Sorry Jarl Even, but I got your bike dirty

First, let me describe Oslo from a bicycle perspective. It's a beautiful little city (1/2 million people), and most everyone here takes a tram, rides a bike or walks around. There are plenty of cars, but, really, the car traffic is fairly light, except on the most major roads into town. Many commuters subscribe to a service, where you walk up to an automated stand and pick up a "city bike", then you ride it wherever, and drop it off at another stand somewhere else. It seems like a great system for letting people ride bikes, without having to deal with all of the parked bikes locked to poles and fences everywhere (which they have, too). Anyhow, the cars and buses interact very well with the bikes, and it's all very casual and loose how people get around. The worst thing is the number of wheel-less bikes, where some junkie has stolen the wheels from a locked bike. That always makes me feel sad.

One of my colleagues here, Jarl Even, has loaned me his nice mountain bike for the week. I first rode it on Friday, up the hill to the top of Oslo, along the river that comes from Maridalsvannet, the big lake that is Oslo's drinking water supply. It was about a 50 minute out-and-back, and mostly it took so long because I was trying to follow a path along the river -- once I gave up on that, it went pretty fast.

Saturday, I went mountain-biking into the forest just outside Oslo. It took about 30 minutes to ride up the hill and along the lake, then you are in a hilly, forested area. There is a huge area with fire-road like trails that are used by mountain bikers. Not really all that different from what we have in Los Altos -- in concept, at least. I think this is where Rune took Sharlene on their death-ski trip one winter.

I was equipped with a map from Jarl Even, and I rode a big loop. Inside the forest, there are these groups of huts, which are more used in the winter, as ski hotels. There was one on a lake, and the name was something like canoe-hut, and it looks like you can rent canoes, and paddle around on the (rather large) lake. The second set of buildings I got to was open for the summer, and I could smell fresh baking bread from outside. I filled up my water bottle, but didn't get anything to eat, as it was before lunch, and I figured I could get to the next one within a couple of hours. After that, the map indicated that I had to take a smaller road, and I was by myself on a trail. On the bigger roads, there were a fair number of bikers racing past me. Apparently, all the go-fast bikers in Oslo ride mountain bikes, unlike at home, where they ride road bikes. There's probably one road bike for 200 mountain bikes on the street in Oslo.

Most of the riding was on gravel roads, but a couple of times, I took a single-track path. I probably didn't need to, but I thought I did at the time. What a pain! Lots of big deep muddy puddles that I had to ride across. Fortunately, I was wearing Tevas with wool socks, but then the bike got stuck in one of the bigger puddles and I almost went over. My socks were wet, and my ankles muddy! After the socks came off, all was well. It was a little cool in the shade, but there was plenty of sun to balance it out. The second track that I took crossed over a ridge and I quickly ended up carrying the bike over a rocky mountain, interspersed with boggy puddles. It took about a 1/2 hour, then I was back on the roadway again. I resolved not to do any single-track any more that day. The bike was coated with grime and mud though.

Then it was riding and riding for a long time, up little mountains, and down into valleys with lakes. Very beautiful. I should sadly let you know at this point, that the camera battery died before I could take one picture that day. :-(

Finally, I came down into the valley where the other restaurant is, only to discover that it is a winter hut, and closed for the summer. Fortunately, I'd brought a couple of food bars, and I had enough water, but I was disappointed -- all I really wanted was a ham sandwich and a beer!

No beer was probably just as well. This was a little past the farthest point in my planned loop journey, so I was headed back. Apparently I'd been climbing much more than I'd been descending, and I found myself barreling down a long hill. At one point, my skills were outclassed by a gravelly turn, and I went down, scraping my elbow, denting my helmet(!), and slamming my left thumb (not sure what happened there). Since I wasn't permanently broken, I was able to continue to ride on. As I watched the ground rapidly approach my face, all I could think of was that guy who wiped out in front of Rune and Laura on the Shasta ride. This was nowhere near that bad, though. Nice soft gravel.

After my crash, I decided that I was getting tired. It took a long time to get out of the mountains, but it was mostly all downhill. Rune and others here had recommended going to the ski jump hill to look at Oslo, but by the time I got near to it, I was quite tired and I didn't want to ride up a long hill. Also, with no camera, there didn't seem like a lot of reward for the effort.

Just past the ski jump area, one starts to descend into Oslo. I was coming back to the city from much farther West than I was familiar, so it was quite exciting, in an urban way. First I was on an expressway, then the expressway turned into a busy narrow street through a shopping district, then into a busy street going towards downtown. Finally, in a tired haze, I recognized some buildings, and after racking my brain, figured out how to get back to Owera, put the bike back in the office, and walked the 4 blocks back to the hotel. Total biking time -- 6 hours!

I showered, took a nap, then got some curry for dinner. I was back in my hotel resigned to a couple of hours of lousy TV, then sleep, when my colleagues dragged me out for another two hours of walking around Oslo. I think I ended up sleeping about 10 hours after all that, and I'm sore today!

I expect to do a few more morning rides (I leave on Friday morning), but nothing like that again.

David