Day 52 - the E6 and Hills!






The first 40 miles of todays ride were heading north along the valley floor of the northern end of Lake Mjosa.  This was very pleasant initially, with beautiful views of the surrounding hills. 



After about 20 miles, the quiet road I had been following turned eastwards and, for the first time, I had to ride along the E6.  This road starts in southern Sweden and continues into the far north of Norway.  It is a motorway until just south of Lillehammer and then continues as a very busy main road, at this point it is the main link between Oslo and Trondheim.  It has been a significant presence since Gothenburg.  Today I got off pretty lightly since there were very few lorries on the road on account of a bank holiday, but it doesn't make for relaxed riding. I don't have any pictures of this stretch, it wasn't somewhere I wanted to linger.
It was with a lot of relief that I reached the small town of Ringebu and left the E6 in order to climb out of the northern side of the valley.  For the next hour the gradient averaged around 7% with some long stretches of 10% and occasionally reaching 15%.  It was great!!  I have quite a low gear, for a road bike, which I used most of the way up.  The key is to relax the whole body except legs, and settle into a nice steady rhythm.  Look around and take everything in.  Over the 800m of vertical ascent the world slowly changed, trees thinned out and were more stunted, patches of snow appeared beside the road, and the temperature dropped.  As the climb levelled out I encountered a beautiful tableland of low scrub, shallow lakes, surrounding peaks, still with a covering of snow, and an open gently undulating smooth road.  Cycling heaven!







Capping a fantastic day of travelling for both myself, and Jacqui in Ivan, was Skogli Camping.  Set in a gorgeous spot beside the River Alta, it is so peaceful.







Comments

  1. Anonymous22 May 2018 at 05:01

    I don't envy doing that climb but boy is it must have been worth it to see the views and finally make camp in such a beautiful place :)

    Regards

    Kevin (SGL)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Martin Bradley22 May 2018 at 12:27

      It was definitely worth the huffing and puffing Kevin!

      Delete

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