But for various reasons, my heart wasn’t really in it. I had half-heartedly decided to ride Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) in the summer of 2023 for the third time. It was in the middle of a long winter and I was trying to spend an hour every morning in the basement on my indoor trainer. I had first heard about the Midnight Sun Randonée eight months earlier. This was what Norway was about. When I later asked a hotel owner what I had smelled when cycling through the forest, he simply answered: “It was just fresh air.” Saga Vägen in Norway – photo taken around midnight. This was what long distance cycling was all about. To the right of the road the terrain was ascending and covered with old trees, their tops immersed in mist. In front of it was a tranquil lake with remnants of ice in the middle. To my left I saw a mountain and a number of slim, elegant waterfalls. The sky was clear and lit by gentle nocturnal twilight. When I was entering Norway, the setting was spectacular. The ride had started at sunset, which was at 11:07pm. I was one of 71 cyclists taking part in the second edition of a 1200 kilometre Audax called the Midnight Sun Randonnée, a long-distance cycling event with a time limit of 90 hours organised by the Swedish club Cykelintresse. I had left Umeå, a charming university town 600 kilometres north of Stockholm, 24 hours earlier. A dense, ancient-looking forest was on my right, filling the air with a very special smell – at times rather sweet, sometimes boggy and occasionally earthy. I was on my own on a narrow road and had been awake for some 39 hours. I had just ridden from Sweden into Norway and my nose suddenly seemed to have become hyper sensitive. After 430 kilometres, just when midnight was approaching, I felt like I had taken psychedelic pills.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |