that two friends of mine put together.

These are the days we are now very close to :) . I hope.

Scootering in London

Yesterday I got pointed to this video on FuzziGalore.com:

Pure Hooligan Awesomeness: London Scooter Riding Video | Fuzzygalore.com – Girlie Motorcycle Blog.

The note I got with it was: “Memories?”

And oh yes, man, this brings back memories.

Like I already commented on Fuzzygalore, I did not go as crazy on my scooter. Probably due to the facts that it was a bit bigger (Honda SH 125i) and that I definitely was more cautious. Plus less experienced than these guys since I only took my learner’s license and later the full mc-license in London.

Anyhow, I used to ride to work in thick morning traffic, and if you wanted to get to work in a decent time, you simply had to go a bit crazy like these guys. Which was fun and risky at the same time.

When I took my full license, at my school the instructors were divided between whether to show us how to ride in the “third lane” or not. The instructor of my group denied showing us how to do that. For our own security, as he said. And that should count for something, since he used to be one of the top-paid dispatch riders in London before becoming a riding instructor. He changed profession when he got married and had family, and his wife was not overly happy about him dispatch-riding.

Anyone who has been in London and experienced these people riding knows what I am talking about. And all others may want to watch this one:

This was my commuting route, by the way:
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And this is my travel companion nowadays. Currently waiting in the garage for the few bits and bobs that need to be fixed before the next season starts.

Despite the snow outside, it is not far away anymore – yay :) .