In retrospect - 300 km on a bike - one night - Vätternrundan 2016 and 2017

Vätternrundan is a fairly big race in Sweden. 300 km is the distance around the lake Vättern and the race starts and ends in a little town called Motala.

Vätternrundan

Bikers from all over come to join the ride. Some do it just for fun on their regular city bikes, some veterans do it on really old, heavy bikes, but many bike clubs go there every year and aim for speed. My goal was survival...


According to the web page, biking 1000 km pre-race is enough of training. If you are a commuter you can easily extend your route and gather km's. I didn't commute and had to look for routes in the countryside for the race and quite frankly, going out alone just to bike is super boring. Anyhow, I had a goal and biking I went. I didn't train enough the first year, though, and so I was really exhausted that time.

While training you find out what to bring and what to change about your bike. I have a pretty small Crescent, but during the first ride I realized the handlebar was too far away. If I had trained enough the first year, I probably would've been too frustrated about it to accept it. The second year I swapped the handle bar stem out for a shorter one, which made a significant difference.

Other gear that we got for the race were rubber shoe covers in case of rain (for the second time - The first time we got super soaked in the whee hours of morning and ended up sitting wrapped in woolen blankets in a red cross Samaritan tent), waterproofs, extra sweaters in merino wool (light, warm no matter if wet or dry), gloves and hats.
More technical stuff: Strong lights on the bikes for the short, but dark night (, lights are compulsory). Stuff for fixing a flat tire and an extra tube, just in case (Ben actually had a flat tire just 10 km before the finish line our second year).
And then loads of snacks and some water.

Super fast cyclists don't bring so much stuff, but we preferred to be prepared.  As you can see these things don't take very much space. We had a couple of small bike bags. Some things you can just tape onto the bike frame. If you wear a bike t-shirt you'll have the smart pocket at the back.

Each pit stop has fruit, bread, coffee, sweet drink, water, salted pickles. At two stops you get dinner. It is ridiculous how much you can eat during that one night. And everything tastes good. Everything!! The dinner pic above is actually at a stop at 6:30 in the morning and we are having lasagna.

There are people having parties all along the road (where there are towns) and the sunrise picture is taken just after a happy fellow shouted:
"Welcome to Västergötland (the county), this is where the sun is ALWAYS rising!"
And it always is when you reach that spot.

The race
The first part goes south along the lake and starts quite lightly. The route has a slight slope before heading into a long flat area along some fields. Most people keep a good pace here, and the first people will hit a bump getting flat tires already within a few km. There always seem to be several people fixing flat tires on this part.
The first half of the race is pretty fast and around 100km in the darkest hours you get to the long downward slope as you near Jönköping, a town on the southern tip of the lake. Here you can reach crazy speeds and I think my max was 70 kmh??
By the time we reached the large pit stop in Jönköping the muscles were beginning to be a bit worn. Most people have a long stop here, having dinner, massage and just hanging out.
After Jönköping the work begins, because you start to really feel the distance. No long downward slopes anymore, just short ups and downs. By the time we reached the northern tip of the lake my ligaments around the knees were aching. Stopping for a break was good for the muscles ,but really bad for everything else. The pain of starting up again really tested my masochistic abilities. Second year I felt less exhausted, but knowing how far I had left to bike was a pain.
The last pit stop is placed in an upward slope. The sun was beaming as we reached there. Some people were lying around in the grass almost comatose in the heat. We had loads to drink, some snacks and headed off for the final burst. Its hard to start off going up when everything is aching, but soon we finally hit the final downward slope to Motala in great sunshine and arriving in town with loads of people cheering us (and a couple of thousand others) on. Yay!


Getting to and from - hostels and tents
So the first year we went all out and rented a car that could fit our bikes. We booked a hostel for the night before the race, really nice place with an apple tree garden, right next to Göta Kanal.

Göta Kanal

The second night we got a cheap tent spot for recuperating after the race. Driving is strongly advised against and quite frankly, I felt drunk and slow after the race and probably could've hit a lamp post at 20 kmh had I sat myself behind the wheel. Luckily our sister came to drive us home later.

I had, of course forgotten my tent at home and had to squeeze into my brothers 1-p, light weight one, to his exasperation.

To and from - Lygnartåget - the Lygnar train
The second year we decided to do it the easy way. There is a train that goes from Gothenburg to Motala and back. You can book a chair or a bunk bed, lunch and dinner. We went with the chairs and brought our own food. You check your bike in, get a name tag, hop on the train and relax.

Lygnartåget  (only in Swedish)

After the race people can head back to the train, shower at a local school or such, sleep or whatever. The train heads back to Gothenburg at midnight when all cyclists have returned. Flip side is arriving in town at 5 AM, but this arrangement is really a good one I think.

When you've finished the race five times you receive a special medal. We have 3 more to go... ;)

In retrospect - southern Norway- climb and drive, the ferry to Dk- Road trip westcoast and southern Norway_5

Our last day in Norway was fabulous. After a nice breakfast at our hotel we headed out toward Froland, a crag with 16 sports routes, ranging from 5 to 7a+.

Froland-crag

It is situated close to a town called Osedalen I think. We headed there first to get something for lunch and later on for some ice cream.



This is a pretty popular place and very easy to access. There is not super much space for cars, but I think we could squeeze in 4 or so. From there you cross a small stream and take a short, lovely forest path to the actual wall.

As we arrived there we met two guys, brothers, who had spent the night in the forest with tents and backpacks and were just about to head to the crag. Really fun way to travel.

At the crag there is a little postbox where you can find the topo and names of the routes.

The rock was fun to climb with good hand holds and spots for the feet and I tried one of the easier routes to the far right of the crag. Ben tried one of the more difficult ones to the left. Somewhere in the middle the more difficult and long ones are situated, the ones with overhang. I realized first hand why you should secure yourself to the ground if standing a bit off from the wall (there are spots for just that at this crag). At one point Ben fell a bit above the quick draw, his weight pulling me in. I wasn't secured so I more or less flew toward the rock face and he ended up falling 3-4 meters or so. Noob me. Noob!! I ended up laughing hysterically and the other climbers looked at us strangely...












We spent as much time here as we could before packing our gear together and heading further south toward Kristiansand.
We had a ferry to catch in the evening and a couple of hours of driving to do. On arrival in Kristiansand we found a nature reserve more or less inside town and made dinner there on a rock, before finally heading to the ferry and exiting Norway.

In retrospect - Road trip on the Swedish west westcoast and southern Norway - Part 4

On a lovely sunny day we found our way to Ravnåskollen in Drammen, Norway.

Ravnaskollen-crag














Driving there went through some remote area with very few houses and we had a little bit of trouble finding the site at first. The last part to the site is a gravel route, and we had to use GPS to get there. You'll pass some single houses on the last part of the way and if I remember correctly there is a lake a bit off behind some forest to your right and the rise is on your left. At one point you come to a small open gravel area that could resemble a parking lot. There was nobody at the site when we got there, so not very crowded ;)

Probably there is a path up to the rock, but we didn't look for it. Instead we took the straight route up and the walk was short, but really very steep. The steep was covered with leaves and just a tad slippery, but with some struggle we got up to the rock.
There we found several sports climbing routes and this is where I did my first outdoor lead climb.

Ravnåskollen has 9 sports routes, the easiest being 4+ and the most difficult one being a 7a+. The 4+, called "De første stegene" or "The first steps" was my maiden climb (pic). As I have not done lead climbing indoors (which wise people consider to be the way to begin) this was an easy alternative way to start.  The rock had some lichen to be cleared away at each step. Wearing gloves might be an idea too depending on your skin status.

We had brought our picnic stuff and had coffee and snacks with us. We had a great weather with sunshine overhead and shade from the trees that surrounded us.
There were lots of signs of this being a moderately frequented spot, even if not as much as the previously mentioned Vindön. Nonetheless I guess we were just lucky to have all the space for ourselves.

Ben tried a 6a+ route among other routes here. The last one he did was "Opp til utsikten" - "Up to the outlook/view point". That is a long route of over 30 meters (pic) that seems quite fun. Abseiling down is not so bad either. :-)

At some point we realized we had to travel on, we had a hotel room waiting for us some ways off. So pack the climbing gear, dust off all our stuff - there are ticks in the Nordic forests, and off we drove.

The hotel I had booked had a sauna and a pool - one night in the forest in a tent, one night in a hotel with all extras. Whats not to like?

The hotel we went to was Arendal Herregaard Spa & Resort, a beautiful building placed near to the water in Arendal.The main building is visually very pleasantly decorated. Our accommodation was not so impressive, however. The room was tiny, the building had signs of age and water damage in the door so it was difficult to lock. The place was pretty nice even so.

We got there a bit late in the evening and hurried to get to the pool to get as much time there as possible. It's funny how childishly much you can enjoy splashing around in pool of water, no matter your age, your university years or how much authority you express on a regular work day. ;-) We spent the evening in the pool and sauna until the spa area closed.

The next morning we had breakfast included and I really enjoyed the buffet. The coffee was good, they had alternatives for allergics and they made omelettes on the go if you wanted that.

Our next goal on our super short, mega effective road trip was  Froland, a spot that also can be found in Arendal. All about that in the next post.