EUROPEAN DIVIDE TRAIL - This Is Where The Adventure Begins
[Music] 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. Last time around I had my first full day in Finland, and even though the scenery around me was really stunning, I still found there were something missing to make this into that epic adventure I was expecting. Gravel. But this day promised lots of it, as I was preparing to ride through a large wilderness area up in Northern Finland. This is bike packing Wild Finland It's a cold one today. It's only about 7 or 8° C so I'm just going to pack down this tent as quick as I can and hit the road Need to get some heat! [Music] And we're off. Here we go! Day three on the EDT [Music]
When you ride your bike along the EDT here in Finland and Sweden you're going to notice a lot of these red cross markings along the road. These mark trails for snowmobiles in the wintertime, and some of them are ridable for mountain bikes like mine. But I think I'm going to stick to to the paved road for now. Look, they even have their own river crossings as well
If it was a bit chilly here in the morning, it's time to get warm. I have a about 5 km long climb ahead of me, with about 200 m in elevation. I think I'm going to be pretty warm at the the end of this hill. I'm sure the camera doesn't do it justice, but I thought they said that Finland was flat Finally at the top of the hill. It's a big one this one,
and according to the high chart for for this day this seems to be the highest point of the whole day. Hopefully we'll have a couple of nice descents coming up here [Music] [Music] Look at this, blue skies ahead! [Music] So we get some rain and sunshine at the same time here. It's just a small drizzle, so I think it's going to pass. But it looks like there's some sunshine and blue skies coming up I'm not sure if I mentioned it this morning, but the area that I'm going through right now is about 250 km of pure Wilderness, except for an odd house every hour or so. It's basically just Wilderness, and even though we're in this Wilderness Area you still have pretty nice reception on your phone. As you can see behind me there's a 4G mast over there. And pretty much throughout the
day I've had decent reception on my phone. And it's not like I want to have that to browse the web or something. But it just feels comforting to have some sort of reception if something were to happen. The only times I've lost reception is when I've gone down a big mountain, but just for a few minutes. Then it pops back again, so it's comforting to know [Applause] [Music] [Music] This is my lunch setup. I made a lot of these Ziploc bags with food back at home, because I knew I was going through a lot of these Wilderness areas with no service for days. As long as I can find some some running water I'm usually fine.
So I just pick up some water from the small river behind me here, heat it up and mix it with this and wait for a couple of minutes. Then lunch is ready I'm eating mac and cheese today. Now I just have to wait for a couple of minutes to to get it ready. I've been cycling now for about 70 kilm and I still haven't seen a single picnic table. There are some rest stops along the way, but usually just a a pull out from the road. So this place there was good enough for me. I'm able to sit down, get some water from the river and relax for a couple of minutes while I eat lunch. The only thing I had to do in order to get
this operation working was to make a bit bit of a detour back in Kirkenes and I had to go into town there. So I took a10 kilm detour to pick up some some gas for the stove. But it was well worth the the detour. Otherwise I would have just eating sandwiches and tortilla bread and so on for the whole journey. I think I'll be able to manage on this canister for for the whole duration of this trip along the EDT. This usually lasts me for about a week, and I'm planning on being out
for about 10 days. But I only use it a couple of minutes at a time to to warm up some water, so it'll probably last. Otherwise I'll just pick up another one in Jokkmokk. I think I'll be there in about 5 days. It will definitely last me 5 days. I'm quite surprised that I haven't hit gravel yet. Like I told you, I've been cycling now for about 70 km and I thought
this this road would turn into gravel road. But at the same time I'm not complaining. I'm having a pretty chill ride right now. There are a couple of hills that I have climbed, but I kind of like those ones as well because you get a nice view over over the whole landscape. And the riding has been pretty nice so far. I've just had a I had a small drizzle in the morning, otherwise it's been perfect ring temperatures. I think it's about 16° right now which should be like lower 60s in Fahrenheit. I'm just keeping this very light thin jacket on,
both to protect me from the Sun and to give some warmth. I could just be riding in a T-shirt if I wanted to, but going up and down these hills is nice to have a jacket on, because it gets pretty chilly going down them. I think my lunch is about ready This was the first village I've seen in about 3 hours on the bike and it was literally like four houses. So it's pretty uninhabited, this place And just as I passed that super small town I finally reached the beginning of the gravel section [Applause] So after about 300 km of paved roads we finally hit gravel. I'm guessing this is where the adventure really starts Here We Go! [Music] [Music] [Music] So far the grab roads have been super smooth and I've been able to maintain the same average speed as I did back on the paved road. I'm uh looking forward to more of this
And it's also a lot more fun riding on this type of surface. You just constantly have to be aware and find the best line and so on. And I guess it's more varied than just going along long straight paved roads like I've been doing for the first two or three days here on the EDT Finally at the top[Music] Say what!? Now we're hitting pavement again up here I'm guessing this road has been newly created. The payment looks almost brand new,
so this was probably a gravel road just like the one I came from maybe last summer or the summer before that. But it seems super smooth But a bit boring after you've ridden those nice gravel roads. Well let's put in the miles [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] woohoo Although I'm pretty much riding on a highway right now. It's 8:00 in the evening on a Sunday night and there's no cars out at all. So I'm pretty alone here. This is super flat and I'm making up some great distance, so I think I'll stick to this for for the next couple of minutes. I'm sure there'll be lots of more gravel roads coming up ahead. I'm closing in on 160 km or for you living in the United States 100 miles. So that's a pretty big milestone,
so I'm aiming for for that at least. I have 12 km left until I'm at 100 miles and my legs feel pretty fresh, so I think I'm going to go that distance and put up camp and eat something nice for dinner. Like I told you earlier, I haven't seen a single table for the whole day. It kind of feels pointless to to eat dinner at the side of the road. I'd rather just make it to camp and let my dinner heat up while I set up the tent [Music] [Music] It looks like the gravel starts again up here in front and there's supposed to be a Laavu here as well, a lean to shelter on the right here by the lake. So I'm going to check that out [Applause] You know what, this is too good to be true. I'm at 150 km so I'm pretty
satisfied with this day and you can't cycle through Finland without staying in one of these Laavus right? So here's my opportunity this one looks really nice There is only one one problem though. You remember I mentioned the mosquitoes last night that there weren't any. Well, I think we come southern enough for them to hatch. So I can already feel a couple of mosquitoes on me here. I'm guessing it's because we're getting more south, and it's a bit warmer here than where I was staying for the last couple of nights.
I better put on some covering clothes. I didn't bring any mosquito repellent, I didn't thought I was going to need it. And to be honest with you I'm just going to eat dinner, and then I'll get into my tent. So I'm thinking I'm going to do pretty fine without it. Fingers crossed! I'm thankful to find this place after not seeing a picnic bench for the whole day. I
end up finding this Laavu at the end of the day. There is a website that lists all these type of shelters here in Finland, and I'll leave a link down in the description below. But I checked that website and this one for example wasn't listed. I just found this in this little town where they had an information board that I read this thing called Lavuu, which means lean to shelter in Finnish. I rolde my bike about a kilometer from that information
board over here. And it's first come first serve, so I was pretty lucky tonight finding this one. It's a Sunday evening and a school night, so I'll I think I'll be alone here for the rest of the evening. So now I'm just going to have some dinner before I put all of my things into the tent. I've had a pretty major day. I think the total was 151 km for the day. Like I said, there wasn't that much along the road to stop and see, and hardly any a place to eat lunch. I just found that little patch of grass, but I think it's going to change tomorrow. I'll reach Sweden, I think it's about 60 km left or so to The Finnish Swedish border. Once I get over into
Sweden I think it's going to be a little bit more populated. And I also know that region pretty well and I think I'm sort of getting into the groove as well. This is day three or day three and a half, if you count the the first half day I had up in Norway. The first couple of days I've been feeling a bit of pain in my shoulders and a little bit of pain in my left knee, but during today that pain totally went away. Now it's just a little bit of saddle pains. I haven't ridden for more than three
or four days in a stretch on my Kona Unit X, so I'm not really used to the saddle for this long. And uh I gotta say I really love my Brooks saddle, that I have on my Kona Sutra and my commuter bike to work. So when I get home I'm maybe looking into getting one of those for this one as well. Because with those ones I never feel anything, and with this one I I can ride for a while for a couple of hours then I have to like stand for a while in the descents to relieve the tension from my butt. But I'm not complaining, at least I don't have any knee pains no more. So that's a good thing. I also think that the mosquito situation here isn't so bad as I thought when
I arrived here. There's a quite a breeze coming from the river here and it's a quite open area, so I think I'll manage without the mosquito repellent. Now it's time for dinner and I have a spaghetti bolognese on the menu for tonight. Let's see if the dinner is ready. Mmm, smells nice! oh perfect I finished dinner and I took a stroll down to the water to enjoy the wonderful scenery along the river, and there's even a rainbow tonight. I'm quite lucky with all the beautiful sites here in Finland. As I said tomorrow I'm probably going to cross into Sweden after after a couple of hours on the bike. I hope you join me next time to watch my further adventures here
along the European Divide Trail. And if you can't wait you can always watch the video that's up in the corner here in the meantime. Otherwise, until next time have a good one!
2024-08-02 15:42
