A brief intro: My name is Dougie, I've been riding bikes for the relatively short time of 4 years and I own a Fouco and a Yamaha cruiser. Earlier this year I planned a trip from the UK to Northern Finland (the Arctic circle) and decided to take the Fouco...
We drove through Denmark, Sweden, Finland and then returned through southern Sweden and back through Denmark - 3448 miles in 12 days.
The Fouco was carrying me plus 30kg of not very streamlined luggage and I was getting an average of 14.5 miles per litre which works out at about 66 miles per gallon.
The driving was mostly 50mph - 65mph and the Fuoco coped admirably. I used some oil on the trip - about half a litre - but other than that I had no bike problems at all. The brakes were fine (although to be fair, on a trip like this you're not using your brakes much) and the tyres were fine too. In Sweden we had a rain cloud follow us around for two days. There were rivers of water on the roads at one point and it was here that I was very glad I'd bought the 3 wheeler.
The only 'issues' I had were with cross winds on the return journey through Denmark. It was very blustery and the Fouco got knocked around a few times. I don't know if it was a combination of the shape of the fuoco, the screen I have and the lugguage I was carrying, or whether any other bike would have suffered the same wind buffeting.
If I ever do a trip like this again, the essential thing I'll take with me will be 100 pre-printed leaflets explaining everything about the Fouco. Everytime I stopped someone came over to chat to me about the bike. I think I could have sold 10 of them in Finland.
I did suffer from lower back pain on the trip, but this was rememdied by stopping every 50 mins or so for 5-10 minutes (I think having a break every so often is a sensible idea anyway as you start to lose concentration after a while). I had an Airhawk seat cover plus two roll bags on the back seat which acted as a back rest, but neither of these seemed to alleviate the problem.
With regards to luggage, I used two Ortlieb roll bags, strapped to the back seat and rack by 3 long velcro straps I bought from B&Q (a UK DIY chain). The straps worked perfectly, much better than bungee cords. I also had a pair of Ortlieb roll top panniers, which I secured with cable ties. All of the Ortlieb kit worked perfectly and everything was bone dry throughout the entire trip.
We navigated using maps but we took two TomTom's with us which we used in combination with a Lonely Planet Guide to find accommodation (points of interest nearest to me etc.) I used the 12v charger under the seat to charge Mobile phones, the TomToms and a video camera without any problems. It took a while to load and unload the kit from the bike so I'd have to plan ahead as to what I wanted charging as I couldn't just flip the seat up (the luggage was strapped to it).
At this point I should point out I was travelling with a mate who was on a 1974 BMW R60.
I only had a couple of hairy moments on the trip. The first was a Hare than ran out in front of me whilst I was doing about 60mph. I missed it, according to my mate, by Hare's breadth but it did put the wind up me for a bit. The second 'moment' was on a Swedish motorway, early on into the trip. Doing about 70mph I came over the top of a blind summit and suddenly faced a huge stationery truck ahead of me which was painting white lines on the road. There was no warning prior to this so I had to use the breaks rather heavily. I came to a stop in plenty of time, but my riding partner on his 1974 breaks only just stopped in time.
On reading various forums (including this one) I was rather paranoid about running out of fuel so I'd packed a 5 litre green plastic fuel can under the seat. I never had to use it. Finding fuel wasn't a problem. Given the mileage I was getting (14.5 miles per litre) I think I'd have got close to 200 miles on a tank, which is reasonable enough for touring.
For most of the trip we were in daylight or a kind of weird dusk. Right up north the light at 2am is similar to the light in London at about 8pm, mid summer. The only driving in darkness we did was on the first evening of the trip in Gothenburg, to which we arrived at 11.30pm. We had to find our way to a camp site along unlit coastal roads. The headlights on the Fuoco are superb (forgive me for this but I live in a city so i've not needed to use my lights to actually see the road until this trip). I had to tape some black gaffer tape onto the dipped lights to stop blinding everyone, but on main beam it was like driving a car. My friends' BMW looked light a candle in comparison.
An essential for the trip was ear plugs. I forgot to use them on the first day and my ears were ringing that evening.
Sorry for going on a bit but I know when I was lurking for info on touring before my trip, I was trying to find some of the information I've just posted, so hopefully someone will find this useful and of interest.
Cheers
Dougie
⚠️ Last edited by DrTea on UTC; edited 1 time
