Norway/Scandinavia beta?

[Huskier]

So, I pulled the trigger on a Transition Patrol, and it's great. Now I want to take it traveling and have settled on a tour of Northern Europe in early September. Anybody been? What resource did you use to find trails? Guided/unguided? Package trip or no?

[radam]

Did you end up planning a trip? I was just looking at where I can go on a cheap direct flight and Bergen, Norway is one of the options. Wondering what sort of easy-to-plan bike vacation I could make out of it. My wife and I did a pretty mellow bike tour through Ireland before our first kid a couple years back and kid #2 will be old enough to leave with the grandparents pretty soon. Would love to do another cycling tour, either all road/path/gravel or a mix of road/mtn, maybe 40-50 miles a day if road. Don't need a guide for the riding itself but would need luggage transfers...planning bikepacking logistics would not be our idea of a vacation from the daily grind.

Anyone got any intel?

[thefortrees]

No intel on Norway/Scandinavia beta, but I'm curious to know if OP decided to move to Jackson.

[SchralphMacchio]

Wow, Bergen is a strange location to fly into! Most tourists take the train between Bergen and Oslo or rent a car.

I remember seeing a ton of MTB cases from people flying into Oslo. I only spent a few days in Bergen, so I don't remember much ... I don't think there is any trail riding right near the town, but the Voss ski area had some trails, and Vossevangen is where they have an annual extreme sports festival which highlights base jumping, MTB, skiing, probably wingsuiting too.

For sure you could do some sick summer road bike touring out of Bergen, but I'm not sure about the MTB. I think there are other regions that are much more into the MTB scene. Maybe PM arild, if he still hangs out here, or sf. They are both in Norway.

That said, Bergen is a cool town. It's the San Francisco of Norway. Port town with a retail district, but also historic castles, home of Edvard Grieg (great place to visit if you are a music nerd), cool art and independent music scene, good international vibe. From Bergen you can take a boat to other coastal towns like Stavanger, Bodo, or take a train, or drive. Flying with your bike would be a major pain IMO however, because most rental cars won't be able to accommodate a fully built bike. And rental cars are insanely expensive in Norway, along with everything else ...

You do know that Norway is the most expensive country in the world, right? A pint of Ringnes or Hansa (their version of MGD) runs you about $15 USD at a bar or restaurant. A bottle of Nogne O (their version of Dogfish Head) runs about $20. I think at the supermarket a 6-pack of Newcastle runs like $35. Auto rentals, hotels, food, everything is very crazy expensive in Norway.

The only thing that is cheap in Norway is camping, because you can camp anywhere in the country as long as it's more than 150 meters from a building or structure. Basically, if you're going there for rock climbing or BC skiing, you can rent a van and camp out of that for a week and make the trip more affordable.

[milestogo]

Rallarvegen. Google it. Awesome ride, not single track but scenic AF and killer lodging along the way.

[kevin267]

http://www.ridebig.com/rides/lofoten

[radam]

I hadn't really factored in the high cost of living, so maybe that offsets the cheap flights. But I did find some mostly-inclusive road bike tours (bike rental, lodging, breakfast/dinner, bag transport) that were ~$1500usd to a week. The Rallarvegen looks pretty awesome. My wife's been on the bike pretty minimally lately, so it's more about being able to pedal through scenic areas than anything else. Never been to Norway and hadn't been sitting around thinking it was a place I needed to visit, but I had seen some photos somewhere recently and it piqued my interest.

[Danno]

it piqued my interest.

I got nothing for you, but kudos for not typing "peaked" like 99% of the internet.