Cycling Norway - Day 5

Short day today, as we all start to fly home this af­ter­noon. (This was built in­to the plan as defined by La Fu­ga in the it­in­er­ary.)

The idea was this:

First, get out on the bikes by 6:30am. (As op­posed to the usu­al launch at 9am.) This soun­ded early to some, but (a) the sun was up at 3 am, and (b) that’s ac­tu­ally sorta late for a Mon­ster ride, so it fi­nally felt right.

Second, re­peat yes­ter­day’s climb up Dals­nibba, ex­cept that when we got to the frozen lake, turn left and KEEP GO­ING UP to the moun­tain top way be­fore. So, ba­sic­ally, start the day with more climb­ing than day 4.

Fi­nally, get to the top, en­joy the view, and ride back down to the hotel in time for break­fast. After that, pack up and head to the air­port.

Soun­ded like a great plan, ex­cept for the “more climb­ing” part. Sev­er­al of our group agreed with that, elect­ing to take what Rich had called “Plan B”, which was: stay in bed and en­joy a slow morn­ing.

The morn­ing was bit­terly brisk when we got out in­to the park­ing lot with our bikes. There were four riders (Dan, Mark, An­drew, me) and three guides (Rich and Joel rid­ing, John in the sup­port van). We were off quickly, and even quick­er, Dan, Mark and Rich van­ished up the road. My goal was not to hang with them - not pos­sible for the full 20km up­hill climb - but to beat my time from yes­ter­day, while en­joy­ing the ride.

I rode with An­drew and Joel for a while, then after a minor is­sue with my back wheel not be­ing on quite right, I slowly pulled away for no spe­cif­ic reas­on… that just seems to hap­pen on these hills. I was rid­ing without watch­ing my num­bers, just rid­ing to feel and try­ing to keep the ca­dence pretty high. The road slowly moved from front to back as my legs strained, my back ached, and my breaths grew heavy.

After a while of climb­ing, I got to the first plat­eau where the oh-so-warm sun poked through the clouds. Switch­back­ing my way up the moun­tain­side, I entered a cloud that had en­vel­oped the peak. It was chilly, so I worked harder to stay warm. After sev­er­al more hair­pins, John came by in the van, con­firmed I was in good shape, and told me he thought the cloud would clear out high­er up. Ten to fif­teen minutes of climb­ing later, the clouds did let up, but it stayed cold as I entered the snow­fields again.

Pretty soon I was up to the frozen lake. I fol­lowed the fork to the left lead­ing to the highest paved peak with a fjord view in the world… and the road got ap­pre­ciably steep­er right away. Turns out the top sec­tion av­er­ages about 9% grade, with an aw­ful lot of 10-12% sec­tions. The views out over the lake and the sur­round­ing peaks were tre­mend­ous. I roun­ded a corner, ex­pect­ing to fi­nally be at the top… and no, more road. I topped an­oth­er crest, ex­pect­ing to be fi­nally at the top… and no, more road. And so on, for an­oth­er 5k, un­til fi­nally, pretty damn ex­hausted I got to the ac­tu­al top, where Rich, Dan and Mark were en­joy­ing the view and shiv­er­ing. The tem­per­at­ure was be­low freez­ing, but the scenery was amaz­ing.

Rich sug­ges­ted we drive down in the van be­cause of the po­ten­tial for black ice, but I wanted my last ser­i­ous moun­tain des­cent that I’d be likely to have for ages. I put on all the clothes I had in my bag in the van, ate a ba­nana, and flew down . It was so freek­ing cold that I had to stop twice be­fore reach­ing the frozen lake just to bang my hands to­geth­er to thaw them enough to ride.

I dropped down through the clouds and in­to the warm­er, damper air be­low. Shiv­er­ing, I kept sail­ing down­wards. The road was smooth, the curves tight, … it was a fant­ast­ic ride down, but it was aw­fully hard to en­joy since I was shiv­er­ing so much.

I passed one car on the way down that was tak­ing too long to man­age hair­pins.

Fi­nally - and pretty quickly - I ar­rived back at the hotel. I stashed my bike in the build area we had, staggered up to my hotel room, and hopped in a hot shower to thaw out. It took quite a while un­til I could stop my full body shivers.

But it was worth it. The ride up, through the quiet, clear morn­ing air, was fant­ast­ic. The des­cent was ri­dicu­lous, but the road was so smooth and the views so ran­ging. The morn­ing solitude in that amaz­ing place made it pos­sibly the most mem­or­able climb of the week.

After a hearty break­fast, we packed, dis­as­sembled bikes for the trip, and then had a bit of down­time be­fore jump­ing in the vans be­fore head­ing to the air­port a few hours a way. I wandered through Gerainger, soak­ing in the crazy beauty of Nor­way.. the wa­ter­falls, vast fjords, and tower­ing peaks. Wow.