So I went cycling last weekend. Nisse was there for pretty much all of it. Others were there for some of it. It was a 1000km weekend but that was more a coincidence than the result of any particular aim to do something exceptionally hard or difficult. It just happens. Many of the things in here aren’t actually that well planned or thought out to serve a very specific purpose. It’s just for fun. Let me try to explain what happens when the “Great Idea Reactor” starts accelerating out of control towards a total core meltdown.

The Voice Inside: “it would be fun to do a brevet somewhere else –  maybe Gothenburg, that’s pretty close – Johan is drawing up a killer route from Vänersborg – 600k with lots of hills, Norway, maybe some gravel – that’s perfect – you could leave Friday after work and take the train up – you could take the train to Gothenburg and ride from there, it’s less than 100k – you’d have to leave work pretty early, it’s basically a half day – might as well take Friday off and chill a bit – if you’re taking Friday off you might as well leave Thursday night a make a thing out of it – how far away is Vänersborg anyway? – 400km, no problem – actually, 400km is quite far, maybe SOME sleep would be a good idea if you hope to ride the 600k nonstop – yeah, yeah, short nap – Alrighty then, overnight 400k, crash somewhere in Vänersborg, ride the 600k brevet, get home somehow”.

Somewhere around here you realise telling your wife is probably a good idea… but she already knows, she can tell. She might not like it but she knows when a “Great Idea” has gone past the point of no return. And you know the meter is running and will continue doing so until there’s no way you can pay the bill. Being a rando junkie is hard. As is being married to one…

In the run-up, Johan helped organise some of the local practicalities for this cultural exchange and we were all set when the big Thursday came and it was time to head north. The bike was fully packed with frame bag, saddle bag and handlebar bag holding some sleeping kit, civilian clothing and cycling stuff.

 

I left home around 20.00 in order to make the 22.00 ferry and thus be on time for the rendezvous with Nisse outside Helsingborg. Strandvejen with tailwind and evening sun makes a pretty good start to any ride. After bulk buying candy on the ferry I rode out of town and as the night closed in the familiar duo headed north on very familiar roads.

 

We weren’t going slow but the pace was still different. Most people might not call a 400km overnighter a social ride, but that’s what it was. The only real cutoff we had was the much anticipated hotel breakfast in Borås after about 300km (from our respective starts). Swedish backroads on a Thursday night in the vacation period are quiet. Very quiet. The most exciting things that happened was that I’d only brought one knee warmer, hence rode on in shorts, (I want to thank @dvnder for kindly lending me a pair on knee warmers to use for the brevet, would have been chilly otherwise) and that Nils spotted a moose which I missed as I was staring into the sky to see if there might be serious rain. We stayed dry and didn’t see another moose. Just deer. Damn, I wanted to see a moose.

 

Just before 4am we arrived at the luxurious wooden bus stop in Drängsered where we rolled out our bivvy bags and enjoyed a classy fika consisting of Gammeldansk and self-smuggled pastries before turning in for an hour’s sleep. The 100km to Borås were covered in an orderly manner. The route turned out to include some cyclocross bike carrying across a closed bridge and a series of gravel roads – it’s nice to be woken up properly.

SPORTGRUS MORNING

We walked into Scandic Plaza in Borås just around 9 in the morning and payed the, under the circumstances, nominal fee for the breakfast buffet. Two young (yes!) men who have just ridden 300km unsupported overnight are likely the worst customers ever to let near an all-you-an-eat buffet. The amount of eggs, bacon, pancakes, sandwiches and fresh fruit we ate is bordering on embarrassing. We took our time…

When we left Borås it quickly turned out that none of us had scouted the route at all. It turns out they have hills just north of town and a 15% gradient is exactly what you need after a solid breakfast. At the top of the climb it turned out we’d come across a pretty lengthy gravel section as well. Even better. And the sun was shining.

 

So we were chugging along just enjoying ourselves and at some point around mid-afternoon (intentionally unspecific here – it’s not about the time) we rolled in to Vänersborg and set about preparing for the rest of the day: buy ice to chill beer. Buy beer. (no, you can’t buy cold bottled proper beers in Sweden). We met up with Johan, who organizes the Vänersborg brevets for a brief chat before heading to Hotell 46an for a shower and a (voila!) cold beer.

 

After a few more beers and an afternoon nap Johan (a different one… do I need surnames here? Nah..) and Otto, who we were sharing accommodation with, arrived from Gothenburg and we could all go out for dinner before going to bed and sleeping like babies (you know, when they sleep). This bit, hanging in Vänersborg from Friday afternoon until the Saturday morning start and having the privilege to share a room with some fellow cyclists was one of the best things about going away to do an event. Usually I rock up 15 minutes before the start and 15 minutes after the start I ‘only’ have Nisse for company.

At the start nine happy randonneurs (apart from the already mentioned Johans and Otto there was Jan-Erik, Ulrika, Lotta and Freddie), were lined up outside the Shell station and at the stroke of 8 we rolled out in tidy formation at a good cruising speed. Both the Johans and Jan-Erik rode Sverigetempot, last year so there were plenty of war stories to catch up on. We were rolling with the punches as the rain came and went and came and went but the temperature was good and there was no wind to speak of and 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. Less than 10 kilometers before the first control Mr. Black’s fancy Italian skinwalls decided it was time for a break. Nisse was kind enough to help fix the flat, while the rest of us stood around laughing and taking pictures whilst nibbling away at our food. This is how it’s done nowadays. 50 shades of fixing a flat on social media within a minute.

 

With most of the others planning for sleep in Lillestrøm after about 370km we knew from the start that there would be a split at some point. This point turned out to be the control in Ed (86km) where some took a little coffee break while Nisse and I said goodbye and headed for the border. The border crossing wasn’t exactly fortified. After the sprint we turned to take pictures of the sign and then hung around for half an eternity to ‘instamagram’ about this historic event – our first ever sprint across a border between two countries. I could have easily brought a significant amount of contraband with me: butter, parsnips, pizza at serving temperaure – you name it.

For the first 30-45 minutes it was as if Norway wanted to prove me and anyone who’d ever said a bad word about the weather there wrong. After the wettish start to the ride Norway now greeted us with dry roads and sunshine to accompany the (expected) lovely scenery. Off course this was just a little joke and before long we were yet again zipping up our rain gilets (great piece of kit – much better than a jacket, more on that here) as the rain increased, increased and increased. In the last descent into Ørje the rain was actually hurting our forearms. Still not cold though, so let’s not exaggerate the level of suffering…

 

In the small village Ørje (166km) we more or less expected to find nothing so it was a rather surreal experience to be greeted by hoards of young men and women, wearing nothing but their underwear, carrying inflatable beach toys down the high street in the pouring rain. It turned out we’d timed out visit to coincide with the annual Ørje Gummibåtfestival. The little we saw looked like a fun jippo so I’d suggest everyone with underutilised inflatables lying around to pencil this in their calendars for next year.

We had actually planned to stop for proper coffee and cake here, but despite the significant influx of people everything except the CircleK was closed so it was business as usual with hotdogs and machine coffee while the rain kept pouring down outside. After a while we figured we should probably stop sulking and get going. The rain would be intermittent, including some downright comical downpours, for the next 100k or so, but it’s only water. At least it washed the roads clean, including the road in front of Løken Kebab (I just like the name).

I picture of rain would have been good here but you can’t really take pictures of rain so here’s a link to a video instead.

At 244km the sun was out as we pulled into the control at CircleK in Kjeller so we hung around a little bit to dry our clothes before poking them back into pockets and bags. We then kept riding north towards Gardermoen Airport (which, as many of you know is nowhere near Oslo) as the road got progressively hillier before the actual climbing across the 500m ridge started. This bit was pretty cool – a completely empty road, occasionally blocked by sheep, through the woods, interspersed by a few lakes. We came through the 300km mark in just over 12 hours – our relaxed attitude, the nature of the course and the slight lack of spark in our legs was evident also on the clock.

We descended into Lunner (311km) for the next control, naturally at the local CircleK. I guess I might as well cut to the chase – Norway really is the perfect rando storm of brutal terrain, shitty weather and useless fastfood. The dinner options on offer in Lunner were indeed underwhelming… Ok, low meat content hotdogs in plastic skin were expected and I guess on some level I knew they weren’t going to serve mashed potatoes made form potatoes, or at all… Fair enough, when in Rome and all that, I’ll have fries instead… but then “May I please have some salt for my fries?”. “We haven’t got any”. Curtain. Like when you’re told to sit but notice there isn’t a chair…

I mean, I’m not saying Lunner should compete with the gold standard in Scandorando feeding stations – Eurostop in Halmstad – but surely they could have salt? They have salt in Jokkmokk.

Now to add to the brutal terrain, the shitty weather and the useless junkfood, Norway also sports a bunch of charming locals adding to the country’s attractiveness as a randonneuring destination. Nisse and I had a lovely chat with two girls on the bench outside. I don’t know about the rest of you but I still get a bit self conscious when a girl comes up to speak to me and I’ve been wearing the same cycling clothes for 700km and much of the last 300 in rain… you can smell your own odor even outside. At least this didn’t seem to deter anyone in this particular situation and apart from the usual disbelief about how far we’d cycled we also covered essentials like aunts in Sweden and footballers from Skåne (mainly Daniel Nannskog, he’s big in Norway). Regrettably we couldn’t accommodate their request to give a lift back to the farm but all in all it was a Saturday night well spent for all involved. The girls set off on foot and we by bike for what was the longest and gentlest section of the course.

 

Much of the following 180km leg to Halden was tracking a river valley towards the sea, meaning we rode many kilometers in a gentle downhill. There was no wind, as in NO WIND – they way it will never be in a flat coastal landscape. We rode along lake Harestu (or however it would translate) and got a lovely sunset. There were a few bit out on the big road but traffic was sparse and visibility good so no issues there.

 

We passed Lillestrøm, now to the west. I actually want to hand out some praise to Lillestrøm – they have made a genuine effort to build proper bike lanes around the city. Not just glorified footpaths with bikes painted on them but wide lanes with smooth turns where you can actually ride a racing bike without pulling your hair in frustration every 250m. Well done Lillestrøm – 3/5 Critical Copenhageners (which is a very high score for a city not in Denmark or the Netherlands).

Darkness wasn’t really an item as we kept heading south. The sky was pretty clear, there was a full moon and the sun kept lingering just below the horizon all night. The road was undulating a bit across various types of farmland before we suddenly hit a sharp descent into a valley, came around corner and the majestic sight of the Solbergfoss Hydropower plant appeared in front of us. At 426km we pulled into the CircleK in Sekkelsten. The reason we stopped here was that it was our only opportunity to get any kind of service between Lunner (km 311) and somewhere in Sweden, possibly the finish depending on speed.

 

There was drama in Sekkelsten – I looked in horror as Nisse order a coffee, some pastries and payed for it WITHOUT GETTING HIS CARD STAMPED. I reminded him again and again, then offered to take his card with me to get it stamped along with mine until he eventually pointed out to me that this was not a control, haha. Some habits are VERY strong and my brain simply could not understand that we were stopped at a place that wasn’t actually a mandatory control. In fairness, all of this took place to the sound of the local youngsters playing Rune Rudberg’s “Heja Hølje’s Rallycross” at an absolutely deafening volume on their car sound system. On repeat. For at least 30 minutes. (disclaimer: neither Nisse or I had any clue what song they were playing, it was only after returning to Vänersborg we started researching and unsurprisingly found very few songs on Spotify with the word “rallycross” in the title).

With food and coffee in our bellies, water bottles and snack supplies refilled we rolled into the (very) early morning. It wasn’t even 3am but real daylight was fast approaching. Also approaching was some rather serious sleepiness on my part. This was a bit problematic. We discussed taking a break to sleep but a chilly fog had also rolled in and we both knew such a stop would be most unpleasant. I was gonna have to suck it up. Sometime later I’d come around and Nisse was sleepy. Sorry, still too cold, we’ll keep going. We hit a lumpy gravel segment before rolling into a sleepy Halden around 5am where we instead of a stamp took a photo of a stone signpost.

Just south of Halden there are a series of pretty long climbs and suddenly the pace was wound up very high… I wasn’t in my best climbing form but there was no way I was gonna let him get away so we pushed and pushed and pushed all the way up.

We were now only a few kilometers away from the next highly anticipated point along the course – the Sweden border sign in Kornsjø. This turned out to be one of the hardest sprints ever (possibly beaten by Nisse’s long range attack on my fevery sorry self at the end of Blekingerundan 2015). At first he went super hard for the sign and I countered with a max effort only for both of us to discover that the sign read “Sweden 1km”… I then went to the front and tried another max effort at a small hill, but that didn’t shake Nisse and it turned out I still had 500m to go. When the sign eventually appeared in the middle of the little bridge we both had lactic acid spraying out of both ears, a 400 + 520 km weekend in our legs but we were going for it full gas. With 30, 20, 10 m to go the outcome was still undecided but in the end I managed to win by a very small but undisputed margin. Then we stopped to take pictures.

Sometime just before 8am the sun FINALLY broke through the fog and clouds and sparked a significant striptease session at the final control in Hedekas, from where we had a mere 57 km left to ride. Continuing in short-short in the morning sun we realised, horrified, that we hadn’t had any ice cream at all on the entire trip. Luckily we had been suffiently slow for the supermarket in Färgelanda to be open so with 37km remaining we took a break on bench in the sun.

In Vänersborg we missed the chance to chill all the way in as we were busy trying to wear each other down before the sprint, only to realise there was no city limits sign on the route. Instead we cruised into town, collected our last set of stamps a relaxed 26 hours 45 minutes and 620 kilometers after we left. We washed off and headed for the train station, sat down and cracked open a beer. The rest is history…

 

Strava link for the brevet.

Strava link for the ride up.

Finally – great work by Johan on this route. Norway, I love you dearly and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. I’ll bring salt.

 

 

Full gas, comfort level zero. How long will it take to ride six hundred kilometers?

That was the outset as Nisse and I prepared for this 600km brevet. It’s easier said than done to actually ride as fast as you can all the way and never, ever waste any time at the controls. But after a couple of attempts where we haven’t quite managed we were gonna give it a go.

This attitude was also clearly visible in the equipment choices. I went all in with the Cervélo S2 and Zipp 404s. I even borrowed Patch’s shorty clip-on bars to try and squeeze some extra speed out and to offer some further relief options for my ailing hands.

Some will look at below picture and think that I could have gone lighter for a midsummer brevet (some will probably also think that’s a very lightly loaded bike for a 600k ride). But actually my equipment list was ridiculously short – a gilet, a sleeveless baselayer, arm warmers, gloves, cap and buff was all the extra clothes I had in additon to the light shorts and jersey I was wearing. The frame bag contains mainly food, some repair equipment and batteries. The plan was to fill water on the first three controls and then have a quick meal stop in Karlskrona after 360 kilometers. To be able to keep the stops really short you must be largely self-sufficient on food.

The seven strong startlist consisted largely of familiar names and after little banter it war nearly 8am and we went outside to get our bikes. Here our plan to go really, really fast suffered a slight setback as Nils discovered his rear tyre empty. So while five riders left Malmö at 08.00 sharp we hung around a little while longer. It really only takes one person to fix a flat so, as it’s commonly done these days, I left him to it while I documented and informed the rest of the world about our situation.

At 08.08 we were on our way and negotiating Nobelvägen turns out to be a bit quicker as a duo anyway and once out on the road we were hammering straight away so within 30-40 minutes we had actually caught and passed the others and set of in pursuit of… ourselves. The weather was nice and warm, but not perfect. The wind was from the north west which gives A LOT of cross and headwind on this route. The first 30-40 kilometers are close to the Swedish west coast meaning the wind was quite noticeable. After that the wind impact reduced quite a bit but 600km is a long way and if you could choose between starting with 230 kilometers of crosswinds or not, you would choose not…

“Keep the stops short” is a bit of a cliché in this sport as everyone actually knows that’s what you need to do if you want to go fast. You can be at the mercy of the chosen establishment; there can be a queue, you might be slow yourself or the staff isn’t quite quick enough to get what it’s about. Not so in the “Madame Plantier” flower shop in Kågeröd (59km). As we screamed to a halt (not a major exaggeration) outside the shop just before 10.00 the two women working there immediately paused their breakfast and rushed (laughing) to the till to get the stamp ready. At this stage we didn’t need any water and so, although I didn’t use a stopwatch, I’m certain we were unclipped from the pedals for less than a minute before heading for Söderåsen. Surely a record!

And so we rolled along, probably a bit too fast. Occasionally we’d realise and ease off about half a percent for a bit before getting too absorbed in our thoughts, looking at cows or eating sandwiches and BOOM, full speed again.

In Markaryd (132km) we needed to fill up on water which meant there was also time to get some ice cream while the friendly staff at Järnvägskiosken filled our bottles. Obviously we had no time to eat the ice cream, but that’s easily done while cycling so off we went towards Markaryd.

When you turn off road 120 towards Pjätteryd you end up on a ridiculously small and pretty country road where all the houses have nice wooden porches and all the women wear summer dresses with flowers on. At least in my mind they did. In reality we didn’t see many people but when you’re busting ass in the sun it’s easy to imagine sitting on the porch with a beer.

We arrived Alvesta (230km) at 15:30 and we were thirsty. It was too warm to do 100km on two bottles of water so while the pizzeria (no, we didn’t get pizza) guy filled our bottles we down a couple of soft drinks each. Setting out on the 130km leg to Karlskrona we finally got some tailwind.

At this point Nisse had been riding on a slowly deflating front tyre for a couple of hours and while for a long time it appeared not to leak any further we eventually had to stop to fix it. We found a spot in the baking sun (why?) and unlike at the previous puncture I made myself useful and patched the two punctured tubes while Nisse pumped up the new one. I was actually quite proud of myself for thinking of doing that there and then – you don’t want to be patching tubes in the rain at night.

We rode along lake Åsnen, where everything is pretty and all systems seemed to be working. We still had a looong way to get to Karlskrona but our bottles were already running low. We were looking and looking for someone watering something in a garden or, which would have been even better, some kids selling lemonade. The lack of lemonade selling kids was probably the biggest disappointment of the entire ride. I even had cash on me! I thought there’d be more entrepreneurs in Småland, haha.

In the end we had to swing in to a petrol station in Tingsryd just around the halfway mark to fill up water and, while we were at it, buy two ice creams each (The “twin barrel Magnum” for on-the-bike consumption) before taking on the last two hours to Karlskrona.

Water wasn’t all we ran out of around this point – the sea breeze started reaching us and so we yet again had to work against the wind. Nisse had a bit of a down period here (heat? too much ice cream? wrong jersey? the theories are many, answers few) but I was feeling pretty OK. I tried to offer encouragement by pointing out sunrise was only about 8 hours away. It says a lot about a sport when one can even consider 8 hours to be “soon” AND somehow get the idea that someone may find this fact encouraging to hear even before having had dinner.

We rolled up at the Karlskrona Shell station at 360km just after 20.00, i.e. very nearly maintaining a 30km/h total average. At this stage we were in need of a slight break and some “real” food – basically recompose ourselves ever so slightly before the home stretch. Filling our bottles, washing our faces, devouring a serving of sausage and mash (and räksallad!) and putting on a base layer took exactly 20 minutes, then we were rolling again. Not bad for the “evening break”.

Obviously the sea breeze was more or less done for the day so sometime after Karlskrona the westerly wind started filling in again. I do believe that if things are genuinely hard it is unnecessary to exaggerate, so it’s really just for completeness that I point out that we had about 500km of cross- or headwinds. Most of the time it wasn’t THAT windy, but it does zap your strength.

Just before the 400km mark we got our third puncture when my front tyre lost pressure. When you puncture out on the road it tends to take about 10 minutes to fix. Most of that time is used to ensure whatever foreign object caused the puncture isn’t still in the tyre. You really don’t want another one straight away. The only tyre not to puncture on this ride was my rear tyre which is ironic considering that tyre was definitely the most worn out of the four. I actually think it was the one I rode Sverigetempot on. Goes to show you need a bit of luck sometimes…

 

If you look at a map of Blekinge you’ll see that the E22 motorway is very straight and the smaller roads, where you can ride bicycles, are not. This means that there is very little car traffic on the minor roads, especially late in the evening and at night. This makes for quite relaxed night riding – while you’re obviously alert the risk of a close encounter with a car is small. Add to that that this was the shortest Saturday night this year it was really rather pleasant to tick along.

We arrived Karlshamn (433km) at 23.01 and got going again within 5 minutes with only a stamp and some chocolate to show for it. That’s pretty much all I have to say about that.

When we last rode this route two years ago I started feeling really sick the last 100-150 kilometers and it turns out there are large sections of the course I have very little recollection of. One unfortunate effect of this was that I didn’t know there were quite so many little hills in northwestern Skåne. I remembered one, but the rest were a surprise.

It was also getting a bit chilly and on some level I regretted taking two extra sandwiches instead of knee warmers. Especially since I ended up finishing with two uneaten sandwiches in my frame bag…

At one point we surprised a family of wild boar on the road. Apart from this wildlife observation this Saturday night appeared to consist largely of house parties. I lost count of how many booming houses we rode past.. .a nobody noticed us though despite our reflectives and exceedingly bright LEDs.

From the final stop in Kristianstad (499km) we had about 106km left to complete the 605km course. We got our stamps at 01:19 and remounted the bikes at 01:25 after filling up water and sharing a small coffee (diluted with water, not Coca-Cola, to get it down to drinking temperature fast). This meant we’d have to average 30km/h to get to Malmö in under 21 hours. After a while it became obvious that there was too much headwind, too many little hills and, let’s be honest, not quite enough gas in the tank for that to happen this time. In the darkness up on Linderödsåsen we pulled over for some form of technical stop. I’m not quite sure on the details. It was a bit chilly.

As the new day began to dawn we descended into Hörby where we were treated to some cyclocross running across grass to be able to get into the cemetery (where coincidentally my maternal grandparents are buried) and thus get around the roadworks unexpectedly blocking our passage. After this we had the little climb to Lyby (really – is that it? Two years ago it felt like Mt. Everest and i was NOT Sir Edmund)

 

While we wouldn’t manage Sub21 this was not an excuse to slow down. We’d agreed to ride all the way and so kept trading turns, doing a good job of keeping it above 30 now that we only had the wind, i.e. no more hills, to fight against. We were well past the point where most of the conversation consists of “mhmm” and “jaha”… but that seems to be the way we like it.

Only the home stretch remained… past the ditch in Flyinge where I fell asleep and crashed last time, through Södra Sandby, Lund, Hjärup, Åkarp, Arlöv and then for the big finale at the Malmö city limit sign. I took a long solid tempo turn through Arlöv, basically to avoid having to kick too hard and managed to surge across the line!

Nobelvägen at 5 in the morning is quiet (unlike when you finish the 200/300/400km) so it was pretty straightforward to keep riding tempo all the way to Shell Holma where we finally allowed ourselves to stop after getting the last stamp at 05.20.

21 hours, 20 minutes. Moving time 19:50. The rest split between the six controls and three punctures. Full details HERE!

It was one of those finishes where you slump to the floor. After leaving Karlskrona we initially didn’t eat much. I didn’t need to and I don’t think Nils could. Then you suddenly find yourself in the last 100k and realize you’re better of just snacking a little, focus on riding and empty the tank. It works great but you do arrive empty.

I bought a petrol station Calzone which was tolerable and a coffee that I turned out not wanting. Not sure what Nisse got. I was sat on the floor when he shook my hand and said goodbye. A few minutes later I got up to buy something else to drink and found him sitting on the ground outside, apparently still contemplating how to get home.

Compared with this season’s previous brevets, it does make a big difference when you cut out the breaks and put in those last 5% of effort. Add to that the slight misfortune with wind directions and punctures it was a hard earned 600km personal record for us.

Next up: Road trip! Watch this space. And other social media.

Balance. While my usual M.O. tends to be a max effort this ride was all about balance.

Rather fittingly it’s taken a while to find time to finish this report. May is a busy month in a our family with no less than three birthdays. I’ve also been busy camping and teaching the youngest daughter how to ride a bike. Important stuff.

This 600km brevet was another ride I wasn’t actually supposed to do. Very much as last year it was the day before Copenhagen Marathon but unlike last year I had absolutely no desire of a double. At the beginning of the year I thought I’d run the marathon but just running another marathon, the same marathon, seemed less and less appealing as spring progressed. And I do have a thing for 600k’s. I find them relaxing.

So when Patch asked me sometime back, I guess it must have been sometime in April, whether I would be able to do it I got quite excited about the prospect of trying a 600k in a different setting. Like an act of magic I was able to add another 600k to my already busy calendar.

In the preceding weeks it became clear that there was a wish and ambition to ride in under 24 hours. I guess on some level I felt a responsibility to make that happen as it’s something I’ve done a fair few times before. You don’t actually have to ride THAT fast as long as you avoid wasting too much time on other things. We planned for short breaks and solid riding – not furious riding and not too strict for comfort at the stops but enough to get us home in time. While you don’t have to ride THAT fast you have to be able to ride for 600 kilometers, it’s no good if you fade miserably say in the last 200, so sensible pacing would be crucial.

As the day was approaching it began to seem as if nothing could go wrong. The weather forecast was shaping up very well, the successful 400k a few weeks back had been a confidence boost for many and more and more strong and experienced guys joined the ranks.

Goin’ Up The Country

From a total of ten starters a group of seven formed early and set out on a glorious Skåne morning. I and several others started in ridiculously light clothing, confident that the forecast would hold. We had a light tailwind pushing us along towards the control in Kågeröd, making light work of the first 2 hours. Indeed so easy that the group started questioning whether I’d be able to find anything to write about in this blog, known for foul weather tales and indulging in misery.

Up and over Söderåsen the riding was controlled, rather nice actually looking at the bright green beech trees instead of pushing furiously. A little later, just before Klippan, we suffered what would turn out to be the only real mechanical issue when Martin had a very severe puncture, to the point where his rim worked through the tyre. Patch and I had been teasing him a bit about the substantial amount of luggage he had on his bike but he got the last laugh when he fished out a spare tyre and shortly after we were on our way again.

We were cruising along at good speed, trading turns at the front. At one point I was at the front discussing the pace with Ebbe and I recall telling him that I was just setting a pace that I felt comfortable holding for 500 kilometers more. I realise now that statement was essentially true. Part of the deal before this ride was that it was not all on my terms. When Nisse and I ride alone we go as close to our limits as we can but that’s not very enjoyable for most people and part of the appeal of doing this event was the opportunity to see other people’s perspective and be part of keeping it together (within the agreed framework, mind) all the way home. So I tried to make myself useful – when I went to the front I didn’t go hell for leather for 2, 3 or 5 kilometers as one would typically do. Instead I tried to set a solid but controlled pace for 10, 20, 30 kilometers whenever I came to the front. Others did their parts, taking on the share of the work they felt comfortable with whilst leaving enough in the tank to make it home. All in all this was a well-fucntioning group.

Signs

Apart from Söderåsen the first 150 kilometers up to Strömsnäsbruk, actually the whole 215 to Hyltebruk, are pretty easy and we were going fast without too much effort. The section between 100 and 200 kilometers also contains the vast majority of the -ryd and -hult sign sprints on this route. Approaching Skånes-Fagerhult, the first one, I was starting to think nobody in this group was going to be silly enough to do sprint repeats in the first quarter of a 600k. But then I didn’t know Fredrik who suddenly accelerated from second position, cheered on by Ebbe (yes, the sillyness was essentially Ebbe’s fault haha), resulting in a flat out sprint with just under 500 kilometers left to ride… We had many hard fought battles over the coming kilometers and if you got cocky and didn’t go full gas, you lost. There should be room for some fun and games, the ride is long enough anyway!

Not Dark Yet

After Hyltebruk the 120 kilometer leg to Kungsbacka is hillier and on this particular day we had a headwind to battle also. Now, the shift from southerly to north-westerly was expected and was to ensure a sweet ride back to Malmö, but for now it made for slightly tougher progress. I felt pretty good though and continued spending a lot of time at the front. But everyone was taking turns and though they differed in lengths it’s not a free ride at the back either. As I’ve written repeatedly on these pages endurance sport is a mind game and riding rolling hills in a headwind, trying to hang onto people that are stronger than you all while knowing there’s more than 300 kilometers to go is hard on body and soul. Keeping morale up, keeping everyone involved and engaged is a team effort requiring everybody’s contribution, which is easier said than done when we all have our own demons to battle as well.

When we eventually made it to Kungsbacka (335km) we’d been at it for 12 hours. As far as sub24 was concerned we were doing well but off course we had a respectable 270 kilometers and an entire night remaining. The 120 kilometer leg from Hyltebruk had taken its toll and the break was much needed to collect our thoughts a bit ahead of the night. As said I felt good out on the road and I kept telling anyone who wanted to listen that things would get better once we’d gotten some food, put some more clothes on and turned downwind. But inside the service station I felt pretty drained and had a moment of just staring at my food, wondering whether I’d be able to hold it together all night (“I’m actually pretty tired”, “shit, what if I’ve forgotten how to stay awake” etc etc). But endurance sport is a mind game, so I tucked into the rather oversized serving of junkfood I’d ordered. I expect the other went through similar processes but we eventually got back on our bikes and headed home.

Homeward Bound

‘The bit between Hyltebruk and Kungsbacka had been surprisingly chilly. The wind and the cloud cover was a far cry from the (relatively) tropical conditions we’d expected and dressed for so I think most of us over-compensated a bit when getting changed for the night in Kungsbacka.  As when set off south the wind was on our backs and there was even a bit of evening sun over the sea. This brought the smiles out and everyone enjoyed making good speed along the coast with pretty moderate effort. I was sitting at the front and conveniently requested a stop to change to clear(ish) lenses in my sunglasses right at the spot where Nisse and I took shelter from the rain to try and true his wheel after last year’s #spokegate (well, he trued and I took pictures). It’s become a bit of athing for me to take a picture there whenever I ride past.

As it got darker I felt an onset of sleepiness, as I usually do around 11pm, and thought that maybe others were feeling the same. I ‘generously’ offered a turn at the front to anyone wanting some wind on their face to stay awake, but the boys all declined and that’s how I came to sit at the front the entire 122km leg between Kungsbacka and Halmstad. It was a lot easier than it sounds to be fair; we had a tailwind and the ambition was never to hammer home so I just rode a comfortable pace.

As per usual, once I get to CircleK in Halmstad the home stretch begins. We took our time to have a cup of coffee, as this was likely to be our last inside stop before Malmö. I think it was a bit after 1am by the time we left and it had gotten a bit chilly outside so it was time to out the knee warmers and wind breaker on before heading for Skåne.

The 90km to Helsingborg are rather nice on a 600k, broken up in the middle by the climb of Hallandsåsen and somewhere on the other side you’re usually greeted by dawn.

And what a lovely morning it was. Coming off Hallandsåsen we were all a bit cold, judging by the fierce turns they took on the front maybe Fredrik and Martin were a bit colder than the rest of us. On the plains outside Ängelholm Patch and I fell back to try and get some power to his rear light (as seen from above picture we failed) and then had to ride 40km/h to catch the others. It was good to see everyone was awake, haha. At the stop in Helsingborg you’re not allowed inside before 5am (“nattlucka”) and due to our very nice progress we had to take our breakfast outside. But around 4.30 in the morning it is light, we were dry and in good shape so I will go as far as saying it was a lovely breakfast.

Unless the wind is awful or your legs are completely smashed it rarely takes more than 2h10min to ride the 62 (or is it 63?) kilometers between the Helsingborg and Malmö controls so when we rolled out at 04.40 we were good for a sub23 time unless we embarrassed ourselves. There was no reason why we’d embarrass ourselves , everyone had been in good spirit during the stop so surely we could do another 2 hours. The sun was up as we crested the hill in Glumslöv and despite the early morning people already started removing some clothing.

With 30 kilometers remaining Nisse (for sake of good order: NO, he didn’t contribute at all with any pace setting) turned up to chat and take some pictures and maybe to see if he could beat me to the Malmö sign when I had 600km in my legs (in truth I don’t know if he actually tried to sprint). Up until the Malmö sign we maintained an acceptable tempo, but after that we slowed down almost completely such that our final 6 kilometers was more a Sunday stroll than a bike ride. This was lovely. When the minutes don’t matter, the sun is shining and a great group of guys has kept it together for such a long distance that is how it’s supposed to be.

When the deal was done some people went straight home but a few of us slumped down on the benches outside, enjoying a cup of coffee in the morning sun before going our own ways. It was a great ending to a great ride. Also, for the first time ever, I had ridden a 600km brevet without any rain. Who knows how this season might end?

Strava Activity

Postcript: From Seven to Five

I said we started out as 7 but only 5 of us came to finish together. I was talking to Tony at the beginning of the ride so I knew he never really expected to hang on all the way. When he dropped off the back around Ullared after 260 kilometers or so that was that.

Before then we’d already lost Jeppe from the group. At the control in Strömsnäsbruk (149km-ish) I was outside filling my bottles when I got word Jeppe had fainted inside. He reportedly had fallen straight backwards into a shelf and onwards to the floor were he was now lying. He was conscious and didn’t have any visible injuries but in light of the head first fall to the ground we obviously called an ambulance. During the 15-20 minutes that passed before the ambulance arrived he started feeling better and suggested we should keep riding. The rest of us were adamant that this was unwise which we made very clear. Head injuries can take some time to manifest themselves and a few of us had personal experiences of the effect of such injuries.

Further to that, while this incident occurred in the relative safety of a petrol station it may just as well have occurred our on the road in which case the consequences could be much more serious, also for the rest of us. When the ambulance arrived the situation was under control; Jeppe was safe and in the hands of professionals so we got back on our bikes and carried on.

A few hours later I received a message from Jeppe that he was back on his bike (I later learned that various tests had been taken in the ambulance and when declared healthy he had taken the decision to carry on). He did complete the brevet on his own and now, more than a week later, is doing well which is obviously a relief.

It is difficult to talk about safety in the context of endurance cycling. There are inherent risks that everyone must consider and manage but at one time or another I’m sure everyone who’s involved in this circus have taken risks we shouldn’t have. I know I have but I try to be conscious about it and not repeat my mistakes. But I’m probably not holy enough to judge whether Jeppe took a risk he shouldn’t have on this occasion – I don’t know all the facts and circumstances. But what I do ask is that everyone involved in these kinds of activities consider the safety of themselves and fellow riders carefully. We’re just playing…

Who’s Next?

The 600k I was actually supposed to ride was “Blekingerundan” on June 17th. Nisse and I rode that route in 2015. It was raining and raining and raining. It was cold and in the moring there was some hail to make things even better. The last 100 kilometers was one of the absolute low lights of my sporting career: I’d become ill during the night and with a high fever I was clinging desperately to his rear wheel as I couldn’t see any other way to get home. In the early morning ours I got sleepier and sleepier and eventually crashed in a ditch outside Flyinge. I like to think I’ve learned from that. So, a few weeks from now we revisit that route with the aim of being wiser and faster last time. Conditions allowing, we’ll try to find out just how early we can get home…

See you out there.

 

 

Foreword: upon completion of this text I realise that it doesn’t really contain much misery at all (my daughter excluded) which I know will disappoint many readers. For this I apologize, but there are still plenty of old posts to read to satisfy your lust for misery. End of foreword.

 

I wasn’t supposed to ride at all really, but a sudden change of plans on Wednesday afternoon left an opening in my calendar which my darling wife kindly let me fill with 400km of ego tripping in Sweden. A 400km brevet might not be a HUGE deal anymore but there are still a few boxes to tick so Wednesday evening I had to clean and service my bikes (I admit it would have been clever to make a decision about which one to use thus saving half the work, but hey…).

Thursday night I went on a great little hit out with “The Ladies” with a subsequent after bike in Greg’s dungeon, I mean basement, ending much too late. I was very much looking forward to a quiet Friday night tinkering at home but that wasn’t to be either. Instead I got a call at work from our children’s daycare – the youngest one (three years later this month) had gotten her finger caught in a door and needed to go to hospital.

During the wait for the doctor I head over to Angus (who luckily lives in the neighbourhood) to pick up the new rando wheels he’s built for me. (H+Son Archetype on DT 240s with 32/28 DT Competition spokes, if anyone’s keeping score of my equipment)

It turns out Hedvig is one badass little girl so despite her finger being broken and in need of two stitches the Hellström family has a pretty ok Friday night at Amager Hospital. But, it did end up taking most of the evening. By the time we got home, put some food (any food!) in the kids, get them to bed and cook some dinner for ourselves it was 22.30.

Sometime after that I could get started on the last preparations for the next day’s riding. Social media had informed me in no uncertain terms that both Nisse and Patch had been ready hours ago… I put tyres and cassette on the wheels, made sandwiches (egg&bacon and peanut butter & banana, some on white bread some on rye) and loaded up the Cervelo S2 (I had somehow chosen… it’s an intuitive rater than rational thing). This being my newest (road) bike it’s still from 2010 and back then 25mm tyres and wide rims hadn’t really been invented. Continental GP4000s II on archetypes measure 27.5mm leaving about 1.5mm to each chainstay, which is arguably less than ideal but I decided it would have to do.

Being a parent to two young children is excellent training for a sport where ability to handle sleep deprivation is a clear advantage. But even by my standards the bedtime on Friday night was in the category “far too late”. To make matters worse I perversely woke up at 5.40 despite the alarm being set for 6.00 as I simply wanted coffee too much. At least this left me with plenty of time to have breakfast and get dressed.

As previously outlined the worst ride of the year is done and so we were looking forward to a dry and sunny day. I went pretty light on the clothing with only merino arm warmers, wool gloves, a buff and wind/reflective gilet to support my otherwise summery outfit. I then rolled out in the spring sun and jumped on the train to the old country.

The route to be ridden is new for this year, called “Dansk Utblick” due to the lenghty section along the west coast of Skåne, and yours truly has played a big part in making it. I will probably praise the route a bit later in the text but who’s to say you can’t blow your own trumpet in this day and age?

Rolling out at 8 sharp as per the usual procedure we were also back to familiar ways, i.e. having turned up on normal bikes instead of cargo bikes Nisse and I were out in front rather than hanging off the back. With Patch, Ebbe and Mattias we were a quintet that rolled through the increasingly green forest to Blentarp (50km) for the first control. After that followed a 160km stretch to the next control in Laholm. After Sverigetempot my perspectives on what constitutes a long leg have changed somewhat and why not stretch the course a bit to change the usual dynamic? To cater for other desires the route passed through Ljungbyhed and Klippan allowing people to resupply if needed.

The bit between Osbyholm and Ljungbyhed was winding through forests and farmland on sometimes impossibly small country lanes. The road surface sometimes left a bit to be desired but when you’re allowed to be essentially alone in that kind of environment that really doesn’t matter. It is an outdoor sport after all. Unfortunately my phone decided to switch off here (and not come back alive until I “jump started” it later) so I don’t have any pictures of this section. Go ride it yourself.

In Ljungbyhed Mattias took advantage of the opportunity to stop at the Conditori, so after a quick stop to adjust clothing and bring my phone back to life we were a quartet continuing north.

In Laholm after 210 km we stopped at Preem – the very same Preem were Patch came out to buy us coffee at Sverigetempot! Before that we’d ridden more pretty roads, taken pretty pictures and stretched our legs on the Rössjöholm passage of Hallandsåsen. I repeat – go ride it!

In randonneuring, 15.00 counts as lunch time, so we had a bit of food and ice cream, but keeping it pretty simle as usual.

Ebbe usually says goodbye to me and Nils at some point during a brevet but this time I really couldn’t see any reason why our group would need to split up. The riding had been controlled and with the wind being northwesterly most of the headwind was over and done with.

The next control in Torekov was only 32km away, a short leg but necessary to be able to take the route out on the Bjäre peninsula. Italienska vägen out of Båstad offered another little leg stretcher for those who wanted. I personally find putting a bit of hurt on can brighten even the sunniest afternoon a little bit further. Riding hard up a climb on a group ride isn’t a problem, regrouping at the top is easy. If you’re going hell for leather on the flat for hours on the other hand…

Following a photo control in Torekov (242km) and quick flash of bare legs for the ice cream eaters in the harbour we cruised out with the wind on our tails.

We now had a little arc to ride around Skälderviken to get to Mölle. The first 30km to Ängelholm were very fast with the tailwind. Coming out the other side we now had 15-20km of headwind to handle. It was the last headwind of the day so no big deal. Unfortunately I got a bit carried away and managed to split the group in crosswind/road furniture combo meaning the much awaited Farhult sprint was effectively neutralised. 284km of groundwork for nothing, haha!

In Jonstorp there didn’t appear to be any football match at Kullaparken, making for a relatively calm passage. Again some lovely small roads out past Skäret and Arild before crossing Kullaberg to get to Mölle. For next year we should consider making it a “400+” with a control at the lighthouse, but for now Mölle harbour wasn’t bad either. 303km in the bag and only one long tailwind leg to get home to Malmö.

At this stage and schemes Patch and Ebbe might have had to finish at a gentler pace were surely gone after Nisse and I (almost) behaving for so many hours.

Unfortunately, none of us had bells on our bikes (I usually do, honestly) so coming through Helsingborg on a Saturday night had us resorting to alternative means of attracting attention. DT Swiss freewheels work pretty well, as do Malmö FF chants.

370 kilometers at a brisk pace take their toll, so it was agreed to take it a bit easy the last bit to get everyone home safe and sound. Riding along Lommabukten with only a little bit of pink sky left it is entirely ok to have time to look around. Then past the hardbour and my dad’s house, past Blå Caféet and then tighten the shoes for the Malmö sprint. Nisse led through the two 90 degree turns, taking them quite aggressively before employing a most unexpected diversion tactic… It seemed unfair to attack while he had his chain in the small ring (Andy Schleck?) so I patiently waited making for a short but fast sprint. As the the faithful reader (of his blog) knows those kinds of sprint do tend to favour my abilities…

After regrouping we had the usual red light parade up Nobelvägen before checking out at Shell Holma after logging 402km in 14 hours 9 minutes. It was fantastic day on a bike; lovely weather, charming route and great company.

Next up is the 600km brevet on May 20th. Patch and Ebbe (but not Nisse) are expected to turn up. I have promised to behave (though nobody really knows what that means) and I have NOT signed up for the Copenhagen Marathon on the 21st.

Strava Activity

Sometime back Nisse and I came up with the grand plan to ride our season premiere brevet on cargo bikes. Not because we really thought it would be difficult and not to prove anything that has already been proven, but just for fun really. That’s really the only reason we’re doing any of this.

Jim’s not too proud for a bit of fun either and so it came about that two Bullitts and one Omnium lined up at Shell Holma on a slightly grey but acceptably mild April morning to ride 200km around Skåne. I wore shorts, because enough is enough.

This ride was preceded by a very significant amount of banter about what to bring and how to get around the 200km route in the best way. Part of the gimmick was that we should be self-supported. Since it’s actually dead simple to ride 200km on a normal road bike without re-supplying we clearly had to use some of the significant capacity on cargo bikes with unnecessary things in addition to bread and water…

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here? In most parts of the world I’d guess the cargo bike is a bit of an oddity. In Copenhagen it’s an integral part of many people’s life as it can easily be used for many of the shorter errands that cars are often used for. They come in many shapes and forms but the two types represented on this ride,  Bullitt and Omnium are decidedly on the sportier end of the scale and ride pretty much like any other bike, except you can carry most of your family on them.

Another factor is that the riding position on a bike that you normally use to haul the family around and which is often used by more than one family member doesn’t really have a race position. I solved this problem by digging out a set of aero clip-ons creating  the “Cargo Aero”. During a week’s testing on my commute I found that it was a very potent bike. A fact that I made no attempt to hide from Nils and Jim in the days leding up to this brevet. I had effectively doomed myself to pulling for 200k before we’d even started, haha.

So, out on the road… what was different. Well, we were slower than on other brevets was all really. And maybe had more fun… After about 5km Jim dropped his chain meaning most of the others sailed away from us, but that was just as well as we could then mind our own business. Jeppe, though not on a cargobike, was out on a long weekend excursion with this brevet as a mere interlude and stuck with us making it a quartet. The first 50k was pretty easy going with fresh legs and a slight tailwind. We also passed some of the others again so we now had people both behind and in front of us on the road. We did complain a bit that it was really too early in the season to be riding through all those beech tree forests but that was really the level of suffering at that stage. At the control in Blentarp I stocked up on some coffee to bring home. I’ve lived in Denmark for nearly 10 years now but it’s  long time ago a gave up on running around Copenhagen just top buy dark roast coffee. No pleasing some exiled Swedes eh…

After Blentarp we were a bit more exposed to the wind but took it nice and steady. I began thinking my bike wasn’t handling properly anymore and stopped to check my rear tyre a couple of times. I convinced myself it was just the length of the bike, the voluminous tyres and my comfortable saddle that made it squirm a bit at high speeds. It took another 10-15 kilometers for me to realize that I had a slow leak on the front tyre. It’s actually very unpleasant to come through a corner on a long cargo bike with a deflating front tyre. The leak was so slow that I could limp my way to the control in Höör wth a few short stops to top up the pressure.

The mood was very good as I changed the inner tube and we shared a can of tinned pineapple. The fact that I’d brought those pineapples was one of the jokes of the day and the result of the pre-race banter. About 3km after the control I punctured my rear tyre giving everyone another little break.

I’m not superstitious but having passed the halfway mark there had still not been any obvious opportunity to break out the Gammeldansk (known lifesaver from Øresund Runt XL) or my very nice, new stainless shot glasses. Luckily we didn’t have to wait long for my front tyre to suffer yet another slow leak. Since I a) had to patch a tube and b) had to locate something very small and sharp in the tyre there was time for a little spring warmer by the roadside. Much better use of the roadside than crashing or sleeping. Going forward I will definitely prefer drinking to the other options.

 

Jeppe and Jim saw their chance to sort out a few practicalities in Ljungbyhed 10 km down the road and went ahead, but Nils and I had soon solved the pneumatic issues and raced after them. Here we had many years of built up guilt to make amends for. Ljungbyheds Conditori is a very nice place with proper home made cakes and pastries, but given mine and Nils’ spartan approach to coffee breaks while cycling we’ve only ever filled our water bottles and stamped out cards there. Many cyclists come here but I really think this must have been one of the first times a lycra clad man had stepped in asking them to get a cardboard box ready. With the goodies (small token for the rando widows at home) packed on the bikes our quartet set about the Lotta på Åsen hill. It’a quite hard when you go full gas on a loaded cargo bike… so once at the top we had to celebrate. A toast in Gammeldansk (Nils now cleared the cargo deck on his Bullitt for the glasses, very classy) to conquering the hill AND to celebrate that the ground wasn’t covered in 3cm of sleet this time!

From the top of Söderåsen we had about 65km to go on pretty easy roads. There was some crosswinds and we stopped a few times to rearrange our food and stretch a bit etc. Coming through Lomma Nils was riding on the front but shortly after Blå Caféet he didn’t want to anymore… Nobody ever does. I figured leading out the sprint maybe wasn’t such a bad thing on a cargo bike. There are two 90 degree turns before the Malmö sign and with a big bike it was quite easy to block the road, come through the last turn with more speed and accelerate early. A win in the inaugural cargo rando sign sprint!

Following the normal red light procession up Nobelvägen we rolled in at Shell Holma just over 9 hours after we left. Not too bad really considering we didn’t kill our little group, had a few punctures and rode bikes significantly heavier and less aerodynamic than normal. It wasn’t even raining so we could sit down on the benches outside and haul out the selection of quality beers we’d carried with us and celebrate our success!

When writing these posts I actually try to be careful not to exaggerate. This applies to exaggerating how hard things are, how good (or bad for that matter) I or my friends are, etc. Let’s be honest, it’s a blog where privileged people do things in their spare time. Sometimes these things are mentally and/or physically hard but at the end of the day they’re just hobbies. Only once before have I given a firm recommendation NOT to try something at home. I think I’ll have to add one item to that list…

This was the sequel to last September’s almost secret Swedish-Danish little joyride with Nils with the main difference being that it was a) longer and b) public. It might have been a marketing mistake to label it an “anti-social ride” (albeit somewhat tounge-in-cheek) or people are just far too sensible to want to ride 300km in mid March with a shaky weather forecast, either way only the two of us rode into the rain from Malmö Central Station at dawn.

Zero degrees and steady rain were the conditions for the first 2 hours up to Kågeröd and we were already very wet and very cold when we rolled in only to notice that the ground was covered by a thin layer of very wet snow. The real problem was hands and feet – no matter what you get wet eventually and when temperatures are this low it becomes deeply unpleasant very fast. I honestly don’t know what, short of solid rubber gloves taped tight to your forearms, would solve that problem.

Instead of just riding on which we’d normally do we took a quick stop at the local supermarket where Nils bought a pair of washing up gloves and I did my best to wring the water from my own gloves. It was a feeble attempt and with another approximately 70km to go to the ferry we soon set out again and started riding up Söderåsen. While the 10-12 minutes of uphill riding allowed us to work up some warmth, the temperature was now a few degrees below freezing and the rain had been replaced by a very wet sleet.

If I should say anything that could have been worse it is that the ground was actually not frozen, so it was actually possible to ride the descent with relative control despite the partial sleet cover. Or rather, it would have been had we not been hunched over our bikes like crippled crabs with Parkinson’s. After only 80km my shoulders felt like I’d ridden a thousand, simply because I was too stiff to sit properly and my hands too numb to hold the bars properly. Now we still didn’t even consider to take any shortcuts from our planned extra-climbing-loop so up the Lotta hill we went which gave us another 7-8 minutes to work up some heat. Not that it lasted long once the terrain flatted out along the top of Söderåsen, as we were still soaked on most body parts and there was now enough sleet on the ground to actually build up on our shoes. But, for obvious reasons, we have no pictures so maybe it didn’t happen…

At the top we met Jeppe who had come to join in on the ride and so we continued as a trio. Before descending from Stenestad the second time I stopped to, as agreed, text Jim so that he could time our arrival in Denmark. Nisse and Jeppe rode ahead to pee and probably started wondering how hard it can be to send a text. The answer is “not very”, but it was damn near impossible to put my glove back on! Eventually we got going and made solid but painful progress towards Helsingborg. The stop at a railroad crossing in Mörarp was particularly unwelcome but we got there in the end. Jeppe then kindly paid for the ferry seeing as Nils and I were entirely unable to get any money out of our pockets after about 130km of Scandinavian spring.

As I’ve written several times before on these pages you always get a few comments and questions when you enter a petrol station or ferry dressed in cycling clothes. When you’re leaving a trail of water after you you get more comments. When you’re shivering out of control standing in the food queue it turns out you get genuine sympathy. People are nice – one woman even offered us a lift home. However, we politely declined, without going into further detail regarding our mental health or plans for the remainder of the day. Instead we bought hotdogs, coffee and gammeldansk to try and warm up.

Once off the ferry (we were pretty much last off and had to dodge the lorries trying to get on for the next ride) in Helsingør the break continued as we first had to find Jim (old school, as I still had no intention of trying to operate my phone) and then Jeppe had to fix a puncture. Unfortunately, Jeppe punctured again after only a few hundred metres and started to doubt whether the long route to Copenhagen was a wise choice so we parted ways. He eventually sorted his tyre and rode down to Copenhagen while Nils, Jim and I headed north-west towards Gilleleje, into the wind and rain. But it was warmer here than in Sweden, we started seeing blue sky on the horizon and within an hour we were exposed to direct sunlight and temperatures of 5-7 degrees. If we had started the ride there and then it would have been a rather lovely early spring day, but Jim had also had a cold ride up the coast so our trio needed a bit longer before we could really break the smiles out. In fact, my jaw still hurt from grimacing most of the morning so it took some face gymnastics to be able to smile and speak without a slur…

At Tisvildeleje we turned south and cruised along in the tailwind – I really enjoy the roads up around the north coast. There were a few interruptions in the form of punctures. I luckily didn’t make a very big deal out of Nils’ Italian tyre choice when he punctured – it wasn’t long before I had to replace a tube in my German rear tyre. Denmark is just rough if you’re a bicycle tyre.

In Frederikssund, after about 200km in total, we had a little coffee break and said goodbye to Jim who had to take a more direct route to Copenhagen. Nils and I headed west and as he began to realise we would be passing trough Skibby (and its road sign) it was decided that this opportunity would be taken advantage off before completing the route

The plan had been to be back at Copenhagen Airport at sunset, but too many unforeseen circumstances had come our way, so it was actually an hour beyond sunset when we, wet cold and dirty, eventually rolled in to the CircleK station with a little bit over 300km under our belts.

It would be easy to claim that were absolutely exhausted when we finished but an interesting aspect is that the riding intensity had been moderate all day: we were too cold, had the ferry, the punctures, the small stops etc. This meant that the traditional tiredness in the form of sore legs etc. wasn’t very pronounced.

No, the real challenge here was getting soaked, then frozen and then stay damp and chilled the rest of the day. This is what I recommend you avoid. Tough one though – while it’s easy to avoid running a marathon after you’ve ridden 600km the only way to be sure you’ll never be caught in awful weather is to only ever do short rides and only do them when the weather is mild and stable. In that case Scandinavia is probably not the right place to live if you’re interested in endurance sports.

This ride, while unassuming on the surface, represents a re-calibration of the discomfort scale. The good thing about it is that it may make all other rides this season appear nice and comfortable. The bad thing is that it may make all other rides this season appear nice and comfortable.

While we sat down with a post ride beer the stories already started getting a life of their own as we begun retelling them via social media. I can’t help but wonder how the tales of this ride will develop over time.. . this springs to mind.

You might also want to read Nisse‘s (Swedish) account of the day. If nothing else the pictures are different.

One of my ambitions for this year was to do more homegrown, loosely organised cycling and the (at infrequent intervals) recurring south Swedish gravel bonanza “The Famous Grus” is one such event. The organisation consists largely of Patch setting up a facebook event – then you just rock up and ride. Sweden has lots of gravel roads, dirt roads, horse tracks etc. etc. and the route (a fair bit of scouting has obviously gone into it) zig-zags  across the countryside to take in as many as possible.

With a 9.00 start from Malmö I figured it would be possible to squeeze in a “warm-up”. Not that the 110 kilometers of almost famous grus is “short” but as I’ve written before I do like some bang for my buck whenever I take a day out to go and play. What’s a bit of sleep when you both get to ride 117km extra AND avoid the still existing, still infuriating “Checkpoint Stefan” at the Copenhagen Airport station… plus I figured I’d turn up a little bit tired so as not to be an antisocial bastard riding too hard for people’s liking.

After the last cyclocross race I set up my cross bike with 28mm slicks, bottle cages and normal road chainrings and voila – pretty much a perfect dirt whip. In the framebag (stop stigmatising these won’t you – they’re great) I put the headlight battery, an extra pair of gloves, spares and tools and a sandwich.

Following a solid meal and only modest alcohol consumption on Friday night I went to bed at a reasonable hour (yes, really). I was in fact so excited I woke up before my 03.40 alarm and even had time to eat some leftovers and have a cup of coffee before I rolled out at 03.58 exactly.

(Here comes the bit where I romanticize being alone  in the dark) Firstly, Copenhagen evidently isn’t New York – apart from some taxis the city essentially sleeps at 4 in the morning, at least in the beginning of March. The fancy residential areas along the coast north of town definitely sleep. So for almost two hours I was alone in the dark. Temperature was around 0, only marginally colder than a Scandinavian summer night, but it didn’t rain so apart from my feet (I will just have to accept that I, by nature, have cold feet) it was entirely comfortable (wearing pretty much the outfit described in “I’ve got nothing to wear” minus the rain gilet as the forecast was pretty much dry and I like to take chances).

When I rolled into Helsingør I was very much awake, which is more than you could say for the few motorists who had also opted for the 06.00 ferry. The nice thing about the ferry, for an inherently impatient cyclist like myself, is that you have to take a break. So I bought a cup of coffee and enjoyed my large home made sandwich without a care in the world while my feet gradually regained some feeling and mobility. A few people came up and asked where I’d come from and where I was going but I’ve certainly had people respond with much more disbelief on other occasions. I take that to me this was a pretty sensible thing to do!

Rolling off the ferry onto Swedish soil some 20 minutes later I was still pretty much in splendid isolation. Part of the charm about nights and early mornings is that not many people get it or can’t be bothered, but there’s still room for more out there so I’ll take the risk of promoting it heavily (to all my readers, haha) – get out there! After negotiating a few turn and roadworks I was out on Landskronavägen which is very much familiar ground as it forms the home stretch on most of the Malmö brevets. It was quite pleasant to ride here without 250/350/550km already in my legs and also without any real rush. I’ve lived in exile for many years now but I always appreciate riding around in my native Skåne. When I got to my favourite spot on Glumslövs Backar I even stopped to have a look around (which rather spoiled the strava segment but the wind wasn’t favourable anyway, haha).

With about 15km to go, i.e. around Lomma, it started raining a bit. Not very much but enough so that my mudguardless bike would have time to soak me from the knees down before reaching Malmö. When I pulled up outside Musette at 8.45 I thought I was first but then Will (who had taken the train from Copenhagen) emerged from his hiding place and soon enough everyone else dropped in. Patch briefly instructed us not to drop people on the road sections (he might also have tried to refresh our memories about bunch riding etiquette like half-wheeling too, but I’m not quite sure) tried to ensure enough of us knew where we were going and then we rolled out not much after 9.00.

Once outside the city limits it wasn’t long until the rain stopped and we were let loose in the dirt like kids in a playground. Some of us couldn’t resist going bananas while others had a more relaxed approach. Some sections were maybe 1km long while others were 4-5km. Off course pretty big gaps open up when some go really hard for several kilometers but as far as I could tell the mood was good both up front and further back and when we reached tarmac the bunch regrouped. One good thing about this kind of riding is that when you get tired you can stop and snap a few pictures 😉

It was generally pretty hard work getting to Blentarp. Many of the dirt roads wound themselves up or around Romeleåsen and we were also riding into the wind. The mindset of going hell for leather at the slightest site of gravel meant many of us had pretty sore legs after a couple of hours, with our without “warm-up”. Some had places to be and people to see and thus peeled off along the way but about 15 of us made to SmakSak for a, I dare say much needed, little break. Off course when 15 people step into a café and there’s no real clock ticking it takes a while before everyone has ordered, gotten what they ordered, been to the toilet etc. etc, but in the end everyone got something to eat and drink and we moved on. I had 175km on the odometer at this point and a wildcard from Mrs H as long as I brought some beers home so I didn’t mind at all.

It had become evident that it would be wise to split in two groups so six of us went ahead while the others took a slightly gentler pace for the remaining 50km back to Malmö.

If the dirt sections before the break had been undulating or even hilly, the return leg had a few really flat ones across open fields. As we now had a rather strong tailwind this resulted in some amazing sections were we were rattling along in +40km/h across washboard and potholes. I really couldn’t be happier with how my bike performed in those conditions – rock solid regardless of what I threw at it, yet oh so fast. Don’t get me wrong, people were riding all kinds of bikes and did just fine – cyclocross bikes old and new, road bikes of varying types and even Sylvester on a brakeless track fixie – I’m just really happy with mine.

We kept roaring along in the tailwind as also Per, Alexander and Andreas peeled off to take direct routes to their respective homes, leaving me, Will and Sylvester to negotiate the last bit through Malmö and back to Musette where we slumped down and tucked in to some of their nice wraps. It didn’t take long before Patch led the second group home. The good thing about cycling cafés is that it isn’t frowned upon to be covered in dirt when you walk in…

My early morning outing added a bit of spice to the day and I might that again another time when I have an appointment in Malmö. It’s safe to say I got home with very tired legs. I hope Patch will run more editions of The Famous Grus as it’s a great initiative – there are some fantastic roads out there waiting to be ridden and on this particular day a great bunch of people rode them.

Strava Activity

 

 

 

According to Nils, randonneurs have 1000 words to describe rain. When the temperature is ranging from 1 to 5 degrees Celcius and the rain is persistent we are on the invective rich end of the scale. Those are the days when even self proclaimed misery enthusiasts like myself wonder what the ?%>§ we’re doing out there. But that’s the weather we have in large parts of Scandinavia and you can’t sit and feel sorry for yourself 6-7 months of the year. I’ve used some of the nastiest winter rides to test my long distance equipment.

As the faithful reader might recall I elaborated on my relationship with rain jackets last year (I still think it’s worth a read). There were two obvious areas for improvement on that wet 600km brevet – exposed forearms and the spray on my chest when I was riding on Nils’ wheel. Based on my experiences from that night I did make some adjustments to my equipment before Sverigetempot but I never really got to try them in anger. Yes, I know many of you will have seen that movie where it rains all the time but that time (and that time only) it didn’t rain on me.

So, I’ve had to wait for winter to set in to get a chance to really test the foul weather setup that I’ve created. I know from talking to other cyclists that my setup is considered rather idiosyncratic – that’s why I’m sharing it with you!

So, here’s what I’ve been wearing for my wettest, coldest and filthiest winter rides:

• Hi-viz gilet (Rapha Brevet) – you’ll want this for visibility and as a normal wind breaker. The rain gilet is too warm to wear all the time so you’d want to bring two gilets even if they were both hi-viz.
• Rain gilet (Rapha Pro Team) – this is a heavy duty rain garment, doesn’t leak much from either side. For me it’s perfect as it means the water on the torso is replenished quite slowly, significantly reducing the cooling effect. At the same time it leaves me exposed from the shoulders down and that (possibly combined with unzipping) means it’s easy to shed extra heat. This also means you can leave it on longer between showers without drowning in your own sweat.
• Wool(ish) cycling jersey (Rapha Brevet) – I’ve worn this jersey on a 400km brevet in 30 degrees C (though there are better options if the forecast is THAT good), very flexible.
• Merino base layer (Devold) – When spring arrives I’ll take merino arm warmers and a short sleeve baselayer instead as this is more flexible. In February I know I won’t want to ride with bare arms so long sleeve base is fine. Unless it’s cyclocross, hehe
• Merino base layer (Rapha mesh) – This is excellent!
• Water repellent arm warmers (Rapha Shadow) – your extremities start at the elbow…

That’s it. That’s all you need. The great thing about this setup is that it keeps you warm when it needs to and let’s you cool down easily when you need to. Note I’ve never promised it keeps you dry. As you know I don’t believe anything will. It consists of multiple components that can be mixed and matched in a very large number of combinations as the conditions change. Remember, we’re talking about long rides here where you need to be able to adapt to the unknown 12, 24 or 48 hours from now, whilst carrying everything with you whether you’re using it or not.

There’s a lot of Rapha on that list but as they don’t actually pay me for this post (rather the opposite) I should point out that there are many other companies that offer comparable products.

Below is a little illustration of the described setup. Pictures taken Sunday February 19th upon my return from a 147km solo ride in aforementioned Danish winter weather…

Last but not least – if there’s anyone out there who still doesn’t own a pair of thermal bib shorts you need to go shopping NOW. Best piece of cycling clothing ever.