Only 2 weeks to go until I leave Eindhoven on my bike, heading north to the North Cape in Norway. I have done lots of training – getting fit and testing my equipment.
2013 Training. Map and gpx files
Here is a YouTube clip of my trip!
YouTube clip: Training 2013
In the summer of 2013 I am planning a long cycle trip from my home in the Netherlands to the North Cape via the Baltic countries.
Last year I put together my planned route country by country. Now I have just pieced all the pieces together in an updated total route. Spring is arriving, and the concrete preparations for the trip are approaching. A visa for Russia, last new equipment and my test runs on some of the long weekends coming up. Very exciting!
Here are the routes in the individual countries. Please let me know if you have any suggestions!
Today was a travelling day. First I went to the bike shop to loosen my pedals so I could remove them for the flight. Then I cycled to the airport in my full rain gear – the first time I had worn it at all. My rain shoes came in handy after all. I skirted around the edge of the Tromsøya island rather than climb over the hill and get sweaty.
At the airport I repacked everything and waved it goodbye at the checkin.
It was cloudy flying in to Svalbard. I only saw the mountains just before arrival. Stepping out of the plane was nice. Surrounded by looming barren mountains.
I was picked up by Sam: our guide from France. Gordon from Scotland and Steve from Australia were also there.
Evening involved a walk into ‘downtown’ Longyearbyen. We went shopping where I got the coolest shopping bag out.
Dinner at the Svalbar, and then a stroll back home.
Today was another feline day of sleeping and eating. It was too wet to do anything outdoors. I went to the bike shop and they fixed my now 2 (!) broken spokes (thanks InterSport for the very friendly service!!), went shopping for some stuff for Svalbard, and visited the Polar and the Tromsø museum. Thanks Per for the nice tour around the Tromsø museum!
I took some photos to give the atmosphere of this rainy summer’s (!) day. Dad and Valerie: maybe you recognize these places?
Tomorrow is Svalbard!! Yay!!
The cycle trip is over. *snif* The trip back to Tromsø was next and a short interlude in Tromsø before the second half of the holiday on Svalbard.
The Hurtigruten left Kjøllefjord at 3:30 am so we set our alarms for 1 am. It was going to be a day of unusual sleeping hours.
By the time we left the camping ground at 2 am, the weather had improved a lot. The short 8 km cycle to Kjøllefjord was lovely.
Just enough time to get changed and rearrange everything for the boat trip. Then our Hurtigruten: Nordkapp, arrived. (A very apt name..)
The trip was quite relaxing. I slept twice on a quiet sofa, once for 4 hours, and once for 2 hours. I chatted with various people, and took photos outside. I had a brief stop for lunch in Hammerfest with Chris where he left the Hurtigruten for his flight home.
The weather changed in the course of the day from lovely bright sunny weather to rainy, windy, cold weather. It was a lovely relaxing trip. Norway is a beautiful country.
I arrived at midnight in a wet and bleak Tromsø. Unfortunately it will stay like this the whole time I am here. I can’t complain about the weather I have had, though.
After a sleep in, play with the kids, and chat with Cristina and Andreas, I got onto the bike. It was already 13:30, and the wind had turned since yesterday, meaning that I would have more of a side wind than a tail wind. A shorter, less hilly route was called for, and I went more as the crow flies towards Eindhoven, passing through the tail of the Netherlands: rolling fields bursting with ripening wheat.
Fields bursting with wheat
A quicker route means also not going the absolute shorter route which inevitably means going directly up some steep hills and down the other side. I followed the Geul river which took me through the well known, and pretty Valkenburg. A good stop for a late lunch (even though I had only been going for 25km).
It was a long slow trip down a gentle slope to reach the Maas, where I crossed over the river and the border on a ferry.
Crossing the Maas and the border into Belgium
Me at the border crossing
From there it was following the same canal that I took on the way down to Maastricht and Aachen.
Island in the Maas canal
I seemed to have difficulty remembering which side of the canal I cycled down. I was positive that a string of detours weren’t there on the way down. Only after finishing a rather irritating detour which did a big 5km loop to bring me back about 100m further along the canal, did I realize that I was cycling on the other side of the canal. Still, the detour did bring me through some pretty landscape.
LIttle detour
A last little detour through the Malpie again before taking the direct route back home.
The Malpie in the evening
The roads were very quiet cycling through Eindhoven due to the football grand final. Even though Holland was not playing, it seems everyone was at home, and not out enjoying the wonderful weather.
Tromsø is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. I went there for the first time last christmas with my family. It was so amazing it motivated me to return in the summer, which I will be doing this summer – to see it in a very different ‘light’.
When we were there, the sun remained below the horizon. There was a short twilight period of about 3 hours where the sun approached the horizon, and the sky was a deep velvet blue. The sky nearest the sun turned pink and orange briefly around 12, heralding a sunrise that never came. The icy mountains as backdrop made a spectacular sight. By 14:00 it was all but black again.
In a few weeks I will passing Tromsø in 24 hour light on my bike. I am looking forward to seeing this beautiful city in the summer sun.
Well. This is now my second post, and my first with my iPhone.
This was taken on my run this morning to Helmond.
arctic-cycler.com 