Norway 2 - Atlantic coast: Trondheim, Bodø, Alta, inland detour
There you are again 😉 Are you bored enough to read up on what im doing or entertained by it?! I hope it is the later, although the self critic part is always a bit worried im not doing good enough for you.
Let's recap: We're in Trøndheim on Norways west coast. If we throw a stone westwards theres a chance it lands in the atlantic ocean.
I planned out a route for the next 14 days with Bodø as the destination - the gateway to Lofoten. To get on faster the route departs from the westcoast land inwards, what saves a few kilometer and quite some elevation.
The first part of it goes along the coast, then through nice villages on the countryside until we end up at a construction site and the bicycle path gets redirected and we are spit out on the side of the highway, the one that was closed down for cyclists at the beginning of the construction site. The expirience get worse fast, the little strip of asphalt they left for cyclists soon disaprears and the traffic increases to point where it is just no fun anymore. Cycled half a day like this and decided I need to get back to the west coast as fast as possible.
It is dangerous at this point and your view on cars and the idiotic decisions of the car industry, boneless polititiand and lobyists to marketing departments that seem to have neighter a spine nor a faint idea of need and requirement help, produce and sell monsters of cars that are so clean that the fresh air they spit out with the added blue just makes you smile... it does not 🤮🤢🤬😤
As controversial electeic cars may be, if you drive behind normal ones old or the most modern in that fassion like cyclist do you develop a hate fast. The fumes are unbareable, sometimes there a black clouds of the older ones make you choke and the modern cars with the ad blue want to make you vomit as they pass you. Might lookbgood on messurement sheets but i guarantee you on the sinple basis how my body reacts, it cannot be healty...I challege every deciction maker in the car industry, those mindless children in the marketing departments to take in a big breath and do a bicycling trip and enyoy their clean products. Driven by fewer, sizes bigger and bigger and the performance shoots through the roof so your angry roaring can be heard fuether when beeing stuck in traffic. How shallow is our thinking not to see the self fulfilling prophecy. You sell this oversized and overdimensionated ressource hungry monster cars, you market them and what a surprise they sell and another surprise your indication goes up that they do well and you design more, produce more and market them fuether. All done in the shadow of the promise of freedom, gathering expiriences as life needs to be one. Think about this: if we dont learn to calm our need what do you think how much you need to restrict and restrain yourself when you realized far to late that the fan is not even turning anymore, because it got hit by so much shit that it's blades cannot even turn anymore.
Before you study with 18 go and see the world, make sensible expiriences, explore nature, do something you would not do in your daily life – and for fuck sake choose wisely what to do with your life instead of running like lemmings into postit crazy marketing departments or gain crazy business school degrees just to gain more and more and more money. Theres nothing to say agains progress bir our results and values are destructive. You can only leech while there is blood...this needs to change!!!
Back to eurovelo one - EV1 – amazing how much cleaner the air is when you change roads.
It is evening and time for a spot to camp. The next campsite is close, lets get there. As i arrived the reception was allready closed for half an hour. Went on there, placed my tent and went to bed - so i can pay when the reception opens the next day. In the morning the angry owner of the campsite standing in front of my tent while im packing accusing me of trespassing and ruining her day as she could not take her appointments she made. Not sure how she wanted to handle her beeing away and the opening hours of her reception 09:00 - 22:00. She wanted to calm the police, saying you cyclists don't want to pay - wrong we like to pay, just not lile beeing accused and not feel unwelcome like that. She was looking at ne on her video surveillance she said – sitting in home which was the reception. Maybe would have been easier to be nice get up from her survsilance chair in her den and maybe just greed and check me in...
Two hours of moaning and talking, I paid and i'm on the road. Would have been a nice expirience and i would have recommended that place every time... not like this. Another accusations was that I "found" the (free)WLAN and took advantage by using it. Open SSID, not hidden, no password and a probtout outside the wall of the reception...
In case you are in the area and need "free" internet go ahead. The signal covers close to 300 meters and works line a charm even fron the road outside the canping area. Should be enough to find a jedermanns rechten compatible camp spot outside of her camping geound for free – have fun watching netflix there. She wanted a pirate, she gets one 🏴☠️🦜😁
From there on its Fjord hopping, ferries, bridges and nice views.
And as you traverse the west coast, plenty of elevation gain. Then you get down to a Haven with a small port and an attached campsite - Salsnes. Small and nice with a litte playground, two rooms for those who look foe a solid roof over their heads and a place to shower and wash clothes.
The up and down continues, by now in ised to it. The landscape changes a bit, looks like pictures of Canada.
After 74 km and tired I get to another campsite. As driving on the campsite the owner saw me and already walked over ang greeted me with a smile - thats the way 😃 We talked for a bit about the nature - he told me hes hiking a lot around here and told me about the mountain I've just passed - Heilhornet. It looks lie 5000 m above sea but as the mountains are low in the area it has 1050 m.
I'll take a shower and go to sleep - alarm goes off at 08:30. My body needed rest and i've disabled to alarm without noticing – it is 10:30 now. Then let's start with bike and Stephan maintenance 🚰🫧🚿🧼🙃.
dan sehr schone strecke in den bergen pasr tunnel und dann 30min fahre - dieter wieder getroffen norwegen veteran gut unterhalten. danach weiter am meer und zwischen bergen – flach.
A cow escaped on the road. We blocked the road with cars and a little tiny bike and tried to herd it back into the fence.
Just after the small town of Berg I came accross a Caravan parking spot with a small grass path next to it.
In the morning i hear voices, only cought it at second glance: "Jo mei der reagierd jo gorned" in broad bavarian dialect. Aftee rubbing my eyes i got it, the couple with the caravan prepared breakfast outside and wanted to invite me - So I joined them – thanks for the invitation, the coffee and honey was great.
I wanted to go around the Scartisen glacier, to save some time, have a bit of rest and look at the islands from the outside. Got information about a ferry going around it that takes a bit of a detour to the tiny island of Myken. From Levang to Nesna, Nesna to Myken and Myken to Ørnes - island hopping for 5h sounds amazing let's do it 😊.
Was fun to ride on the small 20 meter boat to Myken with quite some seawell and it going fast. Sitting on deck in the wind shade of the cockpit - Ahoi 🌊!
Now it is not far to Bodø and i'm making good distance. As i look around for a sleeping spot for the night i come across a few students on a camping trip. They asked me if i like to join and we spent the evening in front of the bonfire.
Got to Bodø the next day and slept in the hostel - one restday before going to Lofoten. The hostel is insode the train station - the furthest up train you can ride. From here on there are no fuether stations, the railroad ends here. Met Alwx again, he also staywd at the hostel, we passed each other abput a week earlier just before he had to take a break because of a cold.
Today i'll take the ferry from Bodø to Moskenes.
On the ride we saw Orca whales something I hope to never forget. They swim near the route the ferry takes, think they like to hunt the fishes and use the ferry as help stirring them up.
From Moskenes on Lofoten to eurovelo follows mostly the coastline along fishing villages and cliffs. I look for place to stake my tent on a cliff about 20 km outside of Moskenes. From a parking spot you can walk down the cliff and there are grass patches in between the boulders, just big enough to place the tent.
Next up is the first under sea tunnel. Was not a good expirience. It's dark, loud, all of lofotwns traffic passes through and in the beginning of it they route you on a one meter wide cycling / walking path. Everyting is full of black dust from cars, first theres the downhill part. Even with bike lights and a headlamp you hardly see well. Holes, car parts and rocks as additional surprises. Ones down you habe to climb up agai, about 7% incline - not too bad. Was it makes ugly os the defective top light making mean sine sounds, a constant beeeeep in your ear. The air is bad, it smells and oftwn you go blind because of cars coming your way.
When I got up there I had to sit down and just rest for half an hour. Had headache from the bad air down there – with that was looking forward to the big one at cape north...
The landscape is just amazing, now you know why people are so much drawn to it. Lofoten itself is kind of short, just three days along EV1 and your through.
After Lofoten it still is spectacular and additionaly you get the quiet of the nature reserves and nearly no tourists.
From there the landscape gets more diverse when you gwt to Senja and a bit denser and developed the closer you get to Tromsø.
Two long days, the first one camping and waiting for the ferry at Fjors and taking the first one in the morning getting up short before 06:00. Ferry took about two hours - then a ride from Fjors to Tromsø - 83km.
Tromsø is on a island sourrounded by mountains and connected by two large bridges. Want to do a bit of sightseeing, need to go and replace some clothing and the beard needs a cut - the birds living in it allready renting out B&B appartments.
Lets find a nice hotel and then ru to the next barbershop 💈💇♂️🧔🙃 - much better.
Found a great hotel - Amalie hotel Tromsø and stayed two nights there. The staff there is simple exceptional, very friendly bright and nice people. Was a joy to talk with them - Thanks for the stay, felt very welcoming.
Talkwd wuitw abit with the receptionist. He moved to norway when he was 14 years old. Talked about norway, racism their reluctance to get in contact or interraction with people - pretty much about everything. The short version: Racism is a huge problem in europe (inside and outside the EU). Nazis marching on the streets again and mistaking free speech as a tool to spread hate scares us - we need to stand up tall against it and accept it not a single bit!!!
Our modern world has no space for nazis and racism – we have other far more pressing issues to take care about, together as one family of planet earth!
My merino short needs a replacement, the locals like to ise it as fishing net allready.
And on we go on the European highway with cycle allowance - you can do better norway...🤨
Two ferries later arrived at night and driving along the coast searching for a place to sleep. Theres a hoking path going up the mountains, i'll follow that up in hope to find a good spot for thw tent - the first one is allready taken. I'll head a bit further up.
The euroveleo continues on the E6 with all the traffic and splits where the old E6 snakes up the mountains and I pause at the old place to rest - Yes cyclist are kot allowed through the new and shiny tunnel... well the view is better anyway 😃
The old resting place is nice, just sad that norway decided to close up the toilets and the hits there. Would be a really nice place instead. Its the national tourists route and euro velo. You want tourists there and market ot to be a paradise but here every chance is given away - feels like loads of places in norway: tourists (modern word for foreigners) are just moderatly welcome. No intereaction then it's mostly okay - norway loves its privacy...
... and as the last two toiletts were closes down as this one it seems i have to make a statement dump next to the toilett hut. Should have placed it in front of the closed door and the go, just to follow norways favorite sign: Dear tourists this is a resting area, please rest and the fuck off (writing is just a tad bit more ...formal).
170km to Alta, fjord mountains of death, beautiful and a bit steep (9%). Got a bit headache and my stomach is acting up. Should eat more but at this point I can't. In a few days it will be fine again.
The huts you see are old Sami houses an addition to their tents built in a similar way but protected by a layer of soil and grass.
Towards alta you ride for kilometers along a extremly beautiful fjord - rode till the night and enjoyed the sunset beeing alone on the road 😁.
The road the cyclists are allowed to take is missing a bit. You could get around it theough the forrest - was a bit of a pain to get the pike up there but it worked. The norwegian street agency / police forgot to place signs at the bypass and at the one side going to Alta. Cyclist beeing helpfull leaving suggestions at the sign the police placed after you've made uour way around. Was life risking they wrote...hmm dunno why you find it in that state for years as you can find pictures on the internet of it from back then.
In Alta it is time for bike maintenance - a new chain, bleed the brakes, change the oil and fasten some screws. Was happy when I saw that me calling ahead worked and the bike-shop reserved a chain for me and did the maitenance right away and well - thank you Sport 1 😃.
Alta is missing hostels but there is a nice campsite at Alta river 3,5 km outside of it. Stayed there, the place for tents is small and the snoring of my neighbors very strong. Aside from that it is very nice with everything there including a kitchen, sauna and a living room with sofas and spavw to play board games.
Was a funny expirience to move the bike through food courts and alo g fassion stores as the bike shop it an the second floor of Altas biggest mall.
Took a bit of help with translations as the mechanic just talked norwegian and africans bit after we got that donw hw made a great job on the bike maintenance and after he knew that im not just riding a small trip around town the bike got some extra attention and grease 🛠️ 🙃
Feels just as new, the chain nweds tobgwt uswd to bwwong moved by a bit used cogs but we get there.
...set sails to cape north, ARRRR 🏴☠️😁!!!