I was invited by a Aud Trude's (girl I work with at work here - we went skiing to Sirdal with her earlier in the year - you can see in an earlier post below) boyfriend Kristian, who also rides bikes a bit, to go on a cycling weekend. I took Thursday off work and we caught the 4 and a quarter hour ferry up the coast to Bergen (Norway's 2nd largest city).
This is a pic of Haugesund which is along the coast towards Bergen. Looks like a nice place to enjoy a beer in the sun!
We got to Bergen and stayed at Kristian's mum's place who made us a lovely meal when we got in late at night and then again for breakfast before our early morning departure. It was raining in Bergen (apparently it rains there on average for 260 days a year) the whole time we were there!
We then left on the ferry in the morning (in the rain) and as soon as we were out of Bergen it cleared up - surprisingly enough.
This is a pic of us on the ferry in the morning leaving Bergen. It is actually an amazingly beautiful city - very pretty with a world famous fish market (selling all sorts of things including whale!!!) and beautiful cobble stoned streets and amazing old fishing buildings on the harbour. I'll have to find some good pics of Bergen to put up here to show you.
We caught this ferry in the morning from Bergen down the Sogndalsfjord which is the longest and deepest Fjord in the world. It stretches half way across Norway to Sweden and is about 1400m deep! We caught it to a section a fair way down the fjord to a place called Leikanger.
This is a pic typical of this fjord. At the end is this glacier which is apparently the largest glacier in Northern Europe also (there seems to be a lot of these largest, deepest, longest superlatives bandied about - not sure if any of it is true or just the locals beating it up).
This is a pic of an amazing waterfall running down the mountain to the fjord below. There is a huge amount of water running down and it seems to just drop off the top of the mountain. When the mountains are so steep it seems as though this is the only way for it to go. This was just near Vik which is where Aud Trude is from. Interestingly the locals across one side of the fjord speak in a slightly (sometimes greatly) different Norsk dialect - as they often had no way of crossing across and thus the people are quite different in very close proximities.
This is a pic of Vik - nice spot in a valley with snow in the background (in summer).
This is the largest (!) wooden building in Northern Europe - also the most expensive hotel in Scandinavia. Looks very impressive swiss style and an amazing backdrop behind with this curver glaciated mountain behind it with snow on it.
Close up of the hotel with mountain behind.
Ok so once we got to Leikanger, it was time to start riding. We cycled along the fjord to Sogndal then started climbing. It was only a 400m (vertical distance) climb here so not too bad - but just had to stop for a happy snap.
After this little climb we then wound out way down to a little valley on the side of the sogndalfjord. The town was Gaupne or Luster and is where Subsea7 has one of its spool bases. A pretty place to work - pity its in the middle of nowwhere. The water is all milky green and the reason is because of the glaciers in the mountains above essentially grind the rocks of the mountains to powder and this is the reason with all of the minerals and dust causing a milky green appearance. It certainly looks amazing.
This is a pic of me, Kristian, and Jochem (who also works with Kristian at Acergy). The water beside is not far from the end of the fjord and is getting milkier and greener as we progress along the fjord.
OK this is at the END of the fjord (or start I guess - depends on which way you are looking), but we had a rest here before attacking the climb of the day. It was a lovely spot with a very tranquil setting - perfect before we started hurting big time on the climb!
Shortly after we left the rest spot, the climb started. It was 980m (vertically) of climbing in 10km. That equals an average gradient of 10% and in several sections was up to 13%. This was only until Turtagrø which is where we were staying in a hotel for the night - the next day we would have to keep ascending up the mountain's countless hairpin turns at gradients of up to 15% to the highest mountain pass in Northern Europe! This pic above is as we just started ascending. The river in the pic is from the glaciers we are ascending towards and is once again that mikly green colour.
This pic is taken when I am seriously hurting and needed a rest! For those with cycling knowledge I only had a 11-23 cassette on the rear and a 55-39 on the front - clearly not enough for 15% gradient!! Am going to buy myself a nice 12-27 dura-ace cassette for more of these ridiculous climbs. Would love to go to France and tackle some of the Alps and Pyrenees!
Towards the top which was near the mountains in the background.
One quick final rest and this waterfall offered the perfect opportunity along the road side.
Here I made the top of the climb for the day to Turtagrø. The next morning we went off to the left to climb up to 1434m which is the highest mountain pass in Northern Europe and is next to the 2 highest mountains in Northern Europe - Galghøpiggen at around 2400m.
More ascent and this is taken looking back down towards where we left - Turtagrø. This road had some serious climbing topping out at around 15-16%.
Bit of cyling art coming to the fore - or maybe it was the altitude sickness!
Here is Jochem coming up to meet me. This was at around 1200m.
Here we are at the top. You can see the small glaciers on the mountain in the background. This was the first time I had seen Glaciers and these were only baby ones! Am keen to do a bit of exploring around here - but you need the proper gear - everyone had on these professional looking spikes on the bottom of their boots and it looked pretty hardcore for those hikers around here. Here we were cycling around on thin slick little wheels in lycra!!!
Here we are the top of the highest mountain pass in Northern-Europe. It was bloody cold! Wind was howling - coming from behind, then moving around a mountain it would hit us from the side. Made for pretty scary descending on roads which you would have no hesitation hitting 80-90km/h on the bike in the dry without any wind, but here we were in rain and gale force gusts. Still got up to 65km/h on the descents but i didn't even think about pushing it - especially when some of the descents had cliffs on the edges!
Here I am down the other side of the mountain near the sign to the walking track to Galdhøpiggen - the highest mountain in Northern Europe.
Halfway down there is this HUGE pillar and lifesized horse on top of it. Not sure what it signified but it was bloody big! Maybe Norway's big answer to the Big Banana - the Huge Horse!
Further down you can see the milky green water.
After we got to Lom which was our stopping point, we found a cabin, showered up, got some tucker, then caught the 01:35am bus to Bergen (got in at 09:35am) and then caught the ferry back to Stavanger so we got back home by about 6pm Sunday night.
It was very enjoyable, hard work, but a great experience. I am very keen to get out on the bike a bit more.
I am heading offshore on Sunday (depending on when out boat arrives - it is brand new and is currently conducting final sea trials so the arrival date is a bit unknown at this stage) so will take some pics of big ugly equipment and let you know how it goes. Not sure if we will be heading into Scotland or Northern Norway when we finish the job yet. Scotland would be good - might have to try some of their finest single malts!
Till then - ha det bra.
No comments:
Post a Comment