{"id":14462,"date":"2010-05-12T16:35:32","date_gmt":"2010-05-12T15:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.influx.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=14462"},"modified":"2019-12-02T11:28:51","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T11:28:51","slug":"the-forest-fighters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/the-forest-fighters\/","title":{"rendered":"The Forest Fighters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Swedes: outdoor types. Your Swede is not intimidated by a bit of inclement weather. While the majority of British motorcyclists hibernate (some, it has to be said, to save their bikes from being eaten by road salt), Anders Nord\u00e9n and his friends are sump-deep in fresh powder on three generations of lairy motorcycles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anders is the founding member of the Forest Fighters, a loose-knit, ten-strong bike club who get their two-wheeled kicks in the most extreme conditions.<\/p>\n

As soon as Anders and his mates discovered their fellow countrymen had campaigned hard to ensure Sweden\u2019s lakes remained free of speed limits, they realised this lack of restriction applied when the lake was frozen too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Sweden has Draconian speed enforcement. Therefore the liberation of nailing a bike in a winter wonderland was too much to ignore. And it wasn\u2019t long before Anders had fitted his first generation Suzuki GSX-R750 with studded knobbly tyres and learnt how to drift his sportsbike on ice.<\/p>\n

\u2018The thing is when you ride on the lake,\u2019 Anders explains, \u2018especially if you have black ice – which is very seldom because you normally have snow on the ice, you have consistent grip. So you can do what the big guys do in MotoGP. And you can gear up in the middle of a turn when you are going sideways. A quick gear change and the rear keeps spinning. Try to do that on tarmac and you are in orbit.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

And accuracy isn\u2019t an issue. \u2018On the lake you can miss the apex by 50m, so what? You end up somewhere else.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Scandinavians, Russians and North Americans regularly hold motorcycle races on frozen lakes, but Anders is pretty sure he\u2019s the first to choose to ride GSX-Rs on ice rather than more specific race bikes, or more sensible motocrossers. But even the GSX-R\u2019s lunacy pales next to what some of the Forest Fighters choose to ride. How would you fancy throwing 300-plus kilogrammes of six-cylinder Kawasaki Z1300 into an 80mph powerslide? Nope, me neither. Perhaps a Gold Wing GL1100 then?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

The club do not exclusively use old muscle bikes. A brand new Ducati Hypermotard made it onto the lakes this winter, but cutting edge machinery isn\u2019t ideal for frozen lake frivolity.<\/p>\n

\u2018Most sportbike rims are too wide for the tyres we use,\u2019 says Anders. These are Trelleborg knobblies with over 100 short metal studs to grip the ice. The Forest Fighters know that the tyres disintegrate at 130mph\u2026 \u2018The old GSX-R750 rim is narrow, it\u2019s perfect. The Hypermotard is running a 5.5in rear rim. Fit a motocross tyre and the profile is very flat. And the more modern bikes don\u2019t have enough clearance between the tyres we need to use and the radiators, swingarm and bodywork.\u2019
\nStill, there are very few barriers to pen the Forest Fighters\u2019 insanity. The point is illustrated clearly by their next plan.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

\u2018I also scuba dive,\u2019 says Anders. \u2018I have been training to do ice diving. Next winter we are going to put up some cones to make a track, then dive under the circuit with a video camera to film from below as the bike is going sideways above us. I think the sound would be awesome.\u2019<\/p>\n

Anders rides in summer too, touring to motorcycle Meccas like the N\u00fcrburgring and the Isle of Man, but winter riding is what he loves the most.<\/p>\n

\u2018My absolute favourite kind of riding is up a ski slope. You can\u2019t have any more fun than that. You need to know the guys who prepare the slope, though. If you hit a skier\u2026\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photography by Anders Norden<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gary Inman meets Sweden’s hard charging, knobbly tired clique<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[332,6],"tags":[131,666,342,2056],"class_list":["post-14462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-features","tag-honda","tag-kawasaki","tag-motorbikes","tag-suzuki"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Forest Fighters - Influx<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gary Inman meets Sweden's hard charging, knobbly tired clique\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/the-forest-fighters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Forest Fighters - 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