Things I don’t want to repeat

  1. Being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a flat and no tools, forcing me to walk several miles in bicycle shoes (last Sunday).
  2. Losing a contact 40 km from home, having to pick it up from the asphalt and try to put it in again (this Sunday).

I have a checklist for going on bike trips because I always forget something. But I left it in the office. I’m sure “spare contacts” weren’t on it, but I’m definitely adding them after today.

The cycle computer I got for last Christmas has passed the 2,000 km mark, and I’m planning a trip to Heidelberg for next weekend. I hope the weather will be as gorgeous as it was today.

Stranger in a Strange Land: Cycling

The most important thing among the 20 kilos of luggage I was allowed to bring on the plane was my beloved bike. I may have a rather small selection of clothes and books as a result (the rest of my stuff may be coming here in late August), but I get to exercise after work.

Cycling in Germany is different from cycling in Norway. To start with, there are more choices of roads – Germany is basically a lot of roads with people in between, where Norway is a lot of mountains with almost no good place to put a road.

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Race Day!


Today is the big day I’ve been preparing for: Styrkeprøven, the bike race. 5,000 crazy Norwegians are going from either Trondheim (540 km), Lillehammer (190 km) or Eidsvoll (60 km) to Oslo on bicycles. Our train to Lillehammer goes in 2 hours with Morten, Eilef and me on board.

I am not feeling at the top of my game this morning, but I think I can do this. I haven’t cycled this long since I was 17, and certainly haven’t tried to do it in under 8 hours, ever. Also, the weather is bad – it’s been pouring all day yesterday and the forecast for today says more rain for both Lillehammer and Oslo. We’ll probably be riding in the rain, and definitely on wet roads.

Wish me luck. I’m a nervous wreck.

Bicycles in Oslo

Bikes
Morten showed me this article by David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) about bicycling in NYC: Link. I wholeheartedly agree with him. Bicycling is the best way to get around in any town. I’ve cycled in a couple of cities (London was scary), and the alertness you need to navigate through traffic coupled with the sense of superiority because you’re faster than the gridlocked cars is a wonderful drug.

Two things stuck in my head: One, he calls the painted-on bike lanes “imaginary bike lanes”, and that is true for Oslo, too. They are generally treated by motorists as a parking lane and by everyone else as a dumping ground for glass bottles. With a racing bike and sensitive tires, it’s best to ignore their existence entirely.

Secondly, I liked the mayor of Bogota: “If an eight year old kid can’t ride on it safely then it isn’t a bike lane.” I wonder how many city planers would let their eight year old child take a trip on the (imaginary) bike lanes around Oslo’s Ring 2? Would you?

22:37

That’s today’s time on my bike computer after the 350m climb from Gressbanen to Tryvannstårnet. And it beats my previous record by a whooping 54 seconds. Morten wasn’t very happy last time I beat him up there, but he hasn’t made any attempts to counter me yet – too busy being a daddy, I understand. Probably much more fun than crushing me, and I get to feel good for a tiny little longer. I’m sure I will lose my status as king of the hill before the year is up 🙂 In fact, I hope I will.

And yes, the pro cyclists do this in 15 minutes. We hate them.

Things I learnt from bicycling to Stavanger

Having cycled from Oslo to Stavanger as part of my vacation, I learned a few things. Just like after my attempt last year, I’ll write them down, mostly for my own reference.

The entire trip took 7 days. Five of them were full 8-hour days with 120 km each and two were 50-60 km short resting-stages.

  1. When going during tourist season, plan your accomodation. I didn’t take into account that the Norwegian “fellesferie” was in full swing, and everything on the south coast was booked. As a result, I ended up booking into a hotel room at 990 NOK a night when I stopped at Krageroe. This was less of a problem on the westcoast, though.
  2. Bring almost nothing. I packed the absolute minimum of gear. A simple bag on the handlebars, and a small one under the saddle was all I had, and that weighed in at just a few kilos. You don’t need much. Shirts can be worn several times, and wicking clothes will dry over night when washed in the hostel sink. I brought no camera (there’s one on the phone), and I should have left the MP3 player at home (see the bit about having a radio below).
  3. Don’t plan for the worst. I had very little emergency gear with me. Patches, but no extra tube, for example. That way, I needed pretty much everything I had with me at some point, and most of my contingency plans consisted of “I’ll stop a car and ask for help”.
  4. Check your gear. I had one flat tire, and when I had everything dismantled, I found that I’d brought patches, but no glue. Luckily another rider was able to help me out.
  5. 75 km on the GPS = 120 km on the bike. As a rule of thumb, when something is 75 km away in a straight line, it’s about 120 km of cuycling to get there. This worked rather well for southern Norway, at least. I found that for me, 120 km were easy to do in a day, and then again the next.
  6. Mount the GPS. I didn’t have a bike-mount for the GPS, and as a result didn’t check the map as much as I should have. The problem is that the mounting equipment doesn’t fit on the Bianchi handlebars 🙁
  7. Youth Hostels rock. These are great places. Most have a place where you can lock your bike inside. If you’re not a member, you can collect stamps for each night you are staying to work up to a membership. You might have to ask them about that, though. People there are generally nice, and you get a kitchen to make some food. The hostel at Jaeren gets my price for best hostel I’ve ever stayed in.
  8. Gravel roads suck. I had one bad crash on a gravel road, and my left elbow is all scar tissue and scabs. Avoid them. This means being creative when following cycle routes, and looking ahead on the topo maps so you don’t end up in a dead end.
  9. I love NRK P2. 8 hours a day on a bike can get pretty boring. Your MP3 player will annoy you on day 2. Radio, however, is different all the time, and tells you stuff. That is, it used to. Nowadays they rotate the same 10 hits, and the talking bits in between are retarded. With the exception of NRK P2, who have history programs, jazz music and intelligent programming. Having a useable radio on the mobile phone was absolutely brilliant.
  10. If it’s broke, know how to fix it. My bike is still fairly new, and the cahin started falling off. I realized I didn’t know how to adjust the gear system, and went with this annoyance for a day before finding a bike shop. Make sure you know how to adjust the adjustable bits on your bike before you leave.
  11. Bring ice-cube bags. Those plastic bags for making ice-cubes take virtually no space, and let you make ice that you can cool your drinking bottle with virtually anywhere you’re staying. Cold drinking water is heavenly when it’s 28+ degrees outside.

On the road again

After almost two weeks of procrastinating and taking the train, I’ve finally gotten around to putting the studded tires on my bike. It’s perfect weather for cycling, really – it hasn’t rained or snowed in days, the temperatures are comfortable two to five degrees below, and the air is fairly dry. If only it wasn’t so damn dark.

[ media | Debussy – Douze Etudes pour piano ]

When your sister says you’re fat, you better believe h

When I visited Anke in Budapest, she said one thing that really got under my skin: “Enno, you’re getting fat”. There’s nobody like a sister that tells you the painful truth she sees. I love her for that. And it’s not like I didn’t know it already. I was dragging few too many kilos with me on the bike, up the mountains, everywhere. 5 kilos extra feels like a lot of weight when I climb, and compensating for it with strength or technique seems like such a waste.

So early in September, I started taking the gym more serious. I went more often, and in October even switched from my half hour of running to the hour-long cycling sessions. And it makes a difference. Being the geek I am, I have of course logged it painstakingly. And gnuplot is my friend:

My initial goal was to get to 74 kilos for Christmas. It looks like I’m going to miss that goal, but not by much. And more importantly, my system works. I am losing weight, not too fast, and I am neither starving myself, nor am I totally knackered from the exercise. In fact, I feel much fitter now than I did before I started this. I still want to get down to my ideal weight (which would be around 72-73 kg), which is what I weighed 5 years ago when I first moved to Norway. That extra weight is what you get from deadlines, overtime food and an office job, and I know I got hit less hard than some others.

I exercise 3 times a week at the moment, for between one and two hours after work. The gym is just around the corner, and while it isn’t the cheapest one, it’s nice, bright and friendly. I love to go there, and that helps a lot. When the alternative is working or going home, exercising most of the time seems more appealing, and that helps a lot.

And now that I’ve dared go out and share intimate details like my weight, I’ll probably talk about my whole “getting in shape” project more in future posts. Wish me luck with this.

[ media | A-Ha – Celice ]

Things to do better next time

There’s a lot to be learned from this trip. Not just that it can be pretty
boring traveling alone, but also that the weather down here can be pretty
nasty. But something about equipment.

1. I don’t need a tent.
While camping is something I can still do, I just don’t wake up as
refreshed as when sleeping in a bed, and it makes a difference when I get
going in the morning. Also, free camping is not as easy down here as one
might think, because it’s pretty rocky, and there are few paths off the
road. And I hate campgrounds and the sort of people who stay there. A hotel
might cost 500 NOK, but it’s worth it And there are a few hostels along the
road, like the one I stayed in last night. Lastly, the sleeping bag + tent
+ mattress account for more than half my luggage.

2. No backpack.
This is simple if I don’t bring the tent, and makes moving about on the
bike a lot easier. Having a small bag that is easy to reach for map &
camera is pretty good, though.

3. Water in bottles
I brought my camelback, which is great for walking trips, but for a bicycle
ride, bottles are best. There are plenty of opportunities along the road to
refill the bottle, but a second bottle is still a good investment.

4. Bananas are messy
I had one explode in my backpack, and everything is sticky in There now.
Bring a container to put them in, or don’t bring bananas. Dry peaches are
good, too.

5. You need one pair of pants.
That’s in addition to a pair of cycling shorts. Something to wear in the
hotel/hostel while the cycling pants dry. In addition, a shirt and a pair
of socks for each day. Which comes to very little total weight.

6. Bring chargers.
Not only my phone will run out of juice, but my Palm, too – at least on a
longer trip it would have.

7. Bring the right music
I had one good MD with me (Flunk, Ugress) that was getting me over the
hills and had the right beat for cycling, but the others were too slow.
Also, bringing a norwegian audio book was fun, but not actually helping
with my speed.

8. Know your route
On the first day especialy, I lost a lot of time going the wrong way. The
route doesn’t always have enough signs, and going the wrong way cost me a
lot of time.

9. Bring only one book
Bring a book to read, but one that will last you a while. Give it away and
get a new one when it’s read, don’t weigh yourself down with too many books.

10. 70 km/day
70 km a day is a good distance to do over a longer period. I’m sure I could
have kept that up for a few more days, it is enough to reach the major
cities each day, and going between 17 and 20 km/h takes 3-4 hours cycling a
day. Doesn’t sound ilke a lot, but with all the hills, it still means I’m
tired at the end of the day. I also get to the end of each stage at a
decent time and was able to go to the beach, shower, watch some TV, I could
even have cooked if I’d had the nerve.

Rain

This is why I started yesterday: So I could get at least one sunny day on
my tour. Today has been rainy from the minute I got on the bike to the time
I checked into a hotel in Larvik.

My speed suffers from that, between 17 and 18 km/h was my average speed. I
can’t say that it’s all because of the rain, it might just as well be the
norwegian terrain: The route has been a constant up and down today, up a
hill, down a hill, up again, … With never a flat stretch. Maximum speed:
50.6 km/h. Today’s stage: 72 km, total distance: 142 km. I’m physically in
better shape than yesterday, definitely, but I don’t want tto risk camping
someplace – Larvik has a number of hotels, and I want to avoid camping in
the rain.

Mental note for next time: Do a daytrip first to decide what kind of
equipment you really need. I have too much stuff.