Earlier trip

The blog used on this trip can be found here, it's all in Swedish though, below is an English version!  

Stockholm–Oslo

It all started off by me (Anders) mentioning to someone that it would be cool to take my Brompton on a longer trip than my daily commute. I mentioned Oslo as a reasonable destination, starting off in Stockholm. According to most people I mentioned this to, it would be almost impossible to pedal the whole way, especially on a Brompton apparently!
After doing some map reconnaissance, the recruitment of one of my best friends and a borrowed GPS from my favourite Brompton dealer in Stockholm, my friend Nick and I began our 600km journey on a sunny Thursday morning in June 2011.


Day 1
Early on we decided that we would not have any set checkpoints to reach each day. None of us had ever tried touring before so we had no idea how far we could manage with our overloaded bikes. Pedestrians looked at us funnily as we passed, when we informed some of them that we where heading towards Oslo. They couldn’t really understand why someone would do such a thing, but they liked the bikes. Our first night we set up our tents just outside a military training ground, close to the regiment where Nick did his military service. He knew his way around in the forest, and hadn’t it been because of all the mosquitoes our campsite would have been ideal.

Trip: 117km
Time on the saddle: Just under 10 hrs.

Day 2

The mosquitoes are still trying to get into our one man tents as we wake up, however, they where the least of our problems as soon as we started to feel our sun-burnt arms. One of our big problems was the amount of water we could carry. On such a sunny day, where you are always exposed to the sun and in constant motion your water supply is priceless. Luckily enough, Sweden has great tap water, so whenever we passed a cemetery we filled up our bottles with water destined for tomb flowers.
After eating a great breakfast (a baguette and bananas) and water worthy of a saint we hit the road again.
Some 40 km down the road I managed to get a flat tire, we fixed it, and kept on pedaling. An hour later it was flat again... It was still really hot and sunny, so in order to keep on we used long sleeves and trousers. A sauna on wheels.  
I bought a small Swedish flag and mounted it on the back of my Brompton after being mistaken for a German tourist by an old man.

Trip: 118 km
Time on the saddle: 11 hrs

 

Day 3

We woke up and took a dip in the lake just next to our campsite. Our clothes that we had washed the night before had dried up nicely. Nick and I decided that it would be too hot to keep on the whole day, so we decided to seek refuge from the sun in the library of Örebro. A small city almost halfway between Stockholm and Oslo. Here we charged up all the electronics we had with us and had some lunch.
In the afternoon we hit the road again. Due to bad connections between Karlskoga and Kristinehamn we battled our way through the forest for a couple of hours. In the end we decided to hit the highway in the dead of night. Outside Karlskoga we recorded our top speed, 57 km/h !
Full of energy we continued unitl 04:30 the next morning. I decided to set up my hammock and slept in it until noon.

Trip: 114 km (a lot of walking in the forest)
Time on the saddle: 14 hrs

 

Day 4

Bad roads for cykling today, very narrow and a lot of traffic. However the scenery did make up for it. We spent an hour by a lake, took a swim and washed our clothes. In Sweden you can find some 100 000 lakes, most of the water is clean enough to drink. We kept on cycling throughout the night hoping to set up camp close to the Swedish-Norwegian border, which we later did sometime after 4 am.

Trip: 135 km
Time on the saddle: 12 hrs

Day 5

Breaking up the campsite located some 10 km from the border we set off on dirt roads. No problem for the Brompton! It was that very road that lead us to the border. Just after noon we spotted the sign informing us that this is where Norway starts, and Sweden ends. No customs no hassle. Immediately after the border it gets hilly. Knowing we could reach our target a lot earlier than expected, we kept pedaling on without rest. Up and down we went on narrow roads and through the rain. It even hailed on us for an hour or so! Both of us, being the optimists we are, did not pack our raincoats, which resulted in the rather spontaneous garbage bag solution.
Besides the steep and narrow roads, Norway is a beautiful country for touring. Norway, like Sweden, has the law of “right of public access” or in Swedish, “allemansrätten”, this allows you to set up your tent and even build a fire anywhere in the forest or along the coastline as long as it’s not in someones back yard!
We managed to reach our friend Carl’s apartment in the evening after 4 nights on the road.

Trip: 134 km
Time on the saddle: 11 hrs