The day started with tea and breakfast, following yesterday’s invitation. We talked a lot, and it got late. So yeah, late start again.
When I had finished packing up, I couldn’t find my bike gloves. They were still inside the now packed tent. The same thing happened with my glasses some stages earlier. While back then I unpacked the tent to recover them, I decided to ride without gloves today.
I made good progress, as yesterday. Perfect conditions again.
The alarm was set to 07:40. Around the same time, the familiar sound of a rustling plastic bag caught my attention. But it wasn’t me causing it. Some animal had stolen the waste from the tent’s entrance area. I didn’t see it though, as the sound of me opening the zippers to get a look outside must have spooked it.
Also, the outside didn’t really look like getting up. So I got back into the tent and slowly started preparing the day by eating the first 1000 kcal.
Finally an early start plus 8 hours of sleep. Stage set for a long stage. I wonder how weird this double use of stage is for a native speaker.
Today’s route started on my beloved E4. The plan was to use it for some kilometres to avoid a major detour. Whenever possible I would try to use nearby roads. That’s how it looked on the map, coming back from a side road onto the E4.
Well, here is reality.
Got up relatively early at 08:30 and hit the road around 11:00. I still must improve my morning procedure. Although my tent neighbours, two French girls on a backpacking trip through Sweden, were only slightly faster.
I didn’t take many photos today, since I tried to avoid all the small breaks that disrupt the riding flow, and usually accumulate to some hours of non-moving time until the end of the day.
The stage’s highlight was crossing the Höga Kusten Bridge, the world’s 14th largest suspension bridge.
It is part of the E4 route, which at this area is closed for cycling. Only the bridge segment itself is open and has a side stripe usable as bike lane.
Let’s start with some facts and numbers (including this stage).
1850 km ridden
15 riding days (two past half time)
~123 km/day average
13500 height meters
~1400 km to go
=> 12 days to go
=> ETA: 2015-08-30 (probably plus some days for unforeseen stuff, and extra km for using bike-friendly routes)
Check-in, check-out, done. This was a nice camp site, but with 200 SEK a rather expensive one.
Before leaving, chaintenance was in order due to the dusty roads yesterday. What I already felt the last 500 km, became obvious when I removed the chainglider. This chain is through. It has lengthened by roughly one segment. It’s so loose, it can be just taken off the chain wheel. Every time I puts pressure on the pedal, it takes a few degrees of crank rotation before there’s a transmission to the back wheel. This is very annoying. So there’s a new side quest: find a new chain.
This stage was tough, it started like yesterday ended – with climbing. The first kilometres felt incredibly slow and I wasn’t sure whether it was for the height profile or for my tired body. It took 50 km for my legs to play along as usual. Normally, the fun part of each stage starts after lunch, but not today. It might have been too heavy, I should have stuck to one litre of yoghurt for lunch.
Today I reached Falun as planned. A lot of height meters and headwind made it an exhausting and slow stage.
In the morning, I checked in and out for the last night, as I arrived late yesterday and nobody was there.
Before leaving, it was time for another chaintenance. The drive-train already sounded too loud for the last two stages, but everything looked good and I quickly cleaned and oiled it after removing the chainglider.
Routine is settling in. Similar procedures, as described in an earlier post, repeated day by day.
Today’s route had the height profile of a Tour de France stage in the Alps, well, at least it felt that way.