Total distance: 150.8 km

I Internet-diagnosed my deaf fingers as Guyon’s tunnel syndrome, a common issue for bike riders. After checking out of the hotel, I put out the tool bag and raised the handlebar to take some weight from my hands. The new position allows me to completely take off pressure from the region where the ulnar nerve passes through the palm of the hand. I also took some Ibuprofen over the day as an anti-inflammatory measure. That’s what it must be like as a professional bike athlete, shaving legs, popping pills, and colourful tape holding together the overused body parts.

Until Copenhagen, I frequently met, overtook, and chatted with other bike travellers, most of them having Copenhagen as their final destination. As I am heading further now, their number decreased abruptly.

I saw a lot of road bikers today. The interesting observation in that context was: they use the bike ways, not the roads. That’s how good the bike lanes are in Denmark. After 50 km on them, passing beautiful coastlines and beach areas, the next ferry from Helsingør to Helsingborg waited.

Goodbye Denmark…

…and hello Sweden, my old friend. It has been a while.

My first stop in Helsingborg was an ATM to equip myself with Swedish crowns. Just to find out at my second stop, that they won’t accept cash as payment method. That was at a Telia phone shop where I got a prepaid SIM card with 3 GiB of mobile data – for only 149 SEK, plus 100 SEK for registration, that’s around 26 €. According to what I googled, Telia is the largest phone company in Sweden with no alternative if you want coverage in the north of the country.

I am still following the Eurovelo 7, which mostly overlaps with the local Kattegattleden. In my navigation app (OruxMaps), I now use a cycling map style that highlights such bike routes. So I no longer need a GPS track in addition to the map. Here is a screen shot of what I see when I’m driving. Together with mobile data, this makes up for an otherwise nearly unplanned trip.

The way mostly followed the coast and I had to ride against the wind for the whole day.

Some kilometres away from the cost line, the first hills waited, and I had to do a first real climb.

Today’s goal was Halmstad, with Göteborg in mind for the next day.

I had a late arrival on the camp site but luckily met a staff member, who gave me a shower card. At the same time, a motor biker arrived, who also started in Germany – but today.

When I put up the tent in the dark, the first major fail of this trip happened. While pushing my bike a few metres away, one of the bungee cords, which I use to fixate the red and yellow bags, hooked into the spokes of the back wheel and became irremovably stuck after a few rotations. Together with the motor biker, we tried to get it out, but it was hopeless. So I cut it out. Damage report: one bungee cord and the Alfine gear hub’s chain guard ring destroyed, also one part of the chainglider deformed. Chain maintenance was scheduled for tomorrow anyway, now it’ll be some more to do.

The day ended with chatting with the motor biker, and finally eating the noodles with tomato sauce I was carrying around for days now. I did not dare to fire up the camping stove in the hotel room in Copenhagen.