The Beginning of the End...

And so I've arrived in Norway, the country equivalent of a high class stripper: She'll take you for every penny you've got, but you keep coming back for more because she's

So

Damned

Beautiful

Seriously. That's what I managed to capture on a crappy cell phone camera where I could barely see what I had on the screen. Even the laziest photographer couldn't take a bad picture here. It's also obscenely expensive... but I suppose that's what happens when a country strikes oil and decides to use the profits to do right by their own citizens (imagine that, America!).

Anyway, I made a very last-minute decision to cycle out of Kiruna to the tiny mountain town of Abisko, Sweden. The weather had warmed up just enough to where I figured I could make it without incident, and happily I was right! After a night's camping at the local Turiststasjon, I hopped a bus for Narvik, Norway. It did not take me long once we crossed the border to realize that Norwegian roads have never met a mountain or a tunnel they don't like.  Tiny roads with barely enough space for the two-way traffic they carry twist and turn their way up, over, around, and straight through the mountains for miles on end. Before the bus even arrived in Narvik, I knew that CycleTour Scandinavia was likely on its last legs.  This is no place for a novice cyclist. 

I was unable to secure a couchsurfing host in Narvik, wasn't super keen on paying $150 a night for one of the city's "budget" hotels, and was damned sure that I did not want to attempt to cycle anywhere until I got out to Lofoten (which is possibly the only cycle-friendly place in the country)...and so I rented a car.  My rationale was this: I had a few days to kill before heading out to Lofoten. I could either spend them in Narvik, paying a few hundred dollars for a hotel room in the city where I would then spend even more money on food/drinks/etc, or I could spend that same money on a car rental, sleep in the car, and have the freedom to explore the surrounding area as well. 

Done and Done!

 

Never in my life have I ever appreciated the feeling of four wheels and a motor more than that first afternoon.  Cruising down the road, blasting Norwegian radio, the wind in my hair... it was luxury at its finest! I headed up to Bardu, where I had read there was a zoo featuring local arctic wildlife that allows patrons to go into the pens and play with some of the animals.  Unfortunately, on this particular weekend, they weren't running the wolf visits, which was the one I was most looking forward to, but I did get to spend some time playing with their two arctic foxes so it wasn't a total loss. 

 



 



 

From there I headed back south, through Narvik again, and as far down as I could get before the road dead-ended at a ferry crossing.  It was two and a half days of one unbelievable vista after another after another, and the best part was I wasn't too exhausted or in pain to really enjoy them! It was perfect... except for one little thing. It was kind of lonely.  The freedom of having a car pretty much removed me from any instance in which I might meet new people.  I had no need for public transport, and the cost of the rental and gas was so expensive that I didn't want to spend money on anything else like hotels or eating out or going into a bar. I was on my own.  It was fine for a couple of days, but I'm not sure that I'd want to do much more than that unless I could find someone to ride share with for a while. It's good information to have, anyway, when considering transportation alternatives post CycleTour.

 

I'm now in Svolvaer, in Lofoten, and of course, it's gorgeous.  The weather the past couple days has been the best I've had on the whole trip. It finally feels a little bit like summer, and I'm loving it (though I think the rain is due to set in again tomorrow)! Unlike what I've seen so far in the rest of Norway, cyclists abound here, and I've been told there's a vast network of virtually empty and reasonably flat roads all across the islands for my cycling pleasure.  I've got a good feeling about this place.  Potential rain aside, I think it may finally be the kind of cycling I've wanted all along: quiet roads, tiny villages, beautiful scenery, the feeling of really being on my own and in touch with nature.  If the cycling part of CycleTour Scandinavia really is coming to a close, I can't imagine a better swan song than this!

 

 

Bork, Bork, Bork, IKEA!

New rule for CycleTour Scandinavia: No more cycling on highways with obscenely small shoulders. It's bollocks! Finland, a country which I've observed to pretty much bend over backwards to accommodate cyclists, really dropped the ball on the route from Oulu to Tornio. While it was about the flattest ride I'll probably get on the whole trip, I was unable to enjoy it because I was forced to spend the majority of the two day ride white-knuckling it down what I have come to affectionately call "The Road of Death": 

                                                            Not cool, Finland... Not cool.


Couple the ridiculous traffic with the ever-present gale-force winds and it's a miracle I made it off of that thing in one piece. Somehow I did, though, and even managed to make a friend in a fellow cyclist from Sweden, on his way back home after spending a week cycling more km than I have in three weeks time. The company was enough to get me through the last 20km to the campsite in Tornio, and it was good to have someone to share stories, beer, and a whole lot of pizza with for a change.

And then there was Sweden. I was really hoping to get a nice photo of my bike in front of a "Velkommen til Sverige!" sign as I crossed the border from Tornio to Haparanda. Unfortunately, there was no sign. Instead, I got this:

                                                                     Yup, that's an IKEA


Good enough.  From Haparanda I caught a bus north, sending me once again through the Arctic Circle.  Turns out, even in mid June, the Arctic is COLD! Snow capped mountains (not that much higher than my current elevation) surround the mining town of Kiruna, where the trees are only just beginning to blossom, and the crazy winds continue to blow, this time with a little more bite in them. The locals all continue to insist that it's much colder and windier than usual. I'm starting to think this is a line they feed tourists so they'll actually consider coming back.  Ah well, who needs summer anyway, right?

I made another friend on the bus, this time a non-cyclist, on holiday from Switzerland. After an introductory night out on the town (which, despite the midnight sun, shuts down around 10pm) he took off this morning by train for points south. I think he's got far more sense than I!  My own plans have changed slightly, as the idea of cycling farther north from here to Narvik in Norway has been put on ice (literally...there could be ice and snow on the roads).  This leaves me a good five or so days ahead of schedule, and seeing as how everything in Norway is obscenely expensive, I think it's in my best interest to stay in Kiruna, where I've found (relatively) cheap lodging, for a couple days. Even so, I'll still likely wind up in the Lofoten Islands a little ahead of the summer solstice, and if the weather here is any indication, my dreams of sun-drenched fjords and warm summer kayaking in crystal blue waters might not exactly pan out.  Global warming, my ass!**

And so as I settle in for a night of catching up on Game of Thrones, thanks to my recent discovery of HBO Nordic (one month free subscription!), I leave you with this little bit of inspiration brought to you by the good people of Kiruna, who really ought to consider aiming just a little bit higher:
             
                              

Kiruna is like Detroit.

It's a little bit

Of everything.

It's contemporary.

It's vintage. It's artful.

It's Rock & Roll.

It's sometimes pretty,

Sometimes Gritty.

It's musical. It's uplifting.

It's my city, And I love it.

 

**I'm only joking, kids. Climate change is a very real and serious thing.




 

Playing the System

Here's a fun game for all you gamblers out there! It's called "Buying a Finnish Bus Ticket" and it goes a little something like this:

Objective: Get one American and one bicycle from Jyvaskyla to Oulu Finland in the cheapest manner possible!

Rules: You have three ways in which to purchase a bus ticket: 1) On the bus, for a price of 79Euros*, 2) At the station, for a price of 79Euros*, or 3) Online for an internet special of only 40Euros*

(*None of these prices includes the cost of bringing the bike, which, apparently is an extra fee left up to the driver's discretion)

Seems simple enough, yea? Buy online and get a whopping half price discount... Done! Hold on though, there's more....

Apparently, there's no way to know until the bus arrives if it's going to be large enough or have enough storage space to take the bike in the first place. There's no way to book in advance for that. Furthermore, any ticket bought as part of the internet special is only good for that one particular bus on that one particular day, so if they can't take your bike you're out 40Euro!

So there you have it. Do you buy the half priced ticket in advance and risk losing your 40Euro investment plus having to pay the 79Euro base fare anyway if they don't have room for the bike? Or do you wait it out and buy on the day?

I chose the second option, and was highly rewarded! Not only was I greeted on the day with a massive luxury coach complete with air conditioning and outlets to charge my phone...I was the only one on board!

On top of this, the driver must have been having one hell of a great day because he only charged me a grand total of 46Euros for myself AND the bike! Only 6Euros more than the internet special! Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

And so my bike and I arrived in Oulu, a city utterly devoid of taxis but absolutely teeming with drunken old men, all of whom, it seemed, wanted to chat me up.  Spending a couple of nights with a lovely Couchsurfing host, her roommate, and their adorable children (1 1/2 and 4 years old) who have been busy teaching me all kinds of new Finnish words (ok, mostly just the words for "car" and "dinosaur").  There's also a dog, so that's nice, too!

Tomorrow I set off on the bike once more for a three-day slog along the Baltic Sea. Destination: Sweden! Well, actually I'll be camping on the Finnish side of the border in Tornio, but my next bus journey will begin from the neighboring city of Haparanda, Sweden. Wonder what all is involved in buying a Swedish bus ticket...

The Winds of Change

INT. EXTREMELY WINDBLOWN TENT IN A FINNISH CAMPGROUND - DAY

No one told me how freakin' windy it was going to be in Finland. Seriously. This stuff puts the Santa Anas to shame... I'm pretty certain that at some point this evening, or in the middle of the night (night being used very loosely as I've not seen a moment of actual darkness for a good many days now) my tent, my gear, and myself are going to wind up blown straight into the river... or maybe into Oz, I'm not sure. Anyway, so far my little tent has held up like a champ, even when I left it to shower and do laundry, and then again to go have a couple beers at the campground bar which, like the rest of this place, was eerily empty. There's a good number of motorhomes around (I appear to be the only crazy one in a tent), but very few actual people to go with them. I suppose they're all inside staying out of the wind!

I'm now 83km north of Lahti, having finally left that godforsaken city after one false start due to a near knee blowout about 20km in that sent me straight back into town in a frustrated huff, determined to chop the bike up into a million tiny pieces and hurl them into the nearest river... Amazingly enough, I'm still on the bike (surprise, surprise!) and I'm still in one functioning piece (even bigger surprise!).  As it turns out, doing 40-45km a day as opposed to the 90 I cranked out on day 1 is a much more reasonable task, and while I still am not anywhere remotely near the point where I would claim to enjoy cycling, I MIGHT have found a point at which I can tolerate it.  Plus, I was mostly off of the main roads so any anxiety about falling (or being windblown) into traffic was greatly reduced. I still hurt a lot more than I'd like to, and I still kind of want to cry every time I see a hill crop up in the road in front of me, but all in all my spirits over the last two days have been... stable. I even managed to pop off a couple photos of the scenery along the way:

 

 

Now here's where it all still goes to pot...40-45km, while being completely doable in a day without hitting a wall of agony and frustration, is not going to get me where I need to get when I need to get there. Not by a long shot.  Even if I took complete leave of my senses and decided that CycleTour Scandinavia was back in business, I would HAVE to rely on public transport at certain points to make up the kilometers that I'm not covering on the bike.  Trouble is, finding points at which I can get on public transport and get to where I need to be next, can be few and far between when I'm out in the middle of nowhere Lapland, for example.  In short, I need structure.  I've spent all kinds of hours online looking up all kinds of scenarios by which this trip could continue, and I think I've come up with a few different ones that stand a chance of putting me back on track. All I need is a local to bounce them off of, to see which one sticks!

 

To that end, I've lined up my next couchsurfing host in the city of Oulu, and as I have a strict date on which I need to be there (and as the roads between here and there are brutally hilly and heavily trafficked) I've decided to spend a couple days here at the campground and then hop a bus straight there. I'm retiring the bike for at least a few days... after that, only time will tell! 

 



Lahti-Freakin' Dah

Well, here I am in Lahti, about 50 miles north of my starting point in Vantaa on day 1.5 of the bike portion of this trip, and I'm already starting to think...

 

 

Apart from a brief torrential downpour that soaked me as I was leaving Vantaa and the occasional outrageous gusts of wind, it's been by most cyclists' standards a pretty easy start. Finland is kind of a cyclists paradise, with large paved cycle paths covering all of the mid to large sized towns/cities, and miles upon miles of relatively flat roads with nothing more than the occasional bout of rolling hills. I've had no crashes and no breakdowns.  Anyone accustomed to cycle touring would probably tell me that I've been spoiled rotten on my first day out.... and yet, the only words that have been rattling around in my brain are: THIS SUCKS! 

 

Nothing about a bicycle is in any way comfortable. Even when coasting downhill, or riding a nice flat stretch of road, something always hurts. My shoulders hurt. My back hurts. My hands hurt. My legs hurt. My nether regions may never recover from just this first day and a half of trauma. What the hell was I thinking? I just cannot comprehend how anyone could possibly think this is fun. It's torture... plain and simple torture. And the worst part about it is, I've not been able to enjoy any of the new and wondrous scenery around me because I've been too focused on pushing through the pain and logging kilometers.  And this is the EASY part! What the hell am I going to do when I actually encounter a decent sized hill or, God help me, a mountain?  And all of this is going to go on for another 3 months?? Worst. Idea. Ever.

 

Okay, now that I got that little rant out of my system, lets take a step back and think a little bit about the predicament I find myself in. I've broken the moratorium on paying for lodging for a night in one of Lahti's budget hotels in order to give myself some comfortable space in which to try to regroup and reframe my situation.  The shower that washed off the remnants of last night's camp in what turned out to be a mosquito breeding ground (thank God for bug repellent!!) didn't hurt either. 

 

Anyway, I think there's two ways to look at this situation.  I'm not a cyclist. I've never been a cyclist. The farthest I've ever cycled in one day before I set off yesterday morning was about 25 miles.  Yesterday, I about doubled that.  All of these aches and pains are my body adjusting to a new activity which places new and different physical demands on it than any of my normal day to day activities.  I knew this was going to be a challenge, and I knew I couldn't expect to be good at this on my first day out... even on my first WEEK out... but if I can hang in there and push through it, eventually my body will adjust and the aches will subside (or at least I won't notice them as much) and I will come out the other side stronger for all of my efforts.  That's option one.

 

Option two is declaring that I f*&%ing hate cycling!!  Bicycles are the work of the devil, I'm NEVER going to get used to the kind of havoc they wreak on my body, and I would sooner spend the next three months locked in a sauna full of lutefisk than get back on that bloody thing.  Best to call it a day and trade it in for something with a motor so I stand half a chance of actually enjoying even a little bit of this trip.

 

Every fiber in my being is currently rooting for option two. Every one but that stubborn little bastard in charge of pride and determination. That sonofabitch is still hanging in there by the very finest of threads, telling me that the city of Oulu, the first waypoint on my journey, is a mere seven days ahead of me, so if I can hang in there for just that one week I'll have about 600km under my belt as opposed to my current 90 and I'll be in a better position to know if option one or option two is closer to the truth.

 

And so tomorrow, after a good night's sleep in a real bed and a hearty hotel breakfast, the torture resumes... Sometimes I think I'm too stubborn for my own good.

 

 

 

 

Beginning with the Finnish

Greetings from Finland! (And credit to my brother for the title of this post) And what an interesting trip it's already been! Iceland was a blast....mostly of cold air (note to Keflavik airport: if you're going to locate your luggage storage service in a building 1\4 mile from the actual airport, you really need to offer a shuttle service!) and I can't wait to go back in August and explore more of it. It was like a strange combination of Liverpool, Salekhard, and Mars...Though I have to say, the extreme winds and freezing temps (and it was practically June!) made me more than a little wary about biking and camping there...yikes! Good thing I'll have so much experience under my belt before I attempt it. It was also obscenely expensive, and I hemhorrhaged way too much money in the 24 hours I was there. Nonetheless, I got to lounge in a geothermal hot spring, enjoy Icelandic tacos, and even found myself a bed to sleep in for a few hours. All in all, it was a nice layover.

Reykjavik made me feel right at home.

Which brings us to the Finns. I've got nothing but good things to say about this place so far. From the cheery and helpful Finnish\Canadian\American cab driver who picked me up at the airport and gave me a whirlwind introduction to the food, the sights, and the language; to my excellent first-ever couch surfing host with an adorable flat in a nice quiet suburb (with bicycle paths all around, yay!); to a relaxing afternoon spent wandering the streets of Helsinki and exploring the amazing Suomenlinna Island, Finland has really laid on the charm. 

Suomenlinna Island. I could definitely live here! 

Fortress ruins on Suomenlinna

Its been so lovely, in fact, that its almost hard to remember that I'm about to set off on a bicycle this afternoon for points unknown...but that is exactly what's about to happen, as soon as the bike shop calls to let me know it's ready. I've got my bags re-packed (And am already regretting bringing a few things that I think I may not actually need), stocked up on food, and I'm ready to hit the road. I just hope it doesn't hit back!