Guest Blog: Bike-packing across Scandinavia at 64 (Days 5 and 6)

Day 5: Asljunga (27 miles, 164 total)

11 June 2024: Tuesday

My 40th wedding anniversary!  

The dilemma today is whether to wait till noon to start riding, and get there maybe at 4 or 5 pm when it is warmed and potentially miss the rain or to leave early when it is chillier and when the showers are forecast? So far, the weather forecasts have not been accurate. 

I hate riding in the afternoon. I also hate riding in the rain and the cold. Even sitting here in the kitchen of Johan’s AirBnb, I have the radiators on. My feet are cold. It is 48 outside. 

I was dreading the day. Forecasts were calling for rain all morning. I was tired of being cold. But somehow I packed up and was standing in the yard at 7:20 am. 

Amazingly, there was no wind. The sun was shining and no rain in sight. With refreshed legs, I bulled over the blacktop south, probably at times going 15-20 mph. I met a few hills, but they were manageable. Within an hour, I was nearly halfway. 

Only once did drizzle appear, permeating through my jacket for about 20 minutes and that was it. My whole upper body was wet, but I felt really good. I took a bike path that was nice, and then it turned into a dirt path, and eventually, I got back onto the main road. 

I got through 26 miles with no incident, but the last 3/4 mile was all hill. I rode some and pushed some. Finally I arrived around 10:40 am or so, making my average speed of just under 8 mph. 

Rakhi and Nimish, a couple from India who has lived the past 20 years in Sweden, just bought the Nature Shelter Hotel this year. They added an Indian cuisine to the menu. When I arrived, I met a German customer in the parking lot who seemed extremely interested in my ride. She and her partner were driving up to Stockholm with their dog. Patrick, the Swedish gardener, was painting the front doors black. He was very friendly. Helped me take my bike in a side entrance and park it in the hall. Rakhi was in the kitchen when I arrived. She told me, “I am the one who wrote you yesterday,” referring to my request to check in about noon.

“I got here early. Sorry,” I said. 

I told her, “Apke milkar se, mujhe bohot khushi hui,” which means, “I am happy to meet you.” This brought big smiles to the faces of her and the Nepali manager. 

They told me it would be a while before the room was ready, which was fine by me. I just wanted coffee to warm up. My shirt and coat were still soaked. Fortunately my legs and feet were dry. 

A Nepali couple operate the hotel; the wife cooks and serves and runs the desk while the husband runs the desk, serves, and attends to other hotel needs.

Nimish was sitting four steps down in the coffee lounge, on his lap top drinking a cup of tea. He was also very friendly. Told me his son had just graduated and would be attending business school in Copenhagen next term. Before that, he, his wife, and two sons would travel to San Francisco for two weeks. 

I ordered mutton Biriyani and a mango lassi and changed from my wet shirt into a dry one. Immediately, I felt much warmer. Imagine that!

A small Swedish woman in her 50s who walked almost as fast as I ride, breezed in and out of the restaurant. At one point, she told me that my room was ready. I am sure she was friendly too. As she flashed through the restaurant, I even think I saw a smile or two. 

The food was very good. I retired to the room with Heidi. For $55/night, you get a very plain room, to “twin” beds, which are much narrower than the twins in the US. More like soft cots. No fridge or microwave. No TV. Not that the last places had TVs that worked either. Comfortable enough, though. I dozed off and woke a little while later. Caught up on some work (downloaded photos, wrote, booked a room at Helsingborg for tomorrow.)

Around 4:30 pm, I went back to the restaurant and ordered curry. It was good as well. I paid for everything and asked if it was possible to get coffee before the 7 am start of breakfast. I explained that I usually get up around 4 am. The nice Nepali cook told me she would make coffee before she went to bed. 

Back at the room, I streamed the newest season of Fargo, and checked the weather. The forecast went from no rain at all to two hours of rain in the morning. I fell into a heavy sleep around 8 pm.  

Day 6: Helsingborg, Sweden (39 miles, 203 total miles)

12 June 2023: Wednesday

When can you really be yourself?

I wrote my bachelor’s thesis on language personalities, how and why your personality changes when you speak a second language. At the time, I was not aware of anything published on the topic, but I believe since then, there has been. But there was plenty written about situation personalities. 

When talking to our minister, we show one dimension of ourselves. To our children, another. Our spouse, yet another. Our bosses, strangers, auto mechanic, customer service representative to solve a problem over the phone, banker when applying for a loan, all different sides of our personality. 

But when would you say that you are genuinely, 100% yourself? Maybe all those different behaviors are pieces of ourselves, but we are always reacting to social situations, right?

On my bicycle, I am genuinely myself. I am free from all social encumbrances. I am exerting physical and mental effort to peddle up the hill, to fight the cold, ignore the rain, rest when I feel it is appropriate. I think about the distance to go, challenge myself, coerce myself, push on and on. When I reach a hill, I cheerlead. I keep my own spirits up. 

Perhaps for an introvert, this is a time to reset. I am not parenting. Not coaching or motivating staff. Not negotiating at work. Not being a problem solver at home. Or attempting to be a better spouse. 

Hannah, Christian’s wife, is going on a silent retreat, where she won’t talk or have access to electronics for 23 hours per day. During the remaining hour, she will have a one-on-one session with a retreat coach. 

That is a hard reset. 

On Heidi, I am myself. I curse out loud if my bike falls. I smile and wave to pedestrians. I admire livestock, wildlife, bodies of water, farmland, forests, bridges, cabins, cottages, and on and on. I enjoy the seclusion of a room. To read, write, or stream something. To be alone with my thoughts. More than the just nightly reset that we introverts do every night by retiring to our room. On this trip, I am fully into myself. In my own head, coaching, pushing, reflecting. I take off my supervisor and mentor hat, remove my grandparent vest, sit down my project management clipboard, and just return to the child I am. The teenager I feel I am most of the time before looking in the mirror. A hard reset. 

I skipped breakfast to beat the rain, handing in my key and rolling down the big hill at 6:50 am. The first few minutes of a ride always requires some adjustment. You adjust to the cold (51 degrees), make sure you have your lights on (I didn’t), helmet strapped (I didn’t), tired, and reunite with the pavement. You must become reacquainted with the atmosphere of the road. Checking the GPS. Watching for traffic. Making sure you are safe.

The first 15 miles or so went very smoothly. Much of it was down hill. Wind wasn’t bad. No rain. I stopped to catch my breath many times. Made a couple of good sized hills. Outside a village, I saw a horse with a weed stuck to his mane. She allowed me to get close enough to remove it. 

A couple villages further, I found an ICA. I locked Heidi and went inside. The place was lousy with old fogies like me. This is the time we shop, I guess. While the rest of the world is working. I looked for coffee, but there was none. None in any ICA that I have ever seen. I thought about sending the management of ICA an email recommending coffee. Imagine the market they are missing. 

Instead, I grabbed a Coke Zero and a couple of day old pastries that were on sale, and went to the checkout line. An old guy at least 75 eased his cart half full of mostly sweets (guy after my own heart) in front of me. I had two items, but he didn’t offer to let me go. We waited a good two minutes for the two clerks to settle some pricing crisis over cigarette lighters or something. One of the clerks started scanning his items. This was gonna take some time. I wanted to eat and get back on the road, but I told myself to be patient. 

I walked back about two steps to search the candy selection for an energy bar. There were none, so I snatched the next best thing: Marabou chocolate. Christian introduce me to it. He said this is the last Swedish chocolate company selling in the Russia. The others pulled out. Despite their politics, their products are phenomenal. 

I was gone less than 60 seconds, but when I returned, a lady had appeared in front of me. I began to feel like I was the protagonist in a Mr. Bean short. 

After the clerk had rung up all of the old guy’s sweets, he decided it was about the right time to get his credit card out. But that darn thing didn’t want to come out. He struggled for about a minute. Once it was out, he scanned it, and he punched numbers, but it wouldn’t work. He and the clerk had a lengthy, yet friendly, discussion in Swedish, while the rest of us waited in agony. He looked at the card reader, they talked, he punched buttons. Finally after a good two minutes, she took the card from him, and scanned it herself. 

Outside, I parked Heidi in a corner near the loading dock, and I sat on a huge stone and ate my two pastries. I took a sip of the Coke Zero and put it in my backpack. It was not a good substitute for coffee when you are eating day-old pastries. 

When I got Heidi out of the corner and started to climb on her, I noticed the front wheel was wobbly. Shit!

Indeed, it was very, very loose. I had never had that happen on any bike anywhere. I tightened it up, very grateful that I noticed it now. That could have spelled disaster had I gone much farther. I promised myself that I would check both the front and back wheels at least once a day in the future. 

Just a few miles farther, a shower drenched me. It was 54 degrees, but I was soaked and cold. I had two choices. Find a shelter and hope that the rain stopped in the near future. Or plug along. 

You probably know already my decision. 

It came down pretty hard for about an hour and 20 minutes. In fact, I hit the trifecta: 14 mph headwinds, strong showers, and cold (54 degrees). Then it eased up to a mist. With exactly 10 miles to go, it started raining even harder. 

Fortunately, I was at a roundabout where there was a McDonalds. It was only about 10:30 am, but I needed a break from the rain, and I needed to get warm. 

So, I parked Heidi under a huge umbrella over four outdoor tables, and I went inside and bought some cheeseburger with Swedish meatball sauce. I removed my backpack and coat, but there was no chance of getting dry. The warm interior temperature did help though. 

It was not easy to get back on Heidi and brave the cold, but I did. The way I figured it, I had 10 miles to go when I stopped off to get warm, and a half hour later, I still had 10 miles to go. It was not going to get any shorter on its own. The only way forward was peddle by peddle. 

At least the rain had stopped, for now, but looked like it could downpour any moment. The brutal wind pummeled me. 

I came across these fields of plants with branches. Unlike any I had seen before. I wanted to take a photo to learn what they were, but my camera was locked away, and my phone was under plastic protection. My curiosity only takes me so far when I am cold and wet. 

A police officer who stood at an intersection, clocking vehicle speeds. He pointed his radar gun directly at me, and I thought he was joking because the wind ensured that I didn’t break 8 mph. But he must have been looking at the car behind me.

When I reached him, I greeted him, and he gave me a half-hearted greeting and walked right past me to wave a car down a road to a nearby village, where I can only assume his colleague awaited with a ticket pad. 

“Do you know what that is in the field?” I asked him, pointing to the unusual plant.

He laughed, “I don’t really know. You can go ask the owners up there.” He pointed to the house across the field. 

I thanked him and peddled on. I later learned that these are rapeseed fields, I think, but the yellow flowers hadn’t bloomed yet. Used to make vegetable oil. 

The last couple of miles was nice again, just as I entered the city. I rode through a network for sophisticated blacktop bike paths that led me through apartment complex after apartment complex. I saw many bikers, some people on electric scooters, people walking dogs, and many mothers and fathers pushing strollers. 

The same network led me right down town onto the cobblestone street, where I found the Hotell Stadsparken ($65/night). 

It was about 12:30 pm.

Noor, a nice, young Arab woman with a hospitable smile, checked me in. I greeted her in Arabic, but I think this embarrassed her. Maybe in the work setting, she is trying to assimilate to the extent that she can with the hijab. 

I left the bike upstairs and realized I was out of clean clothes. The older woman named Shitza (sp?), in her 50s perhaps, helped me book another day, and arranged for my clothes to be picked up tomorrow. It was an effort because I had originally booked with Orbitz for $65/night, but the hotel’s price was $110/night. Plus, it wanted to give me a different room. So she told me she would match tomorrow’s rate, which was $71/night; I found it and showed it to her. She apologized many times for the delay. She was always smiling and friendly. She loved her job and was good at it. An Asian girl of maybe 22 years old, who worked primarily in the kitchen, came out and helped Shitza while Noor handled calls and other customers. They were all hospitable.

Eventually, she got the extra day for the $71/night and kept me in the same room.

I felt safe and warm, and the extra day of rest in this nice hotel was a reward after six days of riding and five straight days of getting rained on.

I walked over to Central Station, where you catch buses, trains, and ferries, and bought some snacks. Then I landed in a kebab restaurant near the hotel to eat a burger. Mistake. It was a thin frozen patty.

Back at the room, I streamed the rest of Fargo Season Five and kept myself awake up until nearly 9 pm.

Just the way I roll.