Guest Blog: Bike-Packing Across Scandinavia (Days 21 and 22)

Day 21: Drammen, Norway (39 miles, 556 total miles, 1000 ft incline)

27 June 2024: Thursday

My ring finger and pinky on my right hand are going numb! Nerve damage from riding, gripping the handle bars. Both hands hurt the entire trip, fingers go numb. But the feeling comes back a few minutes after I hop down from the bike. Today, for the first time, my feeling doesn’t return. 

After the motorbike accident in Thailand, the flesh on my right shoulder was numb for more than a decade. But it has almost completely returned. 

In that tiny bunk, I had a hard time getting comfortable. The bunk is not much wider than my shoulders, nor much longer than me. To make matters worse, it is lodged in a corner and has a wooden lip all the way around it. So I can’t stretch out. 

The internet was not too good. Spotty at best. In the morning, it got so bad that I decided to leave early. Sitting at a McDonalds or coffee shop for an hour drinking coffee and guarding Heidi would be better than this.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was out, 65 degrees at the outset, no wind. I looked forward to the 1,000 foot incline over the next 39 miles. 

Cyclists old and young passed me all day long, as I creeped along, up hills, stopping to catch my breath, and pacing myself. There was no advantage to hurrying to arrive early only to sit at a coffee shop. 

Most of the route was along little-traveled, country roads that ran parallel to Europe 18 most of the way. After many days of struggling against the cold, the rain, the wind, and gloomy skies, I really welcomed the bright day. 

You know, I am beginning to think that this floppy hat-helmet thing I have going on may be really catch on. Beginning on my last ferry trip, I put on the helmet over the floppy hat. It protects my face from the sun better, warms my head when it is cool, and it saves space in my bags. 

I see myself as the next fashion designer for cyclist sports wear. Like they say, Necessity is the Father of Design. 

After having travelled 13 miles, I stopped at a busy gas station off E18 for a real break. Before I could lock Heidi to a picnic table, a thin, fit man about my age accosted me. He was eating an ice cream bar.

“Where do you come from?” he asked biting off a chunk of chocolate covered ice cream. 

“The United States,” I responded.

“But you didn’t come from there last night?” He was very friendly.

I explained my route. How far I had come in the past 21 days.

“How many kilometers?” He was genuinely curious. 

“About 750 or 800 so far,” I told him.

He explained that he lived just a few miles from here. And last year at the age of 66, he rode a bicycle from northern Norway to southern Norway in 17 days. 

“3,000 kilometers,” he said. About 2,000 miles.

A chunk of ice cream fell onto the sidewalk. 

“200 kilometers some days,” he said. That would be 135 miles. 

“Wow!” I said. “That’s a lot.”

He shrugged and pointed to my bike. 

“I had thin tires.” Road tires are faster on black top. “And I had a bag like this,” he said pointing to the under-the-seat bag, “but I didn’t have all this fancy gear.” He meant the Insta 360 camera, front bag, and other bags.

“Today is good… but tomorrow it is going to rain. Take it easy tomorrow,” he said and departed. 

I locked Heidi to one of the three picnic tables. All three were in the sun. There was an old man sitting in the last one eating an ice cream bar. There was a motorbike parked in front of it. I assume it was his. A couple walked past, each eating an ice cream bar. In fact, almost everyone was eating an ice cream bar at 11 am in the morning. 

I guess given the long, dark winters, come bright sunny days in the 70s, people must take every advantage of the warmth to enjoy an ice cream bar. A nation after my own heart!

I ordered a sausage inside and added a bottle of Pepsi Max (my go-to drink in Scandinavia). In fact, I noticed more people here drink Pepsi Max than Pepsi. Even kids automatically choose it. Maybe parents prefer the zero sugar. 

I sat inside the AC where I could watch Heidi and ate my sausage. Then I took my time drinking my PM. I was in no hurry to get back outside. 

So after about 20 minutes, I unlocked Heidi, reinstalled my camera and iPhone in the plastic cover where I could see the route on the GPS, and I peddled away. 

But Karen Jacobson, the voice behind Google Maps, immediately took me down a gravel road, up a big incline to a lane that ended at someone’s house. I doubled back to the main road and plowed on. Karen provides really good directions most of the time, indispensable, but you must temper that guidance with a keen common sense analysis of the route. 

Before long, I popped up over a hill to capture the stunning view of the village of Holmestrand and its fjord. Strand in Norwegian means beach. And fjord is this long, narrow finger of water pressed into a valley by a long forgotten hand of glacier. It was breathtaking.  

The next 30 minutes, I peddled through the village and along the shore through a hodgepodge of old homes and city structures matched with modern apartments and shoppers, dog walkers, and exercise enthusiasts.  Outside the town, the road began to climb, but I didn’t mind much, as I breathed in the fresh air, the beauty, and the experience.

When I had covered 27 miles, I was exhausted. It was not a lot of fun. The 75 degree heat and the incline had indeed taken more out of me than I remembered. On my side of the road, there was no shade. No respite from the sun. I know that this temperature is not extreme. Nothing like the US is experiencing now, but it is a factor. 

Once I got going to my maximum speed, probably 20 mph or less, when suddenly a large bug smashed into my temple, pinned between my flesh and my floppy hat-helmet. It stung me. And it hurt. I wobbled, went into the grass, felt myself losing control, and weaved back onto the shoulder and slowed myself to a stop. I removed the floppy hat-helmet, but the insect was long gone. 

At the next gas station, I locked up Heidi at a tall recycling bin and went inside to buy an ice cream bar. How in the world can you enjoy the Norwegian culture without tasting the Nordic experience.

I found a nice spot on a wooden pallet of some type of engine fluid, and bit into the marvel. 

Yuck! I almost spit it out. Licorice ice cream. Who in their right mind would make licorice ice cream. I hate licorice. I jettisoned it straight into the trash receptacle along with discarded oil rags and disposable infant diapers. 

Back inside, I couldn’t take the chance with ice cream bars once again, so I ordered a soft serve cone with a hard chocolate cover. It was huge. I should have sat inside, but there were only two tables, and one man was eating a fast food meal, and I stank so I stepped outside in the shade. 

Immediately, my cone began to melt.

A Norwegian cyclist in this 50s immediately accosted me. Same friendly questions as before. Same answers.

He had just ridden 40 miles for exercise and had about 6 more to go. 

I wouldn’t have minded the conversation but I had a vanilla soft serve ice cream dripping all over my hand and onto the sidewalk. 

Finally, realizing my struggle to beat the heat, he said, “I will let you eat your ice cream” and he pushed his bike to the other side of the door.

I began tackling my cone, but it was a losing battle. I had ice cream all over my mustache, goatee, both hands. Drips were running down my legs. I got down to the waffle cone and tossed the rest in the garbage. I washed myself up best I could with water from my used water bottle that I have been carrying since Sweden, and went back inside to use the restroom and clean myself more thoroughly. 

The only unisex bathroom was occupied, so I left.

The next hills were hard, but my legs post-soft serve seemed to have a little more energy than pre-soft serve. The warmest time of the day. It would eventually reach 77 degrees, but not before I reached Drammen. At the city limits, I reached a stretch of slight decline for miles. It was fun. I began enjoying myself again. 

When I reached the Drammenselva River, a man in his 50s fell off of his electric scooter onto the pavement. Even at a speed of 8-10 mph, he managed to hang onto this mobile phone. 

I stopped to help. 

“Are you OK?”

He laughed with embarrassment. “Yes, I am fine.”

I checked again, but he smiled and gave me the same answer. Then sped away. 

After just over five hours on the road, I arrived at the Forenom serviced apartments. They have no staff on site. Everything is done electronically, key codes into the building, elevator (floors 2-4), and room. Communication is all done by chat, or in extreme cases, phone. But I was over nearly 90 minutes early, so I rode around the central plaza, lined with outdoor cafes, shops, and park benches. Milling about were an array of tourists and scrubby-looking locals, who appear to survive on the hustle. 

I found a bar on a side street, locked up Heidi, and ordered a Coke Zero. I sat outside and checked my messages. A new one came in that gave me the code for the room. I finished up my drink, unlocked Heidi and then drove to the apartment building. 

The entrance confused me. It was through the gate of a German-style restaurant and pub. I pushed Heidi up the first half dozen steps to the main floor hoping an elevator was next. Instead, I found a bar.

So, I carried Heidi up to the second floor, where there was an elevator to service floors 2-4. But the elevator wouldn’t accept my code. Did that mean that I couldn’t get into the room till 4 pm? It was only a little after 3 pm. 

Alas, I had to carry Heidi up to the 3rd floor, grateful that I was not assigned a room on the 4th. And much to my surprise, my code worked. 

It is hard to express my happiness with the ability to enter my room and store Heidi safely nearly an hour before check-in at no additional charge. 

I showered and washed my clothes by hand and hung them up to dry in the bathroom. Then I walked to the supermarket and bought a frozen lasagna dish and some other supplies. 

Back at the room, I heated up the “meal” in the microwave (the apartment has no oven) and ate what was one of the worst lasagna meals I have ever had. I was still hungry, so I made popcorn, ate the rest of my peanuts, and granola, grapes, and blueberry yogurt. 

And I read about 100 pages in Winter World. I am glad it is the first in the trilogy. The 450 pages in this book won’t be enough. 

I stayed awake till almost 9 pm, but then crashed. 

10 Tollbugata, Drammen, 3044 ($92 including tax)

Day 22: Oslo (29 miles, 585 total miles, 1390 feet)

28 June 2024: Friday

Norway is a rich country. Norway’s government does not have a national deficit. In 2023, the country reported a surplus of over 16 percent of its Gross Domestic Product. In other words, the government spends considerably less than the revenue it generates.  

The Nordic country is wealthy with petroleum. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Norway suddenly became the top oil producer to Europe and the fourth leading producer of natural gas in the world.  

This translates into a rich economy, high wages for Norwegians. The subsequently high prices go unnoticed by locals but sting tourists like me. 

When I tried to book a hotel in Oslo, the capital of Norway, I was stunned by crazy costs. I finally landed on the smallest hotel room on the trip with no amenities for $175/night. Nearly double what I paid in Copenhagen or Stockholm. 

It has rained all night and was pouring down while I drank my coffee. The rain stopped about 9 am, and by 10:25 am, I was back on the road. I realized that this could be my most physically taxing day, with an incline of nearly 1400 feet over 29 miles. But as long as it was dry and I remained safe, I could make it. 

Yesterday, when I rode through the downtown plaza, my camera was dead. So this morning before heading off to Oslo, I pedaled around the plaza once just to capture the mosaic of restaurants, shops, tourists, locals, park, and statues. Each of these Norwegian cities has an its own unique plaza. 

Leaving town was a convoluted route that led me into traffic over the Drammenselva River onto the tiny industrial Island of Holmen and over the river again. The pedaling was hectic. I had to keep my wits about me. But most drivers were courteous. 

Towards the outskirts of town, I stopped to catch my breath. I noticed the big hill that sat between Drammen and Oslo. I would have to go over it, I suspected. 

Some authorities consider hills over 2000 feet to be mountains. This hill is about half that. For the next 90 minutes, I climbed. I rode as long as I could, and then I pushed. When the incline was really gradual, I peddled again. I stopped, sat down, and rested at bus stops along the way. Each time that I thought I had reached the top, I found more incline just around the corner. 

At one point, I got on the side of the road with no bike lane or shoulder by mistake while traveling up hill in heavy traffic. So I decided to stop, dismount Heidi, and wait in a lull in traffic to cross over to the bike path on the other side of the road. The problem was that I had just turned a corner, so I couldn’t see the traffic coming in my lane until it was almost upon me.

When I finallly found what I thought was a pause, I started across only to find more cars. One Norwegian woman driver lifted her hand and made a face as if to ask, “What is this idiot doing?”

Can’t blame her. 

But after she passed, I got across safely and peddled on.

While I was going up, I noticed many thrill-seeking adventurists racing down the hill on bicycles or roller-skis. The roller skiers use two poles to propel themselves forward while skating on two thin roller-skis that resemble thin scooters. Naturally, there are cyclists and enthusiasts who travel down the hill like I do with caution. But you can identify those athletes who are out for the rush. The cyclists lean their faces down toward the handlebars to minimize wind resistance and maximize speeds.

When I finally reached the top of the hill, the GPS told me that I had risen about 850 feet over a distance of about 3 miles. A normal comfortable day would be covering that same incline over 40 miles.

It was nearly lunchtime, so I felt that I had earned myself a bacon-wrapped sausage. I purchased one from a nice young man in a gas station and went outside to find a place to sit. There was none, so I ate the sausage standing up, not my favorite way to dine, but beggars…

Back on the road, I didn’t find the decline that had hoped. The road dropped more gradually, with short hills that I had to climb. At times there was no bike lane or even a shoulder. I had to battle for my space like all the rest of the vehicles.

From that point forward, however, I was largely traveling down hill. There were inclines, naturally, but the hard part of the ride was over. And I was grateful that I still could make such a journey. My body could do it. My mind could do it. 

The sausage reward is an amazing motivator! You should try it some time. 

As I approached Oslo, I saw a lady walking on the opposite side of the road, dressed in a black, wide-brimmed sun hat, veil, and long dress. At first, I thought she was in a witch’s costume. Intentionally or otherwise, she covered her face with her white gloves, as if adjusting her hat as I passed her. Perhaps she was in mourning. Who knows!

I flowed into Oslo about four hours into my journey at roughly 7 mph. Not too bad at all. I rode through a series of breathtaking plazas, buzzing with activity, vendors, tourists snapping photos, locals commuting to or from work, and people of all ages flashing through the crowds on electric scooters and bicycles.

I got to the hotel maybe 20 minutes before check-in at 3pm. But they gave me no argument. Gave me my wooden room keycard, and told me that if I wanted breakfast, I should order it now at the low price of $19.50; otherwise it would cost $25 tomorrow.

The room was the tiniest I have stayed in on this trip. But worst of all, it has no electric kettle, coffee maker, or microwave to make my own morning coffee. And coffee here is at least $5 per cup. I knew I would drink at least four cups tomorrow morning and four the following morning. So, I walked nearly two miles round trip to buy a cheap electric kettle to heat water in the morning. It was $15. I will try to pack it and take it with me as long as I can. And when I can’t anymore, I will leave it. I still have saved $25.

I bought some groceries and headed back figuring I would come across a sandwich shop and buy something to take back to the room. But city construction had blocked off several main thoroughfares of commerce and tourism. And I didn’t want to backtrack, so I took what I thought would be a shorter route. But it turned out being much longer. And there were no sandwich shops. Instead, I ate yogurt and granola, a small bag of spicy peanuts, and a few dried mango slices for supper. I was too tired to go back out. 

I forced myself to stay awake till 9 pm and finish Winter World. I downloaded the second book in the series, The Solar War. I look forward to starting that tomorrow when I get back from the train station.  

St. Olavs gate 26, Oslo, 0166 ($174/night including tax)