Trond-ing Towards the Finish Line: August 25th - 30th, 2023
We left Flatanger campground, excited by the prospect of not sharing a kitchen that night. We started the bike ride back to the junction already fairly tired from climbing but the biking went smooth and quick all things considered. It kind of helps when you know the route and about where you will camp that night. We set up camp at a beautiful spot by the water with a bench and a big fire pit. We had some time so we did some yoga on the beach and skipped some rocks at sunset. It was an incredibly calm evening and we appreciated it all the more due to the recent chaos camping.
The next day we started with a stop at the small co-op grocery store at the junction in Sjøåsen for coffee and pastries. While we were gone climbing they had re-painted their exterior and Ben almost biked past it. It was nice getting back on the highway that was our route and we got immediately passed by another touring couple who we ended up leapfrogging that day. We had started seeing fewer and fewer touring bikes and we were starting to wonder if there were many left this late in the summer. We stopped for lunch at a Joker and the other couple rolled up shortly after. They made some tortellini for lunch, spilled all of it, rinsed it off and then enjoyed. We aren't the only ones who get so tired and hungry we spill our meals on the ground (but eat them anyways). We got to talking to them and they had done a ridiculously long day the day before and were planning to do a much shorter day, which must have been needed if we managed to catch up to them. We rode into Steinkjer too late to visit any mechanics and see if they could help my wounded fork, so after a stop for groceries we kept limping along.
Outside of Steinkjer we enjoyed a bike lane that took us over the E6. Which is the largest road we have seen in Norway and has its own theme song. (insert link). We were a little nervous about finding a place to camp that night as we were riding on a bike path next to a huge highway and then got into farmland. We were debating setting up behind some haybales or trying to curl up in the small patch of forest between two fields, but nothing looked promising. I convinced Ben to consider paying for camping and there was a potential spot down a side road near Småland. So we took it and rolled up to a marina with a way to pay for overnight parking of a camper van with the Norwegian VIPS system, which we don't have since we're not Norwegians. So we asked a man doing a little carpentry if we could camp there and pay them with a card and he said we can just camp for free. Really!? To be sure we sent a message to the phone number on the board while he went to ask someone else to double check. The carpenter disappeared and presumably talked to someone and came back and gave us the code to the bathroom! Amazing! The marina had covered tables, so after setting up the tent on a small patch of grass we started making dinner on the marina which we had to ourselves as the sun set. After dark a group of Norwegians came up with musical instruments. We chatted a bit and they informed us they would be having a bit of a party and may be loud. We definitely did not mind. We were treated to live guitar and accordion music. The instruments getting softer as the singers drank more and got louder. It was a lovely night.
The next morning we made breakfast and the revelers had left some items behind, but we were sure they would find them later. We headed out on the rainy day. The road twisted up and down and over Skarnsund Bridge, a really neat red suspension bridge. On the far side we were hoping to shelter from the rain in a bus stop, but it was filled with people who had piled out of RVs having lunch. They invited us in, but there was no way we’re were fitting in there and with how wet we were I didn't really want to squeeze into their dry space. So we biked on and rolled into Mosvik. We really wanted to hide from the rain but lamentably it was Sunday so nothing was open. We followed signs for tourist information and public bathrooms and it led us to this building (labeled as some kind of “Activity Center”) that was incredibly open. No one was in it, but it had bathrooms and a common area with tables to eat at and a sadly closed cafe. But it was inside and dry so we started enjoying our lunch. Right as we were about to finish, we hear some voices and these two ladies in nurse scrubs pop out and look at us surprised. They ask us something that probably means "What are you doing here?" and we try to stutter through something about being on bicycles; they kept talking in Norwegian before one finally told us "You aren't supposed to be here, this is a nursing home" OOOPS! We apologize profusely, gather up our stuff and head out. In our defense the signs for the supposed cafe were ambiguous and we were really wet and just entirely too shocked by a door that opened to a dry place to think critically and saw what we wanted to see.
It had mostly stopped raining, but we migrated to a covered-porch kind of space on the *outside* of a different building to have a little more lunch. Before getting back on the highway, Ben notices his front rack doing something strange... and then realizes that his front rack had the same break as mine! Same right side of the fork. Same lower bolt sheared off into the frame. Same blue Ortlieb pannier! The blue Ortliebs are cursed! Well we know how to limp this. So Ben now got to learn the joy of wrapping his fork in string and tape and pretending it is stable and strong.
We continue biking up hills. Two boys zoom by us downhill, not holding onto their handlebars but rather posing with the thumb and forefinger together in a zen buddhist pose. We need that meditative mindspace on the way down with our unstable load...but we need to hold on to the handlebars. It started getting to be the time to look for campsites. Of course just short of our mileage goal was an ok campsite but not great and we should go further. So we did. And then nothing was good for camping. We stopped and checked out multiple roads. Finding marshes, private homes, roads, and what I think was an event center with people in very traditional dress driving out of it. Due to our recent trespass... I didn't want to get too close to investigate further. Finally, we decide to set up camp in a wide spot on the road beside a driveway to a few cabins. It was not pretty, but we made do and left quick in the morning.
The next morning we were looking at the last day of biking to Trondheim! Which was kind of an end to the bike tour... but also not... This would be the end of our EV1 North to South bike route. Past Trondheim our travel style would be changing, but we would still be traveling with our bikes. Still, it felt significant to be hitting the southern goal we'd talked about for the last 2 months! It was supposed to be all downhill back to the coast, but of course the road threw a few more surprise hills our way before hitting Leksvik and turning to lovely coast-side riding. We had lunch at a pullout with a view of one more amazing roadside waterfall and then rode into Vanvikan. Of course we just missed a ferry and the next one was many hours later, but we spent the time eating, stopping in the grocery store (most of our not-biking time is spent either eating or getting more food to eat later) and reading. But this ferry wasn't just any ferry. It was a hurtigbåt so a fast boat and we had to pay for it and it didn't take vehicles, only foot traffic, and it was very busy. We wrangled our behemoth bikes into a space clearly only designed for little day-trip bikes and enjoyed the quick ride to Trondheim. With the rain, surprise hills, roadside waterfall and ferry it was like the whole tour in miniature.
At the ferry landing we felt oversized and generally in the way as we landed at rush hour and started to regret the Airbnb we had booked as we looked at the map and at the hill where it must be located. *sigh* One more hill! We head off in rush hour traffic. Trying to figure out big city riding, keep up with Ben who is following google maps and without warning will dive left or right or stop all together. I end up crashing on a large curb when trying to skirt right suddenly and have to drag my bike and a bag that fell off out of the busy road. *sigh* Reload. Back on the bike join Ben down what looks like a promising bike path...that quickly ends in a staircase. Thanks google. Turn around. Back to the road, up up up the hill keeping to the switchbacks (but still pushing some), ignore google telling us to take the even steeper road that goes straight up. Finally, we make it to the airbnb. Home sweet home.
Trondheim is the biggest city we had been in since Tromsø 2 months ago. So it was time for some city stuff! But first, bike shops for some much-needed repairs. After the first shop was too afraid to mess with our carbon forks we found one who told us they would give it a go if we promised to stop hauling gold bars in the future. We left the bikes with them and set off to explore the town! We wandered in and out of second hand shops imagining a future life of stability where we could stock a home with strange and silly dishware from an antique store. We hunted down a very creepy art installation, located in the basement of a bank that also had an exhibit on the crypt they found during construction showing the bones of some old person who probably never expected to be on display in a bank basement.
Then we checked out the Nidaros cathedral, the fanciest church Ben has ever set foot in. It had very impressive Gothic architecture with lots of stained glass, sweeping arches, gargoyles, and a huge (9,000+ pipes!) organ. The cathedral had been around in some form for about 900 years but had been fully restored throughout the 1900's so it was in great condition.
We got the message that our bikes were fixed and went to pick them up. They had drilled out the snapped bolts and then put a new bolt all the way through the blade of the fork, into a nut on the other side. Fixed! Take our money! Thank you! We ended the day with a three course Norwegian meal in a nice restaurant. Over dinner we tried to wrap our heads around the scale of European cities and history and tried to understand the religion...wait they aren't Catholic, and they don't do the saint thing, but they had a few displays which quoted saints, and they don't do the Mary worship thing...but they had a Madonna painting...I need to take more religion classes to understand.
The next day we finally spent a day in a town not needing to go to a bike shop! We checked out the art museum but they only had this one exhibit open which featured four Norwegian artists in competition. Two of the four exhibits were very well done and two were a little underwhelming and seemed kind of like somebody's junk hoard put on display. At the entrance though was an installation with a bunch of dart-boards and a box of darts, part of the art being people chucking darts at the targets, so that entertained us for longer than it should have.
After the art museum we went to the one and only bike lift in the world! So this bike lift is designed to take bicyclists up a steep hill. This sounds amazing and we must try it and get it installed on all the hills! So we head over and there is a tour guide explaining the machine but no bikes around...so we step on up to demonstrate the machine and I push the button and immediately fall off the machine. Ok reset. Everyone (none of whom are on bikes) is giving advice. I realign everything, get my foot on the plate, hit the button, brace myself and get pushed off the machine. Hrm. More advice from the crowd is shouted my way. Try again. No go. Try again. grrr. Ben your turn to try. And he has the same trouble. We give up and I push my bike up the hill and decide there is a reason that there is only one bike lift in the world.
The top of the hill leads to the fort where we got to read displays on the history of the fort and how the Swedes and Danes fought over Norway a bunch. From Swedish aggression to German occupation to hosting concerts the fort has seen a lot and offered great views of the city. We biked back to the Airbnb and made ourselves a good dinner. Again it felt like an ending, but we had one more week in Norway and plenty more on this trip in general. Most importantly we had functioning bikes and our time in Trondheim allowed us to finally make a plan for how to leave Norway and what to do with the last week.
Yo low-key high key I hate my Ortleib paniers and their plastic accessory components !!! How tf did they be synonymous with bike touring !!!
ReplyDeleteUhmmm gotta say we're big Ortlieb fan peeps now. 1) they keep your shit dry when it's been raining for 3 days. 2) all those plastic pieces are replaceable if they break a random shop in small-town Scotland can get it replaced for you. Ortlieb ftw
DeleteMaybe in the desert where you can just leave everything in the open they seem like overkill though 😜
I want metal components!!! No breaking!!!
DeleteBut I forgot you guys are wet folk so this makes sense.
DeleteHmm I have an idea what kind of ski touring bindings you prefer.
DeleteAnd that's why we're meeting up with you! Save us from the rain and bring some of that nice dry UT air!!