The day started with a nice downhill section from the hotel, then got somewhat damp and cooler. Once we left the E6, traffic quietened down and the road followed a winding river down to sea level. We stopped for our first “proper” touring lunch at a petrol station – pølse und Cola! 🙂 The bridge …
Another wonderful day’s cycling, from Sortland to Andenes, the scenic route (of course). Grey and drizzly, but what a fantastic scenery. The only dampener was the shortage of cafés. The first one after 39k wasn’t open yet, the second after 51k didn’t open today at all (despite saying online they did), so we made do …
Does this look familiar? We’ve continued our journey at the exact spot where we pressed the pause button in September: in front of the Havmannen sculpture in Mo i Rana. The weather was a dream, perfect to ease us back into travelling mode. We soon left the industrial town behind and ventured up the fairly …
Continue reading “Part 2, Day 1: Crossing the Arctic Circle”
It’s a fair old journey from Devon to Nordland! I finished work early on Friday after a very early morning start (3:30, thanks to being on call) and took a stroll through sunny Plymouth to the coach station. I thought a little leg stretcher was in order before the 5 hour squeeze on the National …
(Oops. 3 days before starting the second half of our Norge på langs tour, I realised that I never wrote up the last day of the first half.) So what happened on Day 16? We had a somewhat perfunctory breakfast in our room at Havblikk Camping, then started the long climb up from Nesna onto …
Breakfast in Forvik to the smell and sound of roasting coffee. Ferry #1 Forvik – Tjøtta Rainy ride 1/2: Tjøtta – Sandnessjøen. Pølse! Rainy ride 2/2: Sandnessjøen – Levang Nice restaurant closed, burger & beer instead.
Pics first, words later.
Let’s upload some pictures, before WordPress eats my blog post again.
We chose porridge for breakfast, a good choice given the cold and hilly next 50km, and packed a few sandwiches, which would come in rather handy later in the day. I had a bit of a miserable start to the day, feeling the previous day’s miles over my seat bones, and not feeling the love …
A good Scandic Hotel breakfast can set you up for a long day’s cycling, and this one was no exception. A bit of confusion about which ferry we had planned to take merely added a little interest to our route – and a bit of mileage and elevation, just like the wrong turn at the …
I’m still feeling kind, so won’t mention the hotel breakfast in Støren. Instead, I will say it was a nice, warm late summer’s day, and we set off “short-short” and even stopped to take off our vests (well, t-shirts) from underneath our jerseys! We decided to take it really leisurely and happily accepted the offer …
Tuesday morning greeted us with sunshine, an excellent breakfast, and the prospect of a shortish ride of 70-odd km on the E6 to Berkåk, where we had booked a room. We started off down the hill and couldn’t quite believe how much more fun it was in the sunshine! We made such good time, that …
“I really want to cross the Dovrefjell on the E6”, said Andreas. So we did. On a grey, cold day like this, it wasn’t the greatest cycling experience of our tour, although the fjell itself (and the Rondane on the other side of the road) were still worth the effort. Next time, we’d plan in …
The Valdres – what a glorious day of pretty heroic cycling through the most beautiful landscape. We half dreaded this day, as it promised the longest distance and the longest climbs, but we were rewarded with the most wonderful views along the way, so didn’t really care. A few photos for now, but we’ll create …
We awoke to beautiful sunshine, but quickly realised that the hills were pretty chilly, so we used a bit of muscle power to get warm. We made it to Gol for a spot of shopping (a new water bottle to replace one that didn’t make the grade) and slightly disappointing pulled pork burgers. We were …
Just a few words about this great day: lots of hills, a bit of weather, fantastic landscapes. The Hardangervidda, a wonderful place, and the first time I’ve seen it without snow cover.
Less than 50k planned for the shortest day of the tour – so we had a bit of a lie-in and a slow start, before we coaxed our sore limbs on the bike and set off to Rjukan. It was a chilly 8 degrees in the hills, but we soon warmed up on the initial …
Warning: a bit of a whinge… If I haven’t mentioned it before: tandem cycling is a lot harder on the posterior than solo riding! I think it’s because you’re less likely to change position, don’t get out of the saddle, and just pedal away for hours. Today’s ride was no exception, I just hope my …
Norwegian breakfast buffets are pretty varied. This one certainly set us up for a day in the saddle an we were welcome to help ourselves to a packed lunch, too. The day turned out beautifully sunny, with just a touch of tailwind. I had no idea that the South of Norway was this beautiful, or …
Finally, the day had come – we arrived at Norway’s southernmost lighthouse, the start of our adventure. It was quite cool and breezy, so we didn’t stay much longer than the obligatory photo shoot. The morning remained fresh and we cycled into a bit of a headwind – all day long. Our first stop for …
Spoilt for choice. The Norwegians know how to do breakfast. To be followed by a leisurely and sunny 80k ride along (ok: up) a river valley. Later there was some nice cruising until we came to a great chillinplace
The saddle is too low, the handlebar too high, the mudguard makes a noise, the saddle nose points too far up…. lots of little adjustments that make a big difference to comfort and performance. All sorted on today’s surprisingly hilly 80 km. Some minor navigation issues were quite amusing, too! [activity id=1782846570]
Brothers in legs. We’re here, the bike is fine – just Andreas’ baggage hasn’t made it today. Let the fun begin! [activity id=1781370266] Relive Video
As I was In sweet dreams , Thorsten had to get up early to catch the bus. We were curious about whether the tandem would get on the bus too – but as he wrote on fb: Hurdle number one taken with ease: the tandem and I are safely on board the 501 to LHR, thanks …
(Thorsten) “Which charity are you riding for?” is one of the questions I have been asked a few times (usually after “are you mad?”) It seems unusual these days that anyone does anything more strenuous than tying their shoelaces, without asking for sponsorship. Here’s my reasoning why I don’t want to be sponsored for this …
Before we set off from Lindesnes Fyr on Monday morning, we’ve got a couple of other rides to get to the start and to set up the tandem properly. Here the approximate routes we’ll take (although I have seen there are a few bike paths we could take around Kristiansand). Saturday – after we’ve (hopefully) …
One week to go. Time to get nearly everything weighed, packed, and ready to roll. The tandem is of course the greatest worry, as I’ll hand it over at Heathrow Airport. I think I made a decent job of packing it back into the box it came in, but we’ll only know when we get …
Tandems are great to get from A to B – as long as you’re willing and able to put in the muscle power. But how do you get your tandem to A in the first place, if A does not equal “Home”? That’s by far not as straightforward as I had considered. When I had …
For the last couple of weeks, Andreas and I have been planning our route in more detail. As this is going to be a tour with little baggage, it was important to find places to stay with a (hopefully comfortable) bed or two, and the offer of dinner and breakfast. We started by looking at …
I arrived home to a huge delivery by Parcelforce. A somewhat tense moment when I noticed the damaged box with the third brake lever peeping out at me. Luckily, the damage was only to the packaging, so I assembled the black and green touring machine in very little time. (This blog post mostly to test …
Our next shopping destination was JD Tandems in Gargrave, North Yorkshire, right at the South of the Yorkshire Dales. We had a very warm welcome from Ruth, Jamie and John and were able to test ride more than one tandem model. Our first ride was on their “touring” tandem, the Orbit Velocity. At once, we …
Andreas flew over from Norway for a bit of bike shopping, as you do. First stop, Iron bridge and “Bicycles by Design”, where we learned to ride a tandem and test rode one of their “Landescape” tandems. It was a steep learning curve, but we managed without falling off and even enjoyed the Shropshire hills. …