I walk into the guest room and get a strange feeling. This is the room where I had spent a week sick in bed last year. I caught COVID just as I was about to start cycling the St. Olavsleden. It was yet another time I had to give up on cycling the St. Olavleden in Sweden. And now I want to try again, but what does Murphy have in store for me this time? I’m following exactly the same plan as last year: leave the car at Karlshem, which is exactly halfway along the nearly 600 km route. Then take the train with my bicycle to Sundsvall, the starting point of the route. From there, cycle the entire route to the endpoint in Trondheim. And then take the train with my bicycle back to Karlshem. That’s the plan.
And then, on the day of departure, Murphy’s Law kicked in once more...
It almost looks like there is a curse on creating a cycling guide for the St. Olavsleden. I’ve been working on it since 2019, and it would have been my first guidebook. The first year I fell ill during the trip, then came the COVID years, followed by the translation of another guide that took priority, and last year, I got sick again. I have cycled the route in the meantime. Some parts twice, and even the Norwegian section three times by now. But I couldn’t turn it into a guide yet, because there were too many uncertainties in the Swedish part. There still are, actually, but they will likely be cleared up this season.
On June 1st, I headed north. Berit (who is called Beer) travelled with me. She is the author of Iduna’s Apples, a Dutch book of travel stories in Norway that I sell in my webshop. We found out we’d be taking the same ferry to Norway, and I invited her to travel with me. After a pleasant and relaxed trip - driving to Kiel and taking the boat to Oslo the next day - we parted ways in Oslo. Beer is hiking back to the Netherlands.
But then, there was Murphy. I’ll just list everything that went wrong and spare you the feelings of helplessness, frustration, and disappointment.
- From Kiel onward, my laptop couldn’t connect to the internet. It seemed like an unsolvable problem, and even the staff at the Apple service centre in Oslo were initially stumped.
- I realized I had made a planning error. Which could pose a problem in Lars and Kristina’s schedule at Karlshem (see introduction). I would arrive a day later than I had told them. For Lars, it wasn’t a problem, but I will miss Kristina because of it.
- Luckily, I didn’t get sick like last year, but when I went to book a train ticket to Sundsvall, I found out there were no trains running on the first part of the route. There was a bus, but it seemed that bicycles weren’t allowed.
- That issue got resolved, and the train journey was relaxed—until the train stopped for a long time at a station. I heard something over the intercom and hoped my Swedish was just too poor. But no, I had understood it correctly: the train couldn’t go any further and a bus would come. It might take a while before the bus arrived, and everyone had to stay on the train. I noticed that no one looked angry, complained, or, like in the Netherlands, threatened the conductor. I was resigned as well. I was getting quite used to setbacks by now.
Fortunately, there was a solution to each of the above setbacks.
- The laptop works again, and I didn’t have to pay anything—they were happy at Apple Oslo to have been able to help me. Thanks to Apple Centre Oslo!
- Kristina came up with an alternative plan: I could first stay at her apartment elsewhere in Sweden, and then go to Lars as planned. Thanks to Kristiana!
- To get to Sundsvall after all, Lars offered to drive me to the station where the train journey would start. That was nearly an hour and a half by car. Thanks to Lars!
- Once on the train (the one that ended broke down): “Can the bicycle go in the replacement bus?” I asked the conductor. “I’ll arrange it for you!” he said, and a little later, he announced in Swedish that the bus had arrived and everyone could head over. He repeated the message in English and added, “The bus will not leave until everyone is on board. And the bicycle.” He immediately came over to help me with the bicycle and bags. With help from the bus driver, the bicycle was placed in the luggage compartment. And so, after a bumpy journey, I safely arrived in Sundsvall. Thanks to the conductor!
Sundsvall! The bicycle tour could begin! The St. Olavsleden, or S:t Olavsleden in Swedish, is a walking route, but it also has a cycling version. It’s the only pilgrimage route with an official cycling route. That’s why I wanted to start this project here in the first place in 2019. It seemed like an easy start—the route already existed, I just had to describe it. There was no cycling guide yet. I had cycled the route, but the official path is quite unclear in certain places. The maps, GPX tracks, and signage sometimes contradict each other. And when I cycled it, I found that I wanted to make different choices in certain spots. That wasn’t something I could make a proper guide out of.
In the meantime, I’ve mapped all the “issues,” and the coordinator for the Norwegian section has adopted almost all of my suggestions and adjusted the signage. In one spot, the local municipality’s opinion was decisive, but I was given the freedom to let the route in the guide deviate there. Sweden isn’t that far along yet, but we’re in serious discussions, and in principle, there’s nothing standing in the way of completing the guide after the summer.
Since it’s been three years since I last cycled the route, I want to ride it in its entirety again—not just the altered parts. I could do it by driving to different spots by car and cycling circular routes from there, but it hardly takes more time to cycle the full route again, and it’ll be great to have it fresh in my memory while finishing the guide.
I wrote this newsletter on Saturday, June 7, but I didn’t have the chance to post and send it earlier. In the meantime, I’m on the road—and I’ll write more about that soon.
A little spoiler alert: Murphy hasn’t given up yet…
