The 10,000 mile penis tour – Germany to Nordkapp by Vespa T5: Part 1 | FEATURE

German scooter adventure rider, Markus Andre Mayer has quite a good CV when it comes to distance riding. 

Around the world in 80 days

His biggest trip saw him riding 27,113km around the world in 80 days on three classic Vespas. He’s also ridden 10,000km from east to west coast in the USA – again on a Vespa. This year he did a 2,500km trip to The Alps then got home and decided he needed a “Little adventure” so here’s what he got up to over the summer…

Iggy

If it ain’t broke

The number one rule of scooter travel: Never change a running system, or fix something that is not broken. On this occasion I ignored it.

After two successful riding events and another 2500 km during a few days in The Alps on my trusty little 85cc Vespa PK ‘Cap10 America’ I came home to Germany realising that I needed some more kilometres this year to still my thirst for riding. I thought to myself ‘I will just quickly do a revision of my little smallframe and give her a bit more power’ and off we go.

After plotting a route the choice of tour name became more obvious…

A little adventure

We sat in a cafe when I told my girlfriend. ‘I do not have much money this year but I am in between jobs so I need at least a little adventure’ – ‘I’ll go to Nordkapp, that is a bit less than 10,000 kilometres and maybe six weeks’. She started to laugh out loud, looked at me firmly and said “You realise that you just called 10,000 km a small adventure?” ‘Oops’ I replied.

The next two weeks I spent in my garage, but after a few trips to SIP, several repairs and two engine rebuilds the PK was still giving me a headache. The wiring was simply rotten and whatever I touched fell apart.

The obvious choice

A few days prior, my T5 (that I had ridden home from Barcelona in 2021) had gotten a fresh German MOT and papers and my girlfriend asked me why the hell I still fumbled with the PK when there was a running scooter next to it in my garage. I had to agree, so I did an oil change, put some fresh tyres on and added a second spare wheel onto the front carrier. Then I strapped some camping gear and my clothes onto the back seat and was ready to leave early the next morning.

5^th of August 2023 – the start

I was so angry for delaying my start that I planned to recover some lost time on the autobahn the next morning. I woke up at 6 am and the weather was – OF COURSE – horrible. It was raining cats and dogs and when pulling into the first gas station I broke one of the buttons of my helmet bubble visor. Great start I thought. I was forced to ride the whole trip in goggles or sunglasses.

Adventure riders

On my lunch break, I stopped at a highway stop and was finally able to take off my rain gear after three hours. When I left the place and walked out front to my T5 ‘Tamara’ the scoot was surrounded by 18 big adventure bikes with Italian number plates. They all had a big sticker “Nordkapp Adventure” on their windscreens. I had to chuckle.

18 to 1

While I put my rain gear back under the seat one of the Italians approached me and asked “Are you going on a weekend ride – you have so much luggage?” ‘Yes I am on a weekend ride – I’m going to the same destination that you are going, but probably will arrive there quicker!’ He looked at me in disbelief and I explained. ‘You are 18 guys and you need a one-hour or 1.5-hour break every time you stop for toilets, gas, espresso and so on. I enter a gas station and leave in 10-15 minutes again and just ride. I’ll see you up there!’ They laughed and I rode off while they took a video.

Hannover

My first day ended after 650 km in Hannover. A good day. On the next day I passed Hamburg and entered a gas station and when I rolled into it I heard a squeaking noise from my back wheel and directly had a suspicion. I unloaded my scooter and got my tools out just to notice that I had been too quick packing the other day and had forgotten the 24mm socket to take off my rear wheel hub. I had to call assistance and meanwhile, some German scooterists arrived to my aid, but the issue was resolved quickly. It was just the little screw of the dust plate of my rear brake that had fallen out and was shredded in the brake drum over the highway miles. I replaced it and continued to my daily destination near Kiel.

Denmark

In Kiel I met some friends and one was surprised that I was riding without a back rack on the scooter and they organised me a T5 back carrier the next day (thanks Chris and Tim).

For the upcoming days, some strong winds had been announced and a storm was all over western Norway and the eastern Swedish coast with big floods. When I crossed over toward the Danish ferry in Puttgarden I was barely able to keep my scooter straight and even when standing on the bridge with both feet firmly on the ground was nearly kicked over by the wind. Riding with that wind was very dangerous so I needed to call it a day fairly early. After 240 km I stopped near Vordingword Denmark in a hostel because dustbins, trees and parts of roofs started to fly around. Camping wild was simply not an option.

The next day the storm was still strong but the hostel was booked out so I slowly made my way towards Copenhagen anyway. The wind was slowing down in the afternoon, but the news was full of storm warnings in the areas ahead of me. Christophe, a friendly Belgian scooterist living in Denmark, took me in before pitching my tent in a bus stop and I spent another night on Danish grounds.

Sweden

I entered Sweden with the ferry to Helsingborg and started a zig-zag route north through the centre of Sweden, following the recommendations of my rain radar and the flood warnings. It became clear that my suit would become the most important part of my gear. The weather was mostly cold (11-13 degrees celsius) and miserable but I slowly found my rhythm and continued.

Scooterists have friends everywhere

I camped near lakes and in abandoned cabins to dry my gear and occasionally had a campfire. Near Örebro in Sweden while I was riding on a smooth country road at a leisurely 70km/h my front wheel locked all of a sudden and I nearly fell, but caught it at the last moment. I heard some strange noises from the front wheel but slowly continued to a gas station out of town. While I sat there with a hot coffee and enjoyed a few rare rays of sun, a panel van stopped next to me and a guy steps out with the words “Markus, what are you doing here? I follow you on Facebook”. It turned out it was a member of the Mondo Scooter Syndicate Örebro and he informed the club that I was in town and they invited me to one of the member’s cabins.

Gulf of Bothnia

The next morning, after a good evening with the club, with beers and pizza we checked my front bearing and Johan the mechanic had the correct one in his garage. I always tend to say that my secret superpower is meeting the right people in the right place at the right moment. This was one of them. Again, very grateful. I continued towards Gävle and along the Gulf of Bothnia. I put in another long riding day, moving at a daily average of approx. 250 miles. I was driving at night in the forest towards a campsite in northern Sweden and suddenly my Vespa started honking and wouldn’t stop. So I’m standing in a patch of woods on a dirt road in the dark at 10 pm with the engine running and the horn on full blast, running around the scooter with my pocket knife, trying like McGyver defusing a bomb to stop the honking so I could pull into the campsite. Without success. I was forced to sleep in a bus stop on the transit route.

They’re coming to take him away…

In the middle of the night, while I was lying in the bus stop in my sleeping bag next to my scooter I heard loud music and an engine next to me and I took a look. There was a black gangster-style Honda Civic with tinted black windows and bad rap music standing next to me. When I looked closer I could see flashes behind the windows. Some idiot just wanted to take pictures of the homeless German scooterist. Lovely.

Arctic Circle – Finland

The days were long and rainy and very cold and windy the more I rode north. The last scooters I saw were the ones in Örebro and now only big-packed adventure bikes crossed my way. I passed the Arctic Circle at Rovaniemi in Finland.

Russian border

At this point I took a slight detour and continued towards the Russian border near Kirkenes. A biker told me it is a beautiful spot with a very old church as a peaceful symbol of the most north-eastern border of the EU towards Russia. Jacobselv is amazing and I even got lucky and had one day without rain and storms there. The nearly 1000 km extra was worth it. By now my light only worked on high beam, my indicators stopped working in the rain a few days prior and the horn that was still honking turned into a buzz as if my ‘wasp’ really was a wasp. A screw from my front carrier was lost and I replaced it with cable ties. Well, some losses were to be expected.

Honingsväg

200 km before Honingsväg, which is the next big town near Nordkapp and the harbour for the famous mail ships, my rain jacket, as well as my gloves, gave up on me. The waterproof gloves just were not waterproof anymore and the zipper of my jacket broke in a gas station toilet. My rain pants also had a hole near my balls so I was pretty soaked when I entered a supermarket to get myself a rain poncho.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na…

They only had big, long black ponchos, which were quite bad for riding in because I looked like a tiny slightly overweight version of Batman with his cape riding in it, but I could not care less. I also got myself a fresh pair of Norwegian waterproof working gloves and repaired the pants with some duct tape. Well, the freezing cold rain made its way through the gloves in less than one hour and at some points simply all was wet – three pairs of gloves. My boots with 100,000 riding kilometres around the world gave up the next day when I finally approached Honigsväg. I simply wanted to arrive before a snowstorm, or some hail finished summer up there.

Beware of the elk

The last trees had long disappeared near the Arctic Circle and were replaced by bushes and later only grass and stones. The reindeer were everywhere now and also ran on the roads and into tunnels which made it dangerous. I had only seen one elk so far in Sweden but the warning signs were everywhere so you also had to be careful because of that.

Norway

Norway is an amazing country with loads of beautiful curves along amazing fjords. High bridges and long tunnels everywhere, which make riding fun but also challenging every day. The last 200 km towards Nordkapp felt like 1000. The extremely strong winds up there, riding along harsh cliffs and the hard rain made it pure punishment now.

Nordkapp

I read that it is only possible to access the famous globe monument at Nordkapp at night if you want to go there with a motorcycle or scooter for a picture. I found some rental cabins for 50 quid some 15 km from the monument and took one for the night to be able to hang all my gear up overnight, with the heating at full blast. I enjoyed a beer and a meal before riding up at 3:30 am towards the most northerly accessible point of Europe with my little scooter.

Vespa jogging

I left my gear in the cabin and jumped onto Tamara to do the last few kilometres and even those were hard. First Tamara did not want to fire up, because the E10 that is sold very much in Scandinavia had started to dissolve the float needle rubber and the seal of the fuel tap so I had to do some ‘Vespa jogging’ most of the cold and humid mornings. She backfired a bit and was quite reluctant to have such an early and cold start – so was I but I wanted that picture of proof for all the suffering and freezing.

Midnight sun

It was midnight sun and the whole night you had some light, which also messes up your biorhythm and your sleep in the tent a bit. Vision is still not good, with lots of fog and rain and winds up there and you have to be careful to not run into one of the reindeer herds crossing everywhere. Upon arrival, I passed the ticket booth and went around the museum building on a footpath. Everybody, including security, was sleeping. I had the globe all to myself for one hour and some of my friends and followers stayed up to see me ride up there on live tracking and to wait for the first picture of my arrival there. They also wanted to have proof of my claim that the poncho makes me look like Batman so I gave them an appropriate picture of proof next to the globe.

Tortoise and the hares

After my little photo session, I saw a big group of adventure bikes arriving with a drone hovering above them as they entered the site. I had to laugh out loud even though I was freezing. It was the Italians from Germany that I met in the gas station. I approached them and asked them if they remembered me and he recognised my helmet – I told them I arrived the evening before despite a close to 1000 km detour to Kirkenes. They greeted me politely but did not really seem to like the idea.

I rode happily back to the cabin to sleep the rest of the night with a nice warm feeling of satisfaction. After 13 riding days and 4585 km I stood at the most northern tip of Europe. Freezing but happy! This was only the first part of my trip though.

To be continued…

Words and photos: Markus Andre Maye

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