EUROPEAN DIVIDE TRAIL - Swedish Gravel Heaven
I'm riding the European Divide Trail, from the trail head up in the frozen shores of Northern Norway, through the vast wilderness of Finland and down to the deep forests around the Arctic Circle in Sweden. This time around I'm joined by new friend, Jan from Germany, who's also riding the EDT. I ride through some very picturesque landscapes and stumble upon a couple of sketchy roads along the EDT. Join me as I make my way south along the gravel roads
of Northern Sweden in the search for that fantastic camp spot at the end of the day [Music] Good morning, and welcome to day five of my tour, here along the European Divide Trail. It's been raining pretty much all throughout the night and I also have a couple of friends inside of my tent But it looks like the sun has risen again so I'm eager and interested to go outside and see what it looks like. And see how many many mosquitoes are going to attack me in the morning. Well anyway, after I've packed down this very wet tent, or the outer tent at least, I'm going to head the last couple of kilometers into the next little town here called Junosuando and visit the local Ica Supermarket. I both need to pick up some supplies and also charge one of my power banks. I don't have that much power left. I have one of these very fast charging power banks. I'm going to charge that while I sit outside and eat, and
I also need to take care of the water situation. I hope they have some toilet or some place where I can fill up my bottles there. Yesterday I crossed the halfway point of this trip, which means today I get to spoil myself with a pair of new socks and a new t-shirt [Music] This is the mighty Torneå river that later on marks the border between Sweden and Finland [Music] Here's the Ica supermarket Supermarkets like this one are basically your best friend when you're on a long bikepacking trip like this one. While I'm having my breakfast here and doing my shopping inside I'm charging
up two of my power banks here on the backside of the store. I was able to fill up my water bottles inside after talking to a guy who worked in there. I used their kitchen to fill up my water bottles, and he was pretty interested in finding out what type of trip I was doing. So I told him about
where I started and so on and he told me that they they do get a lot of people going through here since the European Divide Trail was created. So it's a good thing for these communities to have the EDT going through them, because it keeps these places alive. As I mentioned earlier the next supermarket is probably in about 100 km from here and I'm likely not going to make it there before they close for the evening. So I've basically been planning this trip for
a long time, and I've done a list of all of the supermarkets and their opening times and so on, and the distances between each of the supermarkets. I'll put a link to the list down in the description below so you can download it if you need it for for your own trip later on. These things are great when you're on a bikepacking trip here in Scandinavia. You can find these in a lot of flavors and different brands and so on, but the only problem with these ones is they are very bulky. If you want to fit them inside of your bags you're going to have a
big problem. So I have a little hack that I do. I take the contents of this and then pour it into a Ziploc bag like this one. I brought along a lot of Ziploc bags, believe me. That way I can compress the contents of this into only a small fraction of this one, and then I have a collapsible mug that I use later on when I want to make lunch. I think I've showed you that earlier on here. I'm just going to open this up and I know exactly how much water these ones need. They need like two and a half deciliters of water, so I pour the contents into the Ziploc bag like this make sure all the air goes out And voila! This one compared to this one Then I just throw this away in the trash bin over there. I just noticed a funny thing here going out
of this town. You see that thing over there, out on the field? I know what that is because I've worked with those couple of years ago. We use those to collect dust from from the air around, because I work in a mining company. But I think here they use them for collecting bugs, because you can see there's a a green thing at the bottom there, which I'm guessing the mosquitoes really love. So I'm guessing that they have these sort of collectors to catch mosquitoes and get a
sort of a picture on how many mosquitoes there are this season. Pretty interesting [Music] This guy passed me when I was taking photos of the beautiful flowers here. He's called Jan and is from Germany, and he's also doing the EDT. You want to tell me a little bit about you and your
trip? Hi I'm Jan from Germany and I'm 46 years old. Normally I'm working as a health and safety officer on construction sites in Germany. 3 months ago I take the decision to have a ride to do some holiday, and now I'm here. How long are you planning on being out for? 4 weeks. Four weeks, okay I'll let you go so I don't slow you down. No, no How has it been so far, you think? It's quite good weather. One time I have rain, a little bit snow but mostly it's fine. It was nice that we got the rain this night. It was clear and and blue skies in the morning. Yesterday I had a little
luck with the ferry. The ferry didn't ride, but there was a guy who picked me up with this small boat and everything. I took the cheating shortcut, so I missed out on the ferry. I was a bit tired yesterday so for me today it's only 80 km. Okay a short day. Yeah, it's short day. How long of days
do you usually do? 120-140. Okay, yes I've been averaging like 140 per day or so, but I have a bit wider tires maybe than you. So thank you Jan for your presentation, and good luck on the rest of your trip. You too! I just said goodbye to Jan from Germany. I rode with him for about 30 km and I got to say that was one of the easiest 30 km I've done on this trip. A really nice guy and we
had a lot of things to discuss along the road. And even though I love being on these solo trips it's always nice to have someone to talk to along the road. I got a lot of funny stories from him and I wish him the best for his future travels, until he gets down to his hometown in Germany in about 4 weeks. And just as I said goodbye to Jan it seems like the gravel roads are starting again up here
Jon told me he has his own company, so he can go on these types of trips. He rides his bike in the morning and then he works in the afternoon. So that's why he turned off now and was already setting up camp, and I basically started for the day. Well I'm a pretty late starter anyway. But I've ridden about 40 km now. He also told me yesterday when he was taking the ferry that I talked about yesterday (that I I skipped out on). He was standing around there for couple of
hours before someone helped him. I don't know really know, they had to drive him around or something. Another guy he spoke to from France, which I think was the guy that I met in Muonio, he had been waiting in the the town of Lainio for a day before he realized that the ferry wasn't going to be working. So it seems to be a bit early for the ferry now here in in beginning of June,
so it's nice that there is a shorter way to take if the ferry doesn't work. But sadly there isn't any information online on operating times for the ferry, so it can be a bit of a gamble to go to Lainio and take the ferry. Well, as soon as you hit gravel what also comes along is all the climbs. Going on the paved roads are usually a lot flatter. Now, directly when I enter this gravel section I have two major climbs here ahead of me.
And I've also had a pretty nasty headwind for this day, so it's quite slow going at the moment. But I'm guessing it's going to lighten up further along here in the afternoon hopefully [Applause] Here in Sweden there are a lot of these red poles all along the roads, and these are to mark where the road ends, when they plow the the roads during winter time. So that the truck or tractor doesn't drive off the road when it's trying to maintain the road. Usually they take them down during summer, but at these more remote parts of Sweden they might as well just leave them up all year long, right? Summer is only like 3 months[Applause] I think we're starting up an old tradition again here. Let's do the pronunciation quiz again. So let's all together try to pronounce the name of this little town
This one is called Kääntöjärvi, and the funny thing about these types of names is that these aren't really in Swedish. In Sweden we have four official languages: Swedish, Finnish, Sapmi (that's the Sami language) and this language I believe is Meänkieli. Meänkieli is a very local language in this region where I'm cycling right now. Nowadays I don't know, but I'm guessing there are only maybe perhaps like a 50,000 or 100,000 people that speaks Meänkieli. But they're trying to make it into that the the schools can teach out Meänkieli again in this this region So hopefully it will be a more spoken language here in the North of Sweden again. On Swedish
government owned TV they actually have news in Meänkieli and Sapmi nowadays Those were traditional Swedish red houses with white corners. That's the norm of Swedish houses and I know I've told this story many times before, and I also told it to Ryan when I was riding with him last year. The reason why there are so many red houses here in Sweden is because of our copper mining industry. The red paint was actually taken from residue from from the copper mining ,and that's why a lot of people chose that color. Because it was a lot
cheaper than other colors so. Usually in a town if someone painted their house white or another color they were the rich people, and the working class people painted it with Falu Red as it's called. Most of the copper mining is done in the region of Dalarna which is a lot more south of here. But
some copper mining is also done up here. In fact the mining company I work for has their own mines up in this region, and maybe later on today we're going to pass through a little ghost town called Masugnsbyn, where the first mine here in the north was established back in the 17th century [Music] [Music] I got to say I really dig these kind of gravel roads! Hard packed, very super smooth gravel and it's almost as you can maintain the same speed as you can on the paved roads, but with no traffic at all. Plus they aren't as flat and straight as the paved roads. So it's a bit more fun to ride on these types of roads than the paved ones, and they also get you a lot closer to nature as well. As you can see they're doing a lot of forestry around here and as you ride through these areas you can smell the smell of newly cut down trees. Oh, it's a lovely smell, and the people around here call it the smell of money. That beep is the sign of it's time for a big climb again. We have a pretty major one coming up here, it's 2.7 kilm long and 139 m in elevation so buckle up!
[Music] [Music] I think it's time for lunch I just found the first wind shelter or picnic table of the day so Imight as well take a lunch break here in Nilijoki The tricky part is always being able to get down to the water and fetch some water. But I think I'm able this time. There's a small path leading down to this stream here Well, lunch might be pushing it a bit. I just checked my phone and it's almost 4:00 p.m. so the days are getting later and later for every day on this bikepacking trip. But since the sun is basically out all, day and night times are pretty irrelevant around here. The only time I need to make a certain time is when I want to visit a supermarket in their opening hours. And there are no more supermarkets today, so I'm in no hurry at all. I'll probably just end up eating my
dinner at my campsite tonight anyway. While I sit here and eat and wait for my food to get done I also charge my bike computer here in the sun. It's constantly charging while I'm riding, but when I'm sitting down like this I can angle it towards the sun and it gets a little bit more boost.
I've noticed with this one that I can go pretty much for four or five days without charging it. I haven't charged it since I started back in Norway five days ago. But I'm guessing tonight I'll have to give it some boost from my power bank. Let's see if this curry is is done m I'm currently on the the biggest climb of the day day, it's about 170 m in height difference and have about a third left. I think once I'm up on this hill,
this is the highest point I've been on the the journey so far About a kilometer left to go. About 3 weeks ago I went down to Greece with the family for a family vacation. And the hotel arranged morning rides, which was perfect. I went on maybe three or four of those in the morning. And the hills down in Greece are way worse than these ones. So I used that as a sort of a training camp for this trip, because where I live there aren't than aren't that many Hills. So
it was perfect to get a couple of days of of hill training before going on this adventure [Music] [Music] [Music] This trail is bit interesting. It's probably the most technical trail thus far on the EDT. I think it's basically a hiking trail of some sort [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] This road was a bit uneven. Check out the tracks here
I'm guessing someone has been driving here when it's been really rainy, or perhaps after the snow melted a couple of weeks ago. Don't want to find myself on these types of roads after a heavy thunderstorm. They can be pretty, pretty, pretty soft [Music] [Applause] So we're about across the E10 highway. It's believed to be the most accidentally prone highway here in Sweden. Mostly due to all the reindeer accidents. I
never like cycling on the E10, because there are a lot of heavy trucks that go on it with iron ore and timber and so on. But luckily enough we're just on it for a couple of hundred meters, then we turn off again to a much smaller road. Kids, never go cycling on the E10! [Applause] Well, it's 8:30 and I've started looking for a suitable camp spot for tonight. I like to camp
at lakes, so every time I pass a lake I try to look for nice spot. And then I just passed this lake to my left, and look what I see on the other side. The problem is just how do I get over there? There might be a trail or something. Might be worth a look, let's see if I can be able to get there. It might be a bit tricky with the bike though. There's some sort of path that goes in here and let's see if I can just walk with my bike over there or [Applause] something. Or maybe ride for a while at least Here's what I'll do: I'll take a little hike, I left the bike there and I'll go and check it out. It's definitely a lot of mosquitoes here as well so I took my my rain pants on
I'm just going to go over and see if there's any flat space for the tent. It looked like a nice shelter to sit down and have your dinner in, but then again we have the mosquito issue. But luckily I have my Thermacell with me, so I might pop that up [Applause] Yeah, this will have to do! Just need to find a flat spot somewhere. It's a bit tilting
I think this might serve as my sort of flat spot for the evening. The search is over. Let's go get the bike over here I'm guessing it's about 150 M or so, and the trail isn't that great. But I've done worse than this. Another great thing about this particular campsite is that it's pretty close, I think it's maybe half an hour away from the next town with a supermarket. So I'll be able to eat breakfast there tomorrow, and maybe charge a battery or so. So it will be like this morning Let's try to drag the bike over there I hate when they throw stuff around them. People can't behave themselves The first order business now is to get the water cooking for my dinner, which tonight consists of Kebab stew. I want to fire up the Thermacell pretty quickly,
so let's make some water first and then I can get the Thermacell going when I enjoy my dinner. Because this place, there are quite a few mosquitoes here Many of you might wonder: why doesn't he wear mosquito repellent? Well, I can just assure you that no mosquito repellent in the world would scare these mosquitoes away right now. They might scare one or two, but not all of them. The Thermacell works a lot better. I know there's a
big debate on whether to use a Thermacell or not, but I'm just going to use it for maybe 15 minutes while I eat my dinner, and then not so much. A fun fact about mosquitoes is that there are at least a 100 different species, and the one who is active mostly now, the spring season mosquito, they're pretty dumb. They just go all over the place. Yesterday when I got a maybe 20 of them inside of my tent, none of them wanted to bite me. They just flew around for a while and then all of
the mosquitoes sort of gather up in the roof of the inner tent and flew around there for most of the night. So they're not as aggressive as the mosquitoes that are active later in season. I'm looking like the Dark Sith from Star Wars right. As I said, I rather dress for the mosquitoes than use mosquito repellent when I don't have access to a shower. The water is just about done so I can
maybe go look for my Thermacell in the meantime. And speaking of stupid mosquitoes, one thought it was fittingly to take a swim in my boiling water here, but quickly realized his mistake [Music] Finally I can sit down and enjoy my dinner. I'm having a kebab with rice today and it tastes deliciously. Right now most of the mosquitoes have gone away, there are like one or two flying around here, but I can live with one or two. Today was a fun day here on the trails, and the highlight of the day was meeting Jan from Germany. I rode with him for about 30 km or so. I didn't film that much except for when just meeting him. I just shoved my camera up in his face, so he was quite surprised
I guess. But he he was a truly nice guy to talk to and we had a lot of things in common. We both have three children and he's about the same age as me. He thought this adventure was fantastic so far. For me living here, some of the parts can be a bit monotonous or boring, you get the drift. He said loved every single part. It's it's quite unique for a guy living in busy Germany to come up here and don't hear a car or anything. Just the birds around you, and of course the mosquitoes. I'm quite surprised with the European Divide Trail so far, that it's so varied. I thought it was
just going to be these very small gravel roads, with big pebbles. I was quite worried about that, but so far it has been very, very nice. And I think as farther south you get they're going to be more and more gravel, because here there are parts where you basically can't really choose between different roads. There's basically just one to to go on, so that's why there have been a lot of of paved roads so far. Especially up in Finland. But I think that will improve as we go along here. My favorite are either the ones with very nice smooth hard packed gravel that almost feel like it's paved, but with no cars. Or to have a bit of those like flowy single track,
but like double track roads. Those are super fun as well. But I like to keep those to about an hour at a time, because it gets quite tough after a while. Especially on the uphills, they're quite tough. Especially as you saw earlier today, I was riding through a section with this very distinct tire marks, where the the cars had sunk in like 20 cm down into the surface. Those ones were pretty gruesome to go on even though the they were pretty dry. Now you can like feel like the tire was like sinking into the ground, so I wouldn't want to go on those when it has been raining. Tomorrow
I'll first stop by the supermarket, that is about half an hour away from here, and then I'll head on towards Jokkmokk. Jokkmokk is very important town for the Sami people living around here. It's well known for its marketplace during February, where people travel from basically all over the world to get to Jokkmokk and experience the Jokkmokk market. But it is also a way to get back to civilization and they both have two supermarket, a gas station and the best thing of all they have a Systembolaget. That's the government owned liquor store that we have here in Sweden. So I might pop in there and get a very small bottle of red wine to have on the last or second to last evening. In a couple of days It's Sweden's national day, so I'll have to celebrate
that at least. This was a pretty nice nice end to yet another great day here on the European Divide Trail. So I hope you'll join me next time when I head down to Jokkmokk, and we'll also pass the the Arctic Circle tomorrow I think. So join me next time when I pass the Arctic Circle and if you can't wait for next week's video you can watch when I visited that place a couple of years ago. I think it's like five years, six years ago I passed the Arctic Circle sign. And you can watch
that video by clicking the link up in the corner here. Otherwise, until next time have a good one!
2024-08-21 21:53
