Category: cycle-touring

Norway 2025 Day 1: Bergen – Sletta

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.

Norway 2025: On The Move

On leaving the campsite in Oslo – for the last time – I passed a fellow camper from a neighbouring pitch who I’d seen looking at my bike when it was chained up against a post at the site.

‘Are you a climber she asked’? Taken aback by the comment, I could only muster a look of bewilderment in response. ‘Petzl’ she responded, pointing at the climbers’ chalk bag I’d mounted to my handlebars as an ad-hoc storage solution. ‘Ah, well yes I am, but I have other chalk bags for climbing’. It turned out she was in the area with her partner because of the excellent climbing terrain in the vicinity.

Today, I was making for the train, hoping to cover almost 500 km on the Bergen line, allegedly one of Europe’s most beautiful train journeys. At this time, I have no information as to whether the reviewer had compared it to the West Highland Line…

During the early stages of the journey, I was struck by the virtually full tree cover of the landscape, that and the number of tunnels.

As the hours passed we trundled by a number of stunning lakes, stopping at some implausibly tiny settlements, at one of which we were told we could leave the train as it was going to be 2 hours until they could find a driver to cover the rest of the route, fortunately it wasn’t quite that long.

The line wended its way higher to its max elevation, at 1200 metres, in the middle of a huge snow encircled plateau, before, another barrage of tunnels brought us out onto a pretty fjord on our last approach to Bergen.

The 8 hours had flown by, although it had been a tough shift for my power bank, which was now fully depleted, it was lucky I had a hotel booked for the evening.

Charging batteries was certainly a priority in choosing to stay in a hotel before my first day’s cycle, but was it of greater priority than the fact that tomorrow was Saturday, and Bergen had a Parkrun?

Norway 2025: The Skrik

If you are wondering why I am starting a journey from Bergen to Tromso, in Oslo, an option that is vastly more complicated and quite a lot more expensive too, it is because I have long been due a trip to the Norwegian capital and this seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.

When I was studying art in school, the work of Edvard Munch captured my imagination with his expressive brushwork and dramatic use of colour. If it hadn’t been for the fact that first the Nasjonal Museet and then the Munch Museum had been closed for lengthy periods to move into new buildings, I would have been long before now.

On the way back into town Google maps managed to pare the 6 mile route down to 7.5 miles, tough going in the bright sunshine. Luckily, if the 20°C temperature was too much for me, my itinerary for the day largely comprised of visiting art galleries, so I wouldn’t be complaining for too long.

Passing by the Opera House, it looked resplendent and I tried my best to drag myself away for my 1PM appointment at the Munch Museum next door.

In its current home since 2021, the building has 11 floors but surprisingly little exhibition space considering the quantity of works by the Munch they must have, much of which must be in storage.

At the heart of the exhibit is a rotation of 3 lesser versions of the Scream, each of which was being displayed for half an hour at a time before transitioning to a neighbouring work. The more famous version of the painting has lived at the Nasjonal Museet since it opened in 2022, and if my visit was anything to go by, is constantly guarded. Perhaps, due to the fact that versions of this painting do seem to go missing…

After completing the cultural element of the trip impressively early, I picked up a new bike pump at the supersize sports good warehouse XXL, before making my way along the dock to Vippa, an international food court and beer garden in an old warehouse building beside the fish market.

It was promisingly busy, which I decided must be testament to, either: the quality of the food, or the low price of the beer, which at £7 seemed reasonable considering Norway’s reputation for being eye-wateringly expensive.

As it happened, the food was worth staying for too, and I was furnished with Himalayan pork dumplings – called Momos – from one stall, and chicken gyros from another.

Norway 2025: Who Needs a Seat?

As the plane came in to land, I was struck by the sheer quantity of trees that surrounded the Oslo area. Already I knew that the landscape here was going to look vastly different to that of Scotland, where much of the native forest has long since been wiped out.

After exiting the plane, and collecting my baggage, I was relieved to see that my bike box and pannier, which had been in the hold, looked like they had had an easy time of it, so I was feeling confident that I’d have my bike built up in no time and very soon be on my way into Oslo on the train.

But then, on trying to pump up my tyres, the unmistakable sound of gushing air accompanied every stroke, and no matter how hard I tried, the tyres wouldn’t firm up.

Localising the air’s escape point was impossible over the noise of the Airport’s air conditioning, so it was only after realising that both tyres appeared to be similarly afflicted that I realised that it might actually be the pump itself that was faulty, its hose having burst during the flight.

My luck was in, just across the concourse was another cyclist, Kevin, in the painstaking process of putting his bike back together, 30 hours after leaving Edmonton, Canada. He was soon to set off on a 4 month journey crisscrossing Norway all the way north to the Nordkapp. He had been learning Norwegian especially, and the first stage of his expedition would see him travelling west to Stavanger to see the launch of a recreation of the first boat to safely cross to the Americas.

While gratefully using Kevin’s pump to restore some utility to my bike’s wheels, I asked if he was all set. ‘Do you not see something missing?’ he asked. Well you don’t appear to have a saddle, I commented… It transpired that his bike box had been searched before his final flight from Hamburg and whoever had searched the box had forgotten to reinstate his seatpost and saddle when they closed it back up. At least all I needed was a new bike pump.

Significantly later than I’d hoped, I arrived at Oslo train station with a fully operable bike and plenty of equipment, all that was needed now was for me to reach my campsite on the outskirts of the Norwegian capital of Oslo, a journey of some 6 miles, according to Google maps. The small detail I’d missed was that the campsite was situated at 200 metres elevation, and somehow 6 miles became 8.

Arriving at the campsite at after 11 pm, I had the comfort of knowing that I had already checked in online and had the number of my pitch already. On arriving at the site, though, I discovered that the non-electrical pitches weren’t numbered, and when I worked out which plot was mine, it was already taken by a campervan. Well, there wasn’t much for it but to find the nearest available pitch and set up for the night.