Julia's Reflections

I love the whole process of going on a bike trip.  The planning, the doing and the reflection are all enjoyable to me and this trip perhaps most of all.

Initial planning started five years ago when we got back from our last trip.  We love Europe and thought we'd like to investigate some countries we've never been to and initially hatched a plan to cycle around the Baltic Sea, taking in Estonia,  Latvia,  Lithuania and Poland.  Then we heard about the Rallarvegen in Norway, one of the most beautiful offroad trails in the world. We thought we could include this in the same trip by landing in Oslo and cycling east through Sweden and catching a ferry to Estonia,  possibly even St Petersburg. From there we would cycle the Baltic states down to Poland, across the top of Germany,  up through Denmark and catch the ferry to Bergen and finish with the rallarvegen back to Oslo.

This was all supposed to happen in 2020 but luckily we hadn't got to the stage of booking flights when Covid happened.  Putin soon put a halt on all thoughts of going to Russia or even anywhere near it.

When I got covid and had no energy for anything but sitting in front of the TV,  I started watching bikepacking vlogs on You Tube and discovered a guy who called himself Matthew Norway.  An Englishman who had lived in Oslo for five years and loved cycling and documenting his adventures.

His videos were a revelation to someone who knew very little about Norway.   First of all, the scenery was stunning and he showcased it so well with his video skills.  His narration was so poetic but also funny in places and I quickly became a fan of his work, watching every video he made.

I started taking notes about the places he went and finding them on a map.  That's when I realized how big Norway was and the distances between the places I would like to see.

Of course,  there's also the mountains and fjords to navigate between all these places, not to mention the tunnels,  (many of which are closed to cyclists), so a lot of extra kilometers involved there.

I showed the videos to Pete who agreed it looked stunning,  but doing it on a bike?  I agreed with every point he brought up.  The mountains to start with were a huge concern.  I much prefer cycling on the flat thanks, but those views......they looked almost worth it for the pain and effort of cycling up mountains. 

Then there was the weather to consider.   Norway is reknown for having a lot of rain, but I thought, well if it's raining,  we'll just stay put. You can't see any views when it's raining anyway.  I didn't dare let my mind wander to the possibility that it might rain for days or even weeks on end.....which happened to many other bikepackers we met on this trip.

Then there was the expense.  Again Norway is reknown for being expensive,  but I pointed out to Pete they have the "Everymans Right " rule of being able to freecamp anywhere in the wild as long as you're 150 metres from the nearest house.  This would save us a huge amount on camp fees.

So all fears were considered but we were seduced by those views which made us book our trip and hope for the best.

I think in every aspect in life, you need that little bit of luck.....and boy were we lucky on this trip.  In three months we only had six days where we didn't ride because of the weather.  We arrived in Oslo to 26C and enjoyed full on summery weather for ten days down to Kristiansand.

We experienced our first rain of any note as we arrived in Haukeli at the beginning of our mountain leg.  It only lasted for a morning and then we enjoyed beautiful conditions in our most crucial section.  Rain in the mountains doesn't just ruin the view, it can be downright dangerous.  We couldn't believe our luck as day after day,  we enjoyed perfect weather.

The mountains would not have been enjoyable at all in bad weather.

Alesund was a bit dreary, but it didn't matter as we were resting there anyway.  Our longest spell of unsettled weather came after we left Trondheim.   If we had to have bad weather anywhere,  I'm glad it was here as we had been warned that this section wasn't quite as scenic as the rest of Norway and I would have to agree.

Stokkvagen would have looked quite something without the mist.

At Stokkvagen,  it was still misty and it would have been nice to see this part up to Furoy in better conditions as the glimpses we got were full of promise.  But from Furoy to Bodo was great riding and lovely scenery and again we had fantastic weather to enjoy this section,  even though we were now in the Arctic circle.

Furoy with fog

Furoy without fog.

Lofoten....imagine if all this had stayed covered in fog.

Then came the part that I especially had been dreaming of....the Lofoten Islands.  When I saw Matthew Norway's video of this part of the country,  I knew I had to go there. All we needed was sunshine to enjoy it and see it at it's best.....and that is what we got.  I know how lucky we were.  Especially when we heard that the great weather we had enjoyed in the south had pretty much packed up and left at the end of June to leave them with one of the wettest summers they have known.  This culminated in one of the worst weather events in Norway for forty years when a deluge of rain pelted down on the area between Trondheim and Olso on the 8th of August. All this while we were now basking in sunshine in the North.

All this sunshine meant we were well ahead of schedule so we had the luxury of slowing down and doing some hikes and exploring some of the other islands as we progressed slowly northwards.

Unfortunately we didn't see Senja at it's best and didn't get to do a hike we planned there, but Sommaroy made up for it.  And the ride we had into Tromso,  although over a week early, was magic.  We weren't to know it, but it was also the last day of clear blue sky for a week.

We had thought about doing another side trip if we reached Tromso early, but we decided we'd rather rest.  We're glad we did,  as fog and mist hung round the mountains all week and we would not have had the views we were after.

So this trip, although well researched,  depended on that bit of luck to make it successful.   Because we weren't only lucky with the weather.   We were lucky with no serious mechanical issues, no debilitating injuries and no accidents.   Nobody stole anything and we didn't get sick.  And our trusty old tent, made it to the end with us and there was certainly some luck involved with that....not to mention my trusty (or is that crusty?), old husband.

So thank you lady luck, you sure looked after us.  And I think that is the overwhelming feeling I have after this trip, of just how lucky we are.  Yes, we were brave to forge ahead, despite the legitimate concerns we had, but we were rewarded in spades. 

The biggest lesson I learned from this...you can always do more than you think you can.