“The slower I cycle, the more I can see”
What is this all about?
The title consists of two words “cycle” and “experiences”.
Cycle means that the blog is about my bike tours. I will write about how much, where, when and how the bike ride was. I’ll try to refrain from commenting on political, economic issues and other things that angers me. There are others who do it better.
The second part is a bit harder. Experiences, can be anything that I feel when I ride. All of my thoughts to great things. I hope to enjoy meeting people, nature, culture and above all food.
2010 I was in involved in an accident in a road race. During my convalescence I was thinking about how it would be to cycle for 24 hours on my race bike. Only stopping for water and food, No extra equipment only a VISA card. At the same time I read about some Swedish cyclists on their way to China.
During that winther a read a lot, made plans and had ideas how and where to cycle. I sold my Time trial bike, bought camping stuff and soon it was time to go out on the road.
Making a long story short, I dropped the 24 hour idea and decided that five week cycle was reasonable. Being in other parts of Ukraine but not at Black Sea I decided that Odessa would be a reasonable distance from Sweden.
Part of this story is my increased tiredness an fatigue. In May 2011 I had to go to hospital because I fainted at my job. 24 hour later I was lying on the operation table and got a Pacemaker.
Ten days after I got my pacemaker I started to cycle to Odessa. Read about that in Cycling experiences 2011.
“It’s a dangerous business Frodo, going out your door.
You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet,
there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Bilbo, in Lord of the Rings
Eastern Europe has always fascinated me. I have had the privilege to travel to these countries in my profession at Chamber of Commerce. But it has also stoped me from getting outside the capital cities. Now I want to get closer to people and how they live in countryside.
The journey goes from Tallinn Trough Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine to finish in Odessa at the Black Sea. It was a good ride. All countries was interesting, although no mountains I meet many people and saw many interesting places. Read about it here.
My trip to Odessa was a nice first trip and only days after I returned to work I began to plan my nest. Journey. This journey went through middle Europe. Starting in Stockholm ends in Athens.
I can’t recall why I decided this but again work duties and vacation time decided how many days I could spend on the road.
Through Poland, Czech Rep, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Greece. looking for small back roads with little traffic and interesting nature. Staying in Wroclaw and Belgrade and Tirana. You can read about this in Cycling Experiences 2012.
I enjoy sitting with my maps and think about all interesting places to go to. Limitations, weather, time of year, cost. There are many variables to take into consideration.
After some thoughts I think I have decided that this years trip will be South America. I want to cycle in the Andes. Want to see Amazon’s before it disappear. I want to see Angel Falls. You can read about this in Cycle Experiences 2013.
What do you do when it is getting hard to sit still on the office chair? When you sit in front of Google maps every evenings and dream away. When you look for exciting bike trails when sitting on a fast train through Sweden. You make a career break and get on the bike again – of course.
With a new job so this year’s cycling experiences stays in Sweden. It will be a short trip to Östersund and back where I explore the built up of swediosh wealth. You can read about it in Cycle Experiences 2014. And as a bonus for this year I managed to have one week off in end of October for a even shorter trip in Finland.
2015 cycling experiences became a journey in the New World, USA. It was 34 days from Key West to Boston. Follow the journey here.
Satisfied with cycle experiences 2015, I wanted to increase the challenge. In 2016 the trip went UK. It was a 20 days ride From Edinburgh to Brighton. You can read about this trip here.
After consideration and thoughts, I decided to return to US. 2017 cycling experiences became Chicago to New Orleans. Read more here.
I didn’t come all the way to New Orleans as you might read above. So to get together trips with vacations and jobs, bike experiences in 2018 stayed in Sweden. A short round to Västervik and back in late April. You can read more about this trip here.
I felt I was done with US I started to look at new challenges. My eyes saw Caucasus as interesting. I decided that Caucasus would be interesting to visit. I was planning to visit. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. But it did ot goes as planned, you can read more here.
The pandemic put a stop to all travel outside Sweden in 2020, so instead of cycling to Santigo de Compostela in northern Spain, it was a round trip north in Sweden. You can read more about that trip here.