The Finest Norwegian Trails | Trail e-Xplorer Ep. 5
My favorite part of the trip was like the adventure but it's kind of funny my least favorite part of the trip it's pretty much the same thing though! But like, introduction Martin Söderström... this guy needs no introduction. Come on. Following Martin, you can tell that he's come from like a freeride background I haven't done that much of adventure riding in my life actually. For me, it's mostly been like slopestyle venues, skate parks, easy to access. So, this is kind of a new, a new chapter in my, in my career.
To get to Norway from Scotland, I'd have to take an overnight ferry... Let's go... Welcome to the crib tour! And drive through the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. This is the border... Sweden...
Norway!!! It would take three full days behind the wheel. For Martin it was a simpler seven hour drive to our start point. Let's go and find Martin.
Hello!!! How we doing? I think we never met in person did we? No! About time. Over the next seven days, together, we’d drive hundreds of kilometers and go in search of Norway's best e mountain bike trails. This was a dream trip for me, and it would be an adventure that Martin wouldn't forget any time soon. Now, I feel like it's more about the trip and seeing amazing places. Before, it was pretty much only about doing the best tricks! This is the first stop of the trip. We're here and Oppdal.
Oppdal is a beautiful little town. It's kind of in this bowl, surrounded by vast mountains, there's a ski resort and lots of off piste stuff which we're going to go and explore today. Never been here riding before. So, really excited to just get a little bit warmed up.
Oh! Oh! No! Right let's have some coffee. Now we're going to Gullstein? Gull? Gullstein? It's Norwegian for, the Golden Trail. For sunset we went up high onto this plateau that overlooked a lake. It was insane and a truly beautiful sunset to round off an amazing first day.
I feel like it suited my, my kind of riding style with some, like, almost skate park banks and, and stuff. You could do some wheelies on and, a couple of small little hips. Yesterday was an incredible day to start off the trip.
Yesterday was insane. Couldn't have had a better start to the trip really. So we left Oppdal... We've driven for around four hours Wow. The drive.
I, I've seen pictures of, of Norway, seeing it in real life is, it tops that. It's even better. The scenery was beautiful and we have arrived in Valldal! I've mapped out what I think will be a brilliant route. Not sure if Martin has got any experience in riding stuff like this.
I haven't done that much of adventure riding in my life actually. We’re going to fit the range extenders on to the bikes to give us 520Wh of battery which should be plenty for the around 1100m of climbing that I’ve got planned for today. Yesterday was perfect... And, today, I hope we can, make it even better, here in Valldal! Let's go. Thousand meters of climbing.
Let's go So in theory, we've already done, we've done about 300m of climbing so we're a third, third of the way there in terms of elevation! Easy! Not too bad huh? No... Dude, now when I've seen Valldal from the bottom. I just can't wait to see it from the top I got a feeling you get an even better overview from up there.
I haven't even thought that much about that that I’m on an e bike, except that its taken me some amazing places. It felt like you're in Lord of the Rings like Mordor. The mountains were massive.
There was rocks. There was just, I don't know, landscapes to die for is the only way I can describe it. Yeah the trail had basically everything I could ask for. Kinda scary being behind Scotty there because he's pinning it pretty hard.
Yeh I had some close calls but all in all really a perfect perfect day. The trails in Valldal were world class. I could feel in my fingers a little bit that I'm not used to doing, like, 1000m of elevation but wow, it was worth it.
I don't think it'd be far off being on the top ten. Certainly a special ride and you know, being able to take your bike there and also share that experience with Martin was something that was really special. This morning we left Valldal.
We took our first ferry across the fjords over to Stranda and then onto Sogndal. We're getting spoiled. It's gonna be hard to go home and ride a bike. It's gonna hard time to beat this one! Trip of a lifetime? Seriously! And then landed in Stranda for about a 3.5 hour drive. Probably a little bit more because we stopped time after time. The scenery was gorgeous.
There was glaciers, there was huge mountains, there were these crazy rock faces. I feel like this is a good format like in the morning, you feel like, a little bit tired, but then you drive, like, half of the day, and then you're recharged and ready to go again. We've arrived in Sogndal.
We've driven a little bit further along the fjord and we are going to go and tackle a mountain top called Molden. Yeah, I have actually no idea what to expect. I just know that Scotty said it's going to be, even more climbing today. In total, about 1000m of descent, 1000m of climbing. from the mountain top right down to fjord there should be panoramic views.
I’ve mapped this one out on komoot There's some highlights already in there and I can understand why. Oh Molden, it was a big day. When we got to the top, it was just peaceful and beautiful. Yeah, I really like how like on one ride here, you get a huge variety of terrain. Like up top, very stony open and then some nice single track and then you get into the woods The mountain top Molden was just so cool the vistas, the kinda ribbon that just weaved along the summit, dropping down and it was just really really fun following Martin.
Seeing his freeride style combine with kind of more enduro style trail was really impressive to watch. He’s stylish on a bike, he flows through the terrain and just really makes it work. Second day at Songdal, started off with a really nice climb.
We are just over halfway up our climb. It has been the perfect gradient on the bike. Mid power mode about 220W we're putting in.
Getting around the same back and it's just been nice just chatting away to Martin. Yeah. And then you end up in a place like this just to take it all in and then carry on the climb. It couldn't be any better. Agree. Carry on the climb? Yeah!!! It was the perfect gradient for the Voltage.
We could, pedal up and have a chat. The second trail that we went to was one of those trails where you didn't really know what to expect, but it surpassed all expectations! We went to this really Pa pa pa pa pa pa really, really, really nice so hard to not repeat yourself! Well, this trail definitely got me feeling like home. It was like a traditional Scandinavian wood. And it was really cool to show, Scotty what, Scandinavia really looks like. And I would say it's like a fairy tale, forest there. The dirt was just perfect.
It was hero dirt! There was so much grip you could push the bike in and carve into the turns. So I would say that the loam was, like, perfect. and we were just ripping through the forest, laughing and having such a good time on the bike! The loam was just the perfect condition so we were floating the whole way down to the bottom with big smiles on our faces. How would I summarize the riding in Sogndal? From incredible scenery to loam.
It's got to be one of my favorite places to ride. From Sogndal we left for Hemsedal. First of all, we had to take another ferry drive for around two hours. It was again just beautiful scenery. And then we arrived in Hemsedal. We set up camp for the night.
Yeah, I feel like going camping when you set up everything together and you cook together, and you cook together and everything it really gets you closer to the people you travel with. I got the big green egg out started cooking on it and it was really cool to see Scotty in action with the with the cooking. We've been hanging out pretty much constantly now for eight days, and we never really had been hanging out before so it's it's really cool that like, biking could bring us together. and I mean, sitting there eating with the beautiful scenery, the mountain, the little lake there and knowing you could just go walk two meters to the tent and then go to bed Just perfect, just perfect. Hemsedal is a small ski town that has slowly been growing and developing its mountain bike trails.
The riding in Hemsedal was so, so much fun. We started off in the morning doing a bit of an adventure ride. We climbed up through the town, then left and went onto what was basically a ski piste . Cheers, buddy. One of the things I'm very impressed with in Norway. Their cinnamon buns! High quality baked goods.
Can we skip to the good part? Arriving at the top of the trail, we had this huge panoramic views. You're looking down the valley, at the river, at the lakes. It was just absolutely beautiful. the trail was malchy, it was quite rocky, had some little technical sections and it was just a real nice ribbon of single track, weaving its way through blueberry bushes and cloud berries. We then dropped into the forest. It was a birch forest everything had turned yellow and orange, and it was fun just leading Martin down some of that stuff.
I could hear him shouting and screaming that he was having a good time and getting a little bit squirrely behind me. In the afternoon and evening we headed up to ride the red bike park trail. All right. What are we riding? Sentrums-stien... Red trail! It means the way to the Centrum.
Let's do this. Yeah, finally, I got to ride some jumps! Oh, dude, these are sick. Martin was back in his forte. Look at that view. Oh, I think I looked at the view a bit too much. Oh, my days.
You're there? Riding blind is interesting! Man, this is unreal. I need to catch my breath. Oh! Almost hit your back wheel bro. Sick! Oh, baby. Woo! Oh! Sorry, buddy. Sick! Oh! Oh! Oh! And watching him in front and following him down, we just had an absolute blast.
Yeah dude. Whoa! It was cool that Scotty let me take the lead on the on the jump stuff so hopefully I could teach him a thing or two because he's been schooling me on the roots and rocks over the days. Woo woo woo! Oh oh! Dude! That was unreal.
That's enough air, miles for today. Woohoo! Time for a cold beer huh? Yeah! Oh, what an ending to the day. We finished off at Fyri Resort, checked in and it was absolutely incredible.
There was a poolside bar, there were games and the food was amazing. Next up was Nesbyn, this is somewhere that I've always wanted to go to. It's a new era of mountain biking in Norway. There's a 17 kilometer blue flow trail, and alongside, there's plenty of natural goodness to be had. First stop though, the bakery.
You don't have this in Sweden and they are so good. Skole bohle I think? Which is like school bun. It's the yellow stuff, then, like coconut sprinkles, an extra. It's sugar, wood, sugar, basically. Today, we’d be meeting up with Will from Any Excuse to Ride to get some local tips. Nesbyn definitely lived up to our expectations.
In Sweden everyone is talking about Nesbyn! Okay. Let's go. And in general, I just really like communities of biking. Like, when we rolled into Nesbyn you could see it was like bike riders everywhere and I mean that’s just a really cool feeling too and it also shows that that it's a good spot. If you see many riders there, it's, you know, you're at the right place. This is somewhere I feel that you should add to your bucket list. definitely coming back.
From Nesbyn, our final stop would be in Oslo. and we'd go and ride the Romsas trails. I'd heard a lot about them that they were flowy, they were natural and there are even some drops to be had! Yeah! The Oslo trails did surprise me a bit. Since the trails are so close to the city, I didn’t really know what to expect but I had a lot of fun riding the trails! I feel like Scotty is more more about the, the steep and, technical stuff, and I'm, more of the a bit a bit flatter and stay in the air a bit more.
Martin's riding has really surprised me. I obviously knew coming to this trip that Martin had a huge amount of skill, but seeing him ride some of the more technical parts following him, We just really had a fun time riding bikes together. Next trip, we're going skate parks.
So, I'm going to teach you some nose bonks and some bar spins and some foot jams and stuff. It's going to be sick. Yep. It's happening. Yeah. Where were we? Seems like a really nice one. Hey. Has anyone seen Marty?
Marty?? Thanks for bringing me, Scottie. Look at it. This is. Seriously, I would say I've been around a lot in the world, but I would say. God damn it. I have something really... I have something really important to say here.
Stop! Truckers! Scotty, you missed a spot there. Maybe you should use this one to, like, get it proper clean! I deserved that.
2024-12-22 01:43
