Mountain biking

Lots of friends have for a long time been riding something called Jotunheimen Rundt (http://jotunheimenrundt.no/) in Norway since I've started cycling in Sweden. Like Ari (the sour Finn) about 100 times, Jonas who took it as a sight seeing tour, Johan (bigmollo) a few times and then Calle (mollo's brother, but also my brother in arms in two PBP's) who rode it once and broke the Swedish record while he was at it. And apparently I've just registered for it...

It's a 430+ km ride over lots of spectacular mountains on the 1st July this year and fits in perfectly as a final hard ride before Sverigetempot for me: I need the mountain part so that I can get rid of the uphills in Sverigetempot without wasting all my energy, which was my feeling last time. The ride looks like this:

Messy 4x4 intervals? Or a couple of mountains?

It's a huge otivation to have a completely new ride to look forward to! Riding epic rides together with the two Mölleborn brothers is always a highlight.

Norway, here I come!

/Toni

Steady state

I've had a good holiday with a training load I'm happy with, although not quite the 1000 km I was dreaming of. Sometimes life just doesn't intend for us to be on a bike all the time. Now back to work which is good, challenging and fun although trying to avoid stress situations has already knocked off a few vaguely planned training sessions. But that doesn't actually matter because my tactic is to just fill every single gap in my calander the next few weeks with a training session so that in the end a pretty good proportion actually eventuate :-)

I am in a bit of a steady state phase of training in between adventurous, really long rides, which I will try and do at least once a month during winter. I have continued to get to know by Bianchi Zurigo CX and am getting more and more comfortable with it even in the last few days' pretty tough winter commuting conditions.

Adventure commuting

A really exciting factor in my motivation bank is that I registered for Sverigetempot again and have been almost shaking with anticipation since then. Even though it's only January!

Mum, that's not really very far, is it?

But there's work to be done before then and, apart from about 2 hours commuting a day in tough conditions, I seem to manage to get in a gym session or two every week, concentrating on legs and trunk/stability while trying to avoid easy muscles in my upper body, although they just seem to pop up anyway... And intervals inside on the Monark hopefully 3 times a week while normal distance rides are a bit hairy.

Standard indoor fun instead of four mountain climbs

So basically a good training period with no major highlights. Although tomorrow night we are having an Ötzi get-together and those sort of events have a tendency of pulling silly long-winter-ride ideas out of me so we'll see what happens!

Until then I'm happy plodding along and am enjoying the variation this hard winter provides in cycling.

Good Morning World! -8 this morning with down to -20 forecast the next few days

Cheers!

/Toni

Ice age

After a few weeks of cold weather Drevviken is frozen and I have tried it out on skates a couple of times. Today Liam wanted to try crosscountry skiing and after digging out all the stuff from way way back in the attic, we trudged down to the lake together for an afternoon adventure. The sole of his skiing shoe came off before he even started, but luckily we had his skates with us as well. He did surprisingly well through 10 cm, quite heavy snow.Good effort mate!

I had it easier and after a few shaky minutes really loved the beautiful flowing movement of skiing. Well that's what it felt like anyway. It probably looked more like Magnus Samuelsson using all his strongest man on earth muscles to pull one of those really big tyres, heaving and huffing and puffing to get a few centimeters further...

First tracks

Toasty warm hands not only when riding

MAMOD: middle aged man on Drevviken

After a random tour across the lake to Tyresö, Badudden and back again, we returned to Mattis' place in the forest to a surprise welcome reception with Matti and a big warm fire in fromt of his winter hut.

Aprés ski, Matti-style

It was so much fun that I hope I find a longer slot tomorrow for a longer ski. I was even more stimulating than the nausea accompanied 4x4 intervals on the Monark early this morning... Feel like I'm worth that beer in the bath now.

Let the Ice age continue!


/Toni

Baby Ötzi

Sooooo excited! Missing the Vintervättern last week made the wait between the Ötzi XL and this shorter Ötzi-version seem like it lasted forever. The cold and snowy weather the last few days has contributed to the childish anticipation of this one. It's a classic ride of 200 km around Mälaren, but with a shortcut from Strängnäs over the bridge towards Enköping. KBCK has had this ride for years (premiere 2006?) and still arranges it from Barkarby, but now under the auspices of the real club Randonneur Stockholm. The day beforehand we heard that 30 people had registered!

 

Rise and shine!

Slightly less package, slightly extended rear mudflap, slightly more snow

It was great meeting lots of well known and some new faces in Barkarby; I think about 25 started. I was a bit disappointed that I was the only KBCK representative with both Johan and Anders getting far too old and lazy and restricting their activity to sitting in warm sofas and looking like secretaries. After cheerily saying goodbye to them we immediately divided up into two groups and rode disciplined and well in the first to get out of the citycycling part that continues to make me a bit nervous.

We rode hard but even to Strängnäs in about -6 degrees and pretty good wind. I was trying to take 10 minute turns at the front and keep the pulse at just over 80% and it was fun to look down at the Garmin sometimes and see that we were riding over 40 km/h. In the snow and with studded tyres. After Strängnäs the first group not surprisingly was getting tired and we took it easier after that. Well, except for Mats "pilen" Pihlström who didn't get tired. Due to the cold, more or less perpetual light snowfall and strong wind, I didn't once take my gloves off during riding to take any actual cycling pictures, so you need to trust me that I actually sat on a bike :-) Others on happymtb.org were better at this.

It was the first long test of my new Zaniers heated gloves and they were perfect. On the lowest heating level of three the whole time, no problems with battery time for 8.30 hours. I'm so happy! I recently decided that I would try one more new pair of gloves or else stop winter cycling due to very easily frozen fingers. I can now confidently keep riding!

 

Glow in the dark gloves

Gurra was as dependable as ever and after a few kilometers of following our group came into the Bålsta station with us with a bag of endless Jägermeister to replenish exhausted riders with new energy. Johan had shaken off his morning old-age tiredness and met us at Bålsta, which meant we had a fresher brain and fresher legs to guide us the last, slippery, snowy kilometers to Barkarby. I missed the sprint for the sign again, this time consciously resisting the urge to sprint when I felt how deceptively slippery it was around the final round-about. But that didn't matter. It's always nice to get to the finish and feel the exhaltation and streams of endorphines flowing through the body and talking complete rubbish with the other companions of the whole day. We came in in an unusually fast 8.30 hours for these conditions.

A spritely looking bunch at a traditional afterbike in Barkarby

I felt surprisingly comfortable with the whole day. Despite of course getting tired during the harder riding parts and getting cold, it was all within easily managed zones, which makes me confident of upcoming long rides.

There are no planned rides in the next weeks though, so many have discussed that we need an extra one slotted in the calender soon. I'll see what I can think of...

/Toni

Like a child at Christmas

After the dark, snowstormy ride last night (well afternoon, well no lunchish actually, but still dark) the countryside has turned beautifully crispy, cold, white and has ignited some sort of primeval childish Christmassy playing in the snow urges. I couldn't resist another ride today and even felt like I'd won the lottery of which hour or two might be sunny!

Playtime!

Despite studded tyres it was pretty treacherous out there somtimes so I shortened down my ride a bit to avoid roads with lots of traffic, and that was well worth it.

Give me roads like this any day

The temperature, tyres and conditions all contributed to an embarrasingly slow speed, but lots of fun and beautiful scenery.

But it was cold, about -8 most of the time, so I wasn't too sad to get home and jump into a warm bath with a well-deserved beer!

/Toni

Let it snow

I felt pretty dejected all day after having missed http://vintervattern.se , an inaugural winter edition of Vätternrundan limited to 50 starters. I would have loved to test the new Bianchi on this ride - but work and family priorities the last few weeks have meant I couldn't get the logistics worked out in time. Pictures from today showing magical snowy winter weather on their ride haven't helped. Although I'm glad they have such brilliant (tough) conditions!

After a few hassles changing to studded tyres on the Bianchi cross, and the fact that the same snow storm had made it to Stockholm, I managed to find a couple of hours this afternoon to at least have a short personal winter adventure. A good opportunity to not only gently roll in the studded tyres (what DO they actually mean by that?!), but also to test battery times for my lights, new Zanier superduper electronically warmed gloves and overkill Bontrager wintershoes.

Say what you want, but the reflexes on the new tyres sure do their job!

My cockpit and view for a couple of hours: on the left one new glove (lowest level was fine for snowstorm and -3 degrees), Dinotte light on the right. Psychadelic snowflakes in front.

After 60 km I got randonneur petrol station withdrawal symptoms and stopped for some light beers in Skogås. As accompaniment for the sauna at home.

It ended up a great winter wonderlandy sort of ride, but in the worst of the storm out on quiet roads on Södertörn, I sort of understood the cars tooting at me trying to tell me there were probably safer things to be doing this evening.

Ride safe and careful everybody on the Vintervättern!

/Toni

Ötzi XL 2015

After a really successful PBP a few months ago (48.53 hours and 25th place) I have been motivated to be in top form for Sverigetempot again next year. With more and more time restrictions due to work I need to plan my training well and it ends up being mainly high intensity intervals. However I am planning on including regular long (200+ km) rides to get really comfortably aquainted with distances.

The first one of these was the Ötzi XL ride based on the happy forum which I try and initiate whenever I am here in December. 320 km around the lake Mälaren in the middle of December should entail ridiculously cold temperatures, snow and alot of misery. The warm winter this year however meant that noone even had studded tyres on and I decided to ride in shorts :-) And I was really looking forward to riding on a CX (Bianchi Zurigo) for the first time!

Lovely looking bike, kitted for a long dark ride

After meeting at Lilla Barkarby and eating as much as possible a happy group of 10 started off into the pitch black at just after 9 pm. 

Eager, slightly nervous anticipation of the night to come

We unfortunately dropped one after only a few km's when his crank came off and he couldn't sort out how to replace it. But it was better this happening now than 7 hours later far away from anywhere. Riding through town at night in a group is always a bit nervous and I was glad when we came out onto the open road towards Södertälje after an hour or so. We weren't stressing so we stopped for a quick refill of energy and some chatting to get into the spirit of the ride and then soon got out onto the even more open, real roads out towards Strängnäs. Here Mika dropped off, but with his experience I was not worried about leaving him to himself.

This is what we looked like for about 11 hours. Between Södertälje and Strängnäs

It was a brutal headwind so we weren't going fast; I often looked down at my Garmin and realised we were struggling to ride faster than 20 km/h... But by skipping the stop in Strängnäs which felt unnecessary seeing we weren't at all cold, we made it to Eskilstuna in good time anyway. There we stopped for everyone to check equipment, fill bottles and of course the traditional 4 am McDonalds together with the cream of Eskilstuna society on their slightly wobbly way home after a long night out.

Still looking fresh and nearly halfway

A McJäger with extra Jäger please

After Eskilstuna we turned north and started getting the wind from the left instead and in Köping we finally turned east and suddenly didn't have to work hard to ride at 35 km/h. Most of us had short sleepy periods, but nothing extreme. Also Johan (baggy) from happy, met up with us here and escorted us for a few hours in our very own support car all the way to Västerås.

The rearview from baggy's car, somewhere in Sweden

Photo courtesy of Johan (baggy)

Västerås is always special; it is where everyone is most knackered but also where we realise there are only about 100 km left and the finish is in sight. Considering the tailwind, that it was finally light and the balmy temperatures, everyone was quite positive and looking forward to the remaining ride. It was an amazing group working well together, looking after eachother and always chatting away happily and encouragingly.

Ready for the final sprint, only 100 km left!

Photo courtesy of Johan (baggy)

After Västerås we were treated to not only a great atmosphere in the group (not sure what they put in their McMuffins in Västerås!), but also the only rays of sunshine for the whole ride. This was my big moment to work on my cycling tan! Oscar also decided this was a good time for our only puncture of the journey and after a record number of people assisted him, we were on our way to Bålsta (via Enköping, which we just rode straight through).

I did a monumentous sprint for the random Bålsta prize, which obviously surprised our new German friend Hagen, but he was strong enough to pass me after a while. However, as he doesn't know where the finish is I decided I won. As promised, Gurra was waiting in Bålsta with a final Jäger before the last stage to Barkarby. Here our peleton disintegrated after a few hill sprints and apparently there was a traditional sprint for the Barkarby sign, but I was trying to keep some style in our group and missed it.

Cheers!

Photo courtesy of Karin_P

After the warmest and fastest ever Ötzi XL, 16 hours 36 minutes, we were back at Lilla Barkarby. Before they opened! We enjoyed a good meal and a beer or two before everyone slowly and sleepily started going home.

Great ride! Thanks everyone. A special mention goes to Isabella who was the first girl to complete this ride. Strong! Thanks of course also to baggy and Gurra.

The Bianchi? After getting used to that it is less responsive (probably mainly due to larger, less pressure in the tyres and less stiff wheels) than both the racer and the Klein, I started feeling really comfortable on it. Looking forward to many more km's with it! 1000km over the Xmas break?

The route.

The total distance was 316 km. Somehow it is getting shorter and shorter. I guess Mälaren must be shrinking. Blame it on global warming!

/Toni