Another day, another road to explore

No sooner had I wished for cycling weather than the skies almost magically cleared up! It was actually really perfect too, terrible weather for the mornings and early afternoons spent in the office and then come 4pm, the clouds would part :).

It was time to go exploring again, and I did! Getting lost is par for the course when you head off the tarmac, but finding out for yourself quite how closely the real world resembles (or does not resemble) Google Earth is its own reward :). Alone or otherwise, I had a great time on a couple of the afternoons, exploring a mix of trails and roads, some known, some not.

On some of those stretches I had travelled before, I was surprised by the difference, in a few months some areas had become almost unrecognisable! And then it struck me, I've been here almost half a year, and while my cycling explorations had started just as summer was beginning, it is now on it's way out. Clearly, it's not just the grass on my lawn that has been growing wildly :).

Norway is famous for its spectacular fjords, but the weather here is no less spectacular. Despite regularly proving itself accurate, I was rather sceptical of this weekend's forecast. Friday and Sunday were predicted to be all doom and gloom, but in the middle, Saturday was going to be perfectly sunny and dry, we were told. And they were right!!

Asker is at the top of a little peninsula that sticks out into the fjord. It's a little out of the way for anyone going anywhere really, most of the time. But I'd been wanting to explore the coastline around this little spit of land for a while. So when it turned out Saturday was indeed all brilliant sunshine and freshly washed, bright and colourful, it seemed like the best time to go about the rather longish trip.

The views might not be quite as spectacular as those along Rallarveggen, but they really were quite something! It was a bit windy too, but the sun stayed out to keep things from getting too chilly. For a trip just over 90km, we passed very little by way of towns. Which is not to say there weren't people living all along the coast.

We ended up finding a nice quiet little restaurant on the water's edge complete with its little pebble beach with a water-break, a little south of Sætre, the last biggish town before things got properly quiet. It was a very relaxed sort of a ride, all things considered, what with one or more of the group feeling compelled to stop and enjoy the breathtaking view for a little bit longer.

Well, that was till we had to climb our way up and down a few hills to cross over from the Oslofjord side to the Drammensfjord side. Thereafter there was a little more of the grim single minded focus on just getting back home that one might expect of people beginning to feel a little tired. That is not to say the views were any less spectacular, we just chose to enjoy them from our seats while pedalling furiously :).

It was only after I'd made it home that I realized this was the longest distance I've ever cycled in a single day! Fittingly, that also meant I'd gone past the first thousand kilometres since I'd got this bike back in May :). I know I'm being a little cocky with that 'first thousand' bit, but with roads like these, there's that extra feeling that, weather permitting, I absolutely have to get out there!

Currently: optimistic
Listening to: Emilie Nicolas - Pstereo

Changing seasons

I've been lazy again, I see. Well, not really, there's just less time to sit down and reflect on things, it seems. So since the awesome Flåm cycling trip, we tried one more, this time around Lillehammer. Unfortunately, by then summer seemed to have left these parts, or at least the nice dry weather had.

We got drenched more than I'd have thought possible in a place without an official monsoon. At least it was reasonably warm otherwise things would have been rather more uncomfortable, I think :). Since then it's been rather more mundane stuff. Lawn-mowing and hedge-trimming, for instance. And a lot of rainy days :(.

Watched a lot of films at the kino, out of which Pacific Rim was terrific, The Wolverine was, well, cool, Now You See Me was thoroughly entertaining and Red 2 was properly hilarious! I have to say though, that last one was a little bit of a let-down when compared to Red.

The one thing I did manage to get done last week was get that elusive driver's license! It took long enough, with three months of classes, training, practice and tests! Now maybe if the weather decides to clear up a bit, I could use a few miles on the bike.

Currently: waiting for week 42!
Listening to: Handsome Boy Modeling School - The truth

Summer in a hidden paradise

It's been a pretty good summer, so far! There was a particularly sunny week in between, which, somewhat uncharacteristically, I chose to ignore completely :). I guess the few hectic weeks and weekends had begun to catch up a little.

However, I probably more than made up for it last weekend :D. As far as last minute plans go, this was pretty out there, a weekend cycling along Rallarvegen. The fact that trains here are quite cycle friendly, even over long distances, helped no end.

We took the Bergen train to Haugastøl early on Saturday morning, and started working our way west through some of the most spectacular terrain I've ever seen! The weather was perfect, just to top things off :).

We reached Finse, the highest railway station along the Oslo - Bergen train line, just in time for a relaxed lunch next to the lake and the still snow covered mountains. Then it was onwards to Myrdal. Of course, on the way there were more views to gape at :).

With not far to go, we even took a break at a particularly inviting beach at the edge of a lake :). Eventually when we did make it to our stop for the night, it turned out to be quite the perfect place. Not only were the rooms cosy, we'd made it just in time for a very satisfying dinner.

The next morning we weren't in any particular hurry as we set off for the rather famous Flåm. The first couple of kilometres were so steep, we decided it would be much more enjoyable to just walk down with our bikes and enjoy the view :). Soon we were in the valley though, and things got much more reasonable!

Having reached Flåm with a long time to go for our train back, we decided to explore the area up to Aurland along the fjord. Soon it was time to head back on the historic Flåmsbana back to Myrdal and then on the Bergen - Oslo train. It was quite entertaining spotting the many bits we could recognize from our cycle route the day before and that very morning!

There was a little bit of drama with some breaks in the train service and the associated trouble with trying to fit our bicycles on the replacement buses, but eventually we made it back to Asker, rather tired, but thoroughly satisfied with the 100 plus kilometres of cycling :).

Currently: wondering what's next
Listening to: Avicii - Wake me up

Super bass!

It's coming together rather nicely now :). After years of compromise in favour of portability, here's to a flood of colour in high definition. And sound! Glorious, rocking sound! The end of knowing that all those extra notes are playing, you just can't hear them.

The beginning of trying very hard not to blow the eardrums off everyone and everything within the air blast radius of this. >:)

Currently: very, very excited :D
Listening to: The XX - Intro

The wheels, they keep spinning

Another couple of fairly active weekends have gone by. While I'm getting pretty good at racking up mileage on the bike, it seems I'm getting a bit lazy with blogging. Anyway, so I've always been rather curious about Drammen, that's probably got something to with the fact that we ended up biking there last weekend.

The weather seemed really perfect, and seeing how I'd never seen the local concept of a 'use and throw' barbecue grill in action, we decided to make it a picnic! Worked out quite nicely, I must say. So nicely, that we kinda lost track of time and had to take a train back home :).

Then there was the hike to Gaustatoppen. Seeing how the place is well over a hundred kilometres from Asker, we ended up driving for what seemed like forever :). But the hike itself was quite spectacular.

Unlike some other long hikes, you can quite clearly see your destination from the very start. Of course, one might be inclined to not believe that it's at all possible to cover such distances in a mere couple of hours! And then you see the snow :).

Yep, this is the middle of summer, and we were happily trudging through patches of snow that had braved the sun. The rest of the landscape was equally fantastic. Beyond a point, the whole hillside is covered in boulders, which in turn are covered in a green mossy sort of thing. This apparently is the work of centuries of freezing and thawing that's ruptured entire mountain sides!

You can supposedly see a seventh of all of Norway from the top of Gaustatoppen. I wonder who worked that out exactly, but we must have missed out on a few fractions of the view, seeing how the farthest rows of mountains were rather cloaked in a haze by the time we made it to the top. The store selling fresh waffles kinda made up for that though :).

Since the weather was particularly fine for most of the week, there were a couple of more forays to the beach and such. But this last Friday, we really outdid ourselves! The great thing with Drammensfjord is how the roads that skirt around it on either shore really cling to the coastline! This means that on a good clear day, you are constantly presented with stunning views of the fjord as you make your way around, all 60 kms of it :D.

This afternoon we decided to explore the Oslofjord side, and sure enough, the views were rather few and far between and the terrain a lot more challenging. But there's nothing like ending a long bike ride with a smoothie and an ice-cream, so I guess I can't really complain. Especially since I'm the one who planned the route :P.

Now where should we go next week?

Currently: I should be sleeping :|
Listening to: Sparklehorse - Revenge (ft. Wayne Coyne)