What nobody tells you first.

Norway rewards riders, but it does a few things differently from the rest of Europe. None of it is difficult once you know — and most of it is good news.

Toll roads are free on a motorcycle

Motorcycles registered as MC are exempt from tolls on public roads in Norway. You ride straight through the automatic toll points and the city toll rings, and nothing is charged. No tag, no app, no account.

Private roads are the exception. Many private gravel and forest roads (bomvei) charge their own toll, motorcycles included, usually paid by app, text message or at a box by the barrier. We plan our routes around them. If you decide to ride one anyway, that toll is yours: any bill that reaches us afterwards is passed on to you.

Ferries are the other exception. Those are yours, and on most crossings a motorcycle is among the cheapest vehicles on board. How you pay differs per crossing: some still take a card on board, but more and more crossings charge the motorcycle’s number plate automatically (AutoPASS for ferje). Those bills reach us weeks later, as the owner of the motorcycle – and we pass them on to you at cost after your trip. That goes for every crossing the motorcycle makes, also one that was never in your plan: we do not need to have known about it for it to end up on your final bill.

Ferries are part of the road

On the west coast a ferry is not an excursion, it is a stretch of road that happens to float. You ride up to the queue, follow the marshal, and motorcycles are usually waved to the front and off first.

Payment is automatic on most routes: a camera reads the plate and the crossing is invoiced to the vehicle. On our bikes that is already arranged, so you ride on and ride off without doing anything. Crossings are frequent in summer; if you miss one, the next is rarely far away.

Speed, and how seriously it is taken

The general limits are 50 km/h in built-up areas and 80 km/h outside them, with some motorways signed up to 110. What surprises visitors is the enforcement: fines are among the highest in Europe, and losing your licence starts at a margin that would be a warning elsewhere.

The roads worth riding here are not the fast ones anyway. A Norwegian mountain road at 70 is more fun than an autobahn at 200.

Alcohol: effectively zero

The Norwegian limit is 0.02%, a tenth of what many countries allow. In practice that means nothing before riding, and care with the night before. Penalties are severe, and any insurance cover on the motorcycle disappears the moment you are over.

Lights on, always

Dipped headlights are mandatory around the clock, all year. Every modern bike does it for you. Helmets are compulsory; the rest of your gear is your own choice legally, and an obvious one practically.

The season, and when the mountains open

The high mountain roads are closed by snow through the winter and open when they are cleared, typically from late May into June depending on the year and the altitude. The tall striped poles along the roadside are there so the ploughs can find the road under several metres of snow — they tell you what kind of country you are in.

We plan every route around what is actually open on your dates, and we check again the week before you fly. Live road status for the whole country is published by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration at vegvesen.no/trafikk.

May and September: our favourite months

Our season runs from May to September, and the months at either end are the ones we would pick ourselves. In May the days are long, the waterfalls are at full power from the snowmelt, the fruit trees along the Hardangerfjord blossom from around mid-May, the roads are quiet before the summer holidays, and the hotels you book yourself charge less than in high summer. Nights are cool and a few of the highest roads are still opening, so bring warm layers and let us plan the route around them.

In September the summer traffic is gone, hotels and cabins have space again and charge less, and the mountains turn gold and red. From around mid-September the nights in the north are dark enough for the northern lights. The days are shorter, so plan to reach your stay before dark. More about riding in May and September.

Because the hotels are cheaper in both months, the same route costs you noticeably less in May or September than in high summer – and because you book your own nights, that saving is yours in full. In July and August the well-known places along the fjords are full weeks ahead; in May and September you can still find a room a few days out.

One thing to be clear about: we rent you the motorcycle and hand you the route. The nights along it are your own booking, directly with the hotel, cabin or campsite – accommodation is not included in our prices and cannot be booked through us.

Weather changes inside an hour

You can leave a valley at 24 degrees and cross a plateau at 4 with sleet, on the same afternoon, in July. This is normal and it is not a reason to stay home — it is a reason to pack layers, waterproofs and warm gloves, and to accept that you will use them.

Rain also changes the roads. Painted lines, manhole covers and the white tunnel markings turn slippery, and gravel that was perfect in the morning gets greasy on top.

Tunnels

Norway has more tunnels than anywhere else, some of them many kilometres long, and a few unlit with a gravel surface. Inside, the temperature drops sharply and the air is damp. Take sunglasses off before you enter, give your eyes a moment at both ends, and expect water running across the road. Some tunnels have roundabouts inside them. Yes, really.

Animals on the road

Moose move at dawn and dusk, mostly in forested country in the east, and a full-grown one weighs more than the bike and you together. Reindeer cross mountain roads in herds, and where there is one there are twenty. Sheep spend the summer loose on unfenced roads and have no traffic sense whatsoever.

The rule is the same for all three: slow down, do not swerve, and remember that a lamb on the verge means the ewe is about to cross from the other side.

Fuel

Petrol is easy to find along the main roads and scarce in the mountains, where a station may be a hundred kilometres from the next one and may close in the evening. The habit to build is simple: in the mountains, fill up when you pass a station, not when the light comes on.

Cards work everywhere, including at unmanned pumps. Cash is barely used in Norway and some places no longer take it at all.

Gravel, and where you may ride it

Norwegian gravel roads are public roads: graded, signposted, and often better surfaced than the tarmac lane that led to them. They are open to anyone unless a sign says otherwise, and some private gravel roads charge a toll – our routes avoid those, see above.

What is not allowed is riding off them. Motor traffic in open country is tightly restricted by law, and that includes tracks, moorland, riverbeds and beaches. Every route we hand you stays on roads and trails where riding is legal — please keep it that way. The freedom to roam in Norway is generous, but it is for feet, not engines.

If something happens

Emergency numbers are 110 for fire, 112 for police and 113 for an ambulance. They work from any phone, and the operators speak English.

Mobile coverage is good for a country this empty, but it is not everywhere: expect gaps in the high mountains and in the long valleys. Download your maps offline before you leave the wifi, and tell someone your plan for the day.

Our own number is in your roadbook, and it reaches a person, not a queue.

Light

In June and July it barely gets dark in the south, and north of the Arctic Circle the sun does not set at all. Riding a mountain road at one in the morning in full daylight is one of the things people come here for. It also removes any excuse for rushing — you have all the light in the world.

Questions riders ask