Magnus got a beautiful steel frame from Göran Isenborg, a Motobecane Grand Touring from the 80’s. Heavy yes, but ooooh, it rolls so well

Now what should we use it for… Touring of course, and we are talking full scale off-grid touring with tent and cooking equipment. Of course persuading Fiona to come along was necessary, and that was not so hard, since we have done a fantastic Cuairt na h-Alba (Tour of Scotland) in 2016.

Fi finally chose to cycle on her commuting bike (Surly Karate Monkey), with new tyres 32×622 and front rack.
Now we just needed to get some more supplies, blow-up mattresses and down sleeping bags and we were sorted. Tadaaa!

At this point we did not know how heavy the bikes were, but every uphill felt very very gravitational to say the least. Imagine a steam train, but as a bike…

It turned out that Magnus bike in total weighed around 45 kg with all the packing, and Fi’s around 35 kg. (no foldable camping chairs next time…)

And then we needed a route. Fi had just discovered Komoot and it worked out to be a great service, where all the different cycling paths (cykel-leder) in Sweden were marked out. And when marking up A to B, it automatically selected these paths, and other cycle-friendly roads. Well almost every time, we ended up on some 2-1 roads sometimes, but that was exceptions. 

So this was our general route, which we fine-tuned each day for weather or other new knowledge.

Day 1, 93 km Torö beach

First stop Torö Beach south of Nynäshamn, we planned to take the ferry to Gotland next day to visit Enya for her birthday the following day.

We cycled on roads very well known to us, via lunch in Orhem and icecream at Västerby Café. 93 km in solid head wind made us quite tired by the time we arrived at the beach.

Day 2, 28 km Nynäshamn

Next morning we only needed to cycle to nearby Nynäshamn. Easy-peasy of course, and we got some time to have a swim in the Baltic at Nickstabadet.

Day 3, 80 km Borgholm-ish

After a day in Visby with Enya we boarded the Oskarshamn ferry very early. Got some time to spend there, where we cycled to Gunnarsö camping and had lunch. Then off to the Öland ferry to Byxelkrok. Once on Öland´s northern end, we headed south in great speed and headwind. We had arranged to meet up with Priya, Fi´s colleague from Telia, who has a beatiful little cottage just south of Borgholm. Thanks Priya for having us in your guest house, and we slept very well in really comfortable beds.

Day 4, 82 km Ålem

After a hearty breakfast we set off to Färjestaden and the ferry over to Kalmar. We used the “cycle-path” on big busy road 136. Not fun at all, avoid if you can. Lunch in Färjestaden and then the small ferry over to Kalmar where north on near perfect cycle lanes and small roads all the way to Ålems Kyrkby where Magnus old colleague Mikael lives. His children are running the locally world famous “Tuvas Trädgårdscafé”, which is doing very well.

Thank you Mikael for showing us around Mönsterås kommun and explained all there is to know about bee keeping. He runs a small side business around digital bee hives. https://www.hsb.se/hsblivinglab/nyheter/digitala-bikupor-i-hsb-living-lab/

Day 5, 133 km Växjö

After getting some good supplies from the café, we took off west wards, straight into the wind. Micke had advised us on a great route, where we hardly met any cars for most of the day. Beautiful small roads, mainly in forest, with the occasional village here and there. But NOOO cafés until we stumbled on a camping near Älghult. On to Växjö, which really is not easy to enter on a bicycle. Mainly 2-1 roads and no signs on how to get there safely with a bike.

Finally we arrived in Växjö to meet up with Mats and Helena, which are old friends from our New Zealand times. Again fantastic hosting and time really flies talking about old memories and what not.

Day 6, 33 km Torne

Found some better roads exiting Växjö, although most roads were quite busy. We planned to get quite a bit further west than we did. After a stop in a small supermarket in Torne, it started to rain quite a bit. Plan B activated! Nearby camping had a small cottage available for the night, so be it.

Day 7, 155 km Laxvik

It rained all night, and we were safe and snug in our small cottage. It stopped raining around 10-ish, and we set off to reach the sea today. Komoot did a great job and we cycled on really nice roads. After a hideous pizza nearby Laxvik, we finally arrived to the sea at a small family-run camping

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