Distance: 38.08 miles

Time: 4:32

Elevation Gain: 2,696 feet

It might not be the most sensible way to start the first day of a 1200 mile cycle tour, but I had engineered my whole trip so that I could factor in a parkrun, so it seemed unlikely that I’d back out now. It was a kilometre to the start of Lovstien parkrun, and much of that was steeply uphill. Not that this was a surprise as the terrain to the south of the hotel towered over the city, the lower reaches covered in the colourful wooden houses for which Bergen is famous, and above that a thick forest rose into the sky.

The parkrun course ran through the forest and was a double out and back, twice, if there is such a thing. On the first lap of the course, I was happy that I’d kept my effort to a manageable level – despite the steep hills and super-high humidity – but inevitably on the second lap I saw that there were a few places to be taken and got a little carried away, finishing in a reasonably satisfying 10th place.

Happy with my morning’s efforts, I made it back in time to have breakfast in the hotel’s 5th floor restaurant, which gave lovely expansive views over the city.

Finally packed and ready to roll – just as check out finished at 12 o’clock – I made my way into town, keen to sample the ambience of Bryggen’s historic port before joining the Norwegian section of Eurovelo 1, The Atlantic Coast Route.

Almost instantly I was muttering in annoyance as the cycle path I was on suddenly disappeared in front of me – due to repair works being carried out on a tunnel – so I had to bump back down onto the road.

As I pedalled around the first headland, the terrain was relatively flat, and shortly afterwards I was sitting overlooking the cojoined fjords of Sognefjord and Hardangerfjord, eating a picnic of Flotemysost (a version of the traditional Brunost, brown cheese, made with sheep’ milk instead of goats’) and strawberry jam, on pancakes (traditionally waffles), a flavour combination I’d first tried at the cafe on the previous day’s train.

Some steeper inclines sapped my strength in Morvik and Mjolkeraen before the stiffest test yet took me up and over to the first of a pair of bridges that would see me hopscotching across the bay to Knarvik.

After stopping at the Kiwi supermarket in Ikenberget for a tasty pasta salad, I’d had enough of overcomplicated cycling infrastructure when I ended up steeply dropping down into an underpass, before struggling up the other side, all to cross the road to a cycle path that stopped at a bus stop, 50 yards later.

Luckily, soon afterwards, the cycle path alongside the 565 petered out, and when the route forked off to meander around in a tangential direction, I opted to carrry on along the pretty fjord, on the direct, quiet road I was on. And, with one last climb to overcome, the road dropped down to Sletta Kai og Fritid, the only campsite I could find for miles around.

• bikepacking
• cycle-touring