Escape from boredom

Yesterday evening I had to change tires on my bike, good thing since it was a lot of snow this morning.

Last Sunday the weather forecast said heavy rain, but when I woke up the weather was pretty nice – so I headed out with my bike in a hurry. Have not been to Røverkollen this year, so I had to grab the chance before winter gets here. Pictures taken from the small tower next to the tv tower, view towards Groruddalen

And view towards Nittedal

Heading home I went over Årvollåsen.

The weather has been amazing today, and after having spent the whole day inside together with Anders who once again is sick I just had to take my bike and race trough Trulsrunden before Elin should head of to SATS. Halfway trough (see this clip at 0:30 to see where) my front wheel got jammed and I had to jump off my bike. My knee did hurt quite much, had to stop for some minutes before checking my bike realizing that the back wheel did not spin as it should. Realized the disk was totally messed up, but not worse than it did allow me to ride my bike back home. So no MTB tomorrow…

Last Sunday I attended in Stomperudrittet. 37 kilometers with plenty of mud, mud and more mud. Due to heavy rain the last month in fact it was really heavy conditions, tires where sucked down into the mud in a way I had never experienced before. Even going downhill on the fields were really heavy and I was not able to gain any speed at all, in fact running was almost as easy. But – very much fun also.

My plan was to film before start and afterwards, since my friends Anders and Lars also attended, but I did not bother. Only thing I had in my mind when I had passed the finish line was to clean my bike and then myself. And when at home I even had to flush them using the garden hose.

Hoping for better conditions next year.

OBS-varsel for Vestfold, Østfold og Buskerud, Oslo og Akershus:I natt og fram til søndag formiddag lokalt kraftige byger med store nedbørverdier.

Google translate translates this into:

OBS alert for Vestfold, Østfold and Buskerud, Oslo and Akershus: Last night until Sunday morning locally heavy showers with heavy rain values.

And I’m about to participate in Stomperudrittet…looking forward to it…not really sure

Needed a new bike in a hurry, bought the cheapest one available at XXL having hydraulic disc brakes.

Quite ok, need to replace the seat sometime, it is to big and soft.

Yesterday I attended Knapperrittet, 42 kilometers on gravel and tractor roads at Knapper in Nord-Odal. Elin and the kids joined me, since both start and finish are located at the same place, and since I did not plan to spend more than about 1 hour and 40 minutes they could manage to wait. Elin took a picture of me and the boys just minutes before start. Since my rear wheel is broken I had borrowed Espens bike which is light, fast and expensive 🙂

Quite pleased with myself, managed to hang in there with the guys in lead for almost 15 minutes, and passed the finish line at 1:31:54. Finished as #11 of 27, also good since I always want to be on the upper half of the result list.

Added an extra element of tension since I totally forgot a spare tube.

After work last Tuesday me and two of my colleagues, Leiv Ole and Phil, took our bicycles and headed for Svelvik. Svelvik, known for many things, but most of all for the shortest ferry trip in Norway. Weather forecast was pretty nice and we had our share of luck, many places the roads where wet after rain showers, but it did not rain on us at all. See the GPS track here http://sykkelspor.no/node/914.

I have also created a draft for an article to be published on our intranet at work, available here

Filmed a short clip when on the ferry

[video:youtube:TB45dd-_QRE]

I must admit looking at the increase in workouts for the past 30 days are amazing, but sad but true…the last 30 days have been as it should be, the previous 30 days with almost no workouts…bad!

This picture (opens in new window) is showing the gps track of my bike ride today, or at least the most important part which was from where I started at Skillingsfors using my mtb riding forest roads back home to Norway. Skipping the last part which was only boring transport along the road back to Løken. I’ve also added some numbers which I will refer to when commenting the pictures.

1) Just a picture of a random part of the road right after I had left Skillingsfors, nice place.

2) View of Askesjön

3) Askesjön, the sign just before I turned away from the road and headed for the forest.

4) Headed for the forest right next to the car

5) Nice forest road, not that wet, kinda strange considering the heavy rain the days before today.

6) Only part I had to push the bike, a bit to steep and slippery.

7) Flat out…

8) Gravel road almost all the way to the border.

9) Not sure what has happened to the elk, but it was a lot of fur here

10) Stopped by the cabin which is on the edge of Krokvatnet on the Swedish side looking towards north. I need to get up there to cross the border.

10) A bit worried, all the time it is pretty much water in the lake, just look at the floating dock.

10) Not exactly mint conditions for riding my bike, but I only needed to carry it for about 300 meters.

11) Looking cross the border towards Norway.

11) And now I’ve crossed the border and trying to remember Sweden … by taking a picture of the last view of the country

11) If ever coming from Norway and want to follow in my footsteps (bike trail), just look for this tower and take hard left just after you have passed it.

11) The border is in the stream

The forest road in Norway had quite large rocks, making my ride slow going both up and downhill.

The rocks in a much closer view

The forest road ended (or starts, it all depends) just about 7-800 meters after the war memorial along national highway #21 heading for Rømskog.

Find some more tips at Terrengsykkel.no (in Norwegian)