The Lonely Cyclist heading out for a great nordic bike tour adventure

I have for the last few years spent part of my vacation bike touring, the last year 2017 was different, I was not able to get out for even a mini-tour. I spent last year with my ailing father, the family is important and they go before any bike rides. 2018 is a different story, I’m getting on my bike and will do a bike tour of the Nordic countries.

I’m glad that I still can bike, 17 years ago I came down with the Guillain Barre Syndrome that made me partially paralyzed, I still have symptoms from the time I had Guillain Barre Syndrome. Getting out on a bike ride is fantastic, and the Nordic bike tour will be a great ride.

It’s a 3 stage ride, each stage includes multi-day rides. I’m not camping out, instead, I will stay most nights in Airbnb. For about 20 Euro a night you get a bed, a shower, breakfast and you meet amazing people, that beats out camping, where you have to find a place to camp, set up a tent, cook a meal and I do not need to bring camping gear.

Stage 1 – Amsterdam to Bergen, Norway

Stage 1 is fairly flat tills I reach Norway, I will take a Ferry from Hirtshals, Denmark to Larvik, Norway. From Larvik, I will be climbing up to Geilo, and after Geilo, it will be more downhill to Bergen.

In Bergen I will jump on board Hurtigruten a daily passenger and freight shipping service, that will sail along Norway’s western and northern coast from Bergen to Kirkenes. My intel says that there is a gym on board, so I will keep my fitness up. This journey will take 6 days and I will be enjoying the beauty of the Norwegian landscape and fjords.

Stage 2 – Kirkenes, Norway to Stockholm, Sweden

I will be joined by one of my sisters,  from Kirkenes, we will cross into Finland, and we are biking to Junosuando, in Sweden. As you can see on the Map Junosuando is a bit of a detour – there is a purpose behind this detour.

Junosuando is a small village with around 350 inhabitants, Junosuando is located on the banks of Torne river and located 140 km north of the Article Circle. It was founded in 1637 by a direct forefather to me. This is my ancestors homestead on my mothers’ side, I spent every summer here as a child/teenager.

This time I will only stay for a few days, meeting up with family. My sister will end her bike ride here, from Junosuando to Stockholm I will be on my own. I will follow the rivers and coastline down to Turku, Finland, which will be fairly flat. In Turku, I will take a ferry over to Stockholm.

Stage 3 – Stockholm to Amsterdam

I will stay in Stockholm for a few days, before the ultimate stage ride back home to Amsterdam, nothing spectacular – should be a fairly easy ride with some rolling hills south of Stockholm down towards Jönköping. Some short ferry rides, Helsingborg to Helsingör and Rödby to Puttgarden.

I will probably bike close to 4,000 kilometers on this trip, what I learned from previous trips, keeping a blog going during a trip is not easy. Instead, I will use social media, I will be posting pictures on Instagram which will automatically update my twitter account and my Facebook page.

All the products that you will see in pictures that I post, clothing, helmet, camera, mobile phone, drone are all available on Cycletrippin and endorsed by me.

BigData

And for the BigData nerds, I have created a tracking map that shows my current position on any given day.

The map was created with Google Data Studio, that reads data from a BigQuery table

My question is: how did I create the data for my current location?

I give you a hint, a few years ago I developed a series of mobile apps Bike Guides for cities that I have passed through on my bike touring journeys. Each Bike Guide App was just limited to an area around 50 km around a city, they were not very useful if you were bike touring. Starting two years ago, I lay down a product plan to face out the Bike Guides for the Ultimate Bike Guide.

The goal was to create one Bike Guide app, that will be working anywhere in the world, “almost” any location.   I have now a Beta version available, that I will beta test during my bike tour. The mobile app will provide all navigational support, weather forecast, and a chat function to keep me up-to-date with family and friends.

The features of the app are as shown in this menu screenshot.

There are more punch to the app than what you can see from a picture if you are interested to try it out let me know. As the file is not available on Google Play Store, you need to be careful when downloading a file from an unknown source.

How to install the Android version

  1. Make a purchase for the Android version
  2. Make sure that your security setting is set to “Allow from 3rd party”
  3. When the purchase receipt email is received, open it in your Android mobile phone.
  4. Click the link as shown here: 
  5.  That will start the download
  6. When completed install the app
  7. Any issue with the app or bugs found – just contact me.

Have a great summer


Posted

in

, ,

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *