Welcome to Norway: A Brief Review!, my hopelessly inadequate attempt at summarizing the past 26 days in a few paragraphs, draw absurd comparisons and indulge myself in a discussion of what might be seen as irrelevant niche topics by everyone else. Despite the inherent shortcomings, it needs to be written down and published. Norway, this most fabulous of countries deserves it.

Awesomeness Awards Ceremony

Let's start with a totally objective and balanced ranking of what's great and what is less ideal about this country.

It needn't be pointed out except for sake of completeness that where Norway really shines is the raw natural beauty that permeates every part of it. That surely gets the number one spot on the ranking of highlights, doesn't it? Not quite! Certainly the nature is glorious in every respect, but the what makes touring Norway a special experience compared to other countries I've been to is its drivers. That feeling of being treated like a human, not a nuisance, by other participants in traffic; it completely blew me away every single day, every hour even that I spent on the road.

Before setting a foot at the Tromsø airport I had been unaware of the patience and respect that Norwegian drivers have for cyclists. No abuse received for merely existing, not even for not taking some sketchy bike path. When overtaking you, Norwegians will actually use the entire left lane if it is unoccupied. They will do this so consistently that you can fairly reliably tell whether the car that is passing you right now is being driven by a local or a foreigner cause the latter won't move more than half a lane to the left regardless of whether there is traffic in the opposite direction or not. The large share of electric vehicles also contributes to the outstanding road experience due to how silent they are when moving slowly. The number of times I was wondering for how long some Tesla -- the VW Golf of Norway -- that I spotted in the rear view mirror must have been trailing me while I was rolling uphill at a glacial pace! Sucks having to come home from this epitome of civilization to a land of raging savages that perceive a cyclist as an insult to their rightful claim to the road.

Runner-up in the Norway awesomeness rankings is its nature, in terms of both beauty and challenge; they kinda go hand in hand in this country. The tree-less moonscape of the Nordkapp region. The vast tundra around Alta and its robust birch forests spiting the harshest of conditions. The ever windy, ever rainy coast. Lofoten with its micro climates that change with every corner. The fjords with those ultra steep climbs separating them. The hostile conditions on those high plateaus crowned by glaciers. The pine forests of the south. Too bad I didn't spot any moose, whales or puffins, I was really looking forward to seeing those. Not really a loss, just more reasons to come back some day!

Honorable mention to the greatest invention by a Norwegian of all times: Cirkle K Koppen. The prospect of getting a coffee at the next gas station up the road served as some extra motivation during those long days riding through the cold rain. Moving from station to station helped to structure the day too. The Kopp got kinda useless in the south though as after Trondheim I rarely encountered classical gas stations anymore and those automated ones lack the essential coffee machine.

I'm still kind of split on the ferries. I get it, they're part of the True Norway Experience and there's some appeal to mandatory coffee breaks during the day. But the forced stops and what amounts to a lottery of whether you will make it to the ferry in time for next sailing, it can really mess up your planning. Sitting on a rock by the pier for an hour feasting on Leverpostei does have something going for it, I won't deny that, but I'd rather do that by choice, on a rock that I spotted while riding along, not because I just missed some boat and the next one isn't sailing for another two hours.

A bit lacking on average was the weather. The wind I won't complain about any more than I already did during those last 26 days: it was glaringly obvious from looking at climate charts that by going north to south I would face the prevalent wind direction most of the time.

In other words, I had it coming.

However the rain and the elusiveness of the sun in general made some of these days on the coast rather miserable. Much more so than Scotland where even on rainy days one usually gets a few minutes of blue sky every now and so often; Norway's weather on the other hand is more static: when it gets bad the cold water will just keep pouring out of a dark veil of clouds for days on end.

Days and Regions

In general, the far north was the most fun to ride and also had the best weather -- apart from the wind that is. Not really many climbs worth mention but the challenge was at a different level, not just physically but also mentally. Lofoten too was rough but rewarding. Whereas the coastal stretch from Bodo down to Trondheim was mostly just rough.

1. d04 Nordkapp: Day of days. The knee-wrecking, glutes-frying pilgrimage to the mythical northernmost reachable point on a this continent was an unparalleled experience.

2. d21 Sognefjord pt. 2 / Gaularfjellet: Had a lot of fun on both Sognefjorden days however it was the second that also had the Gaularfjellet, one of the most memorable climbs of the whole trip.

3. d18 Trollstigen and Dalsnibba: Challenge level 10/10 as well as half decent weather, but the endless stream of campervans and the unwelcoming campsite incident diminished the fun noticably. Definitely the hardest day though.

4. d03 Alta: Prime reindeer territory, which it was already 7000 years bp when those rock carvings were made. While one is approaching the Kapp the vegetation gets ever scarcer. There is no hiding from the wind on that elevated plateau with its hostile climate, but it's not a complete desert either. A fascinating and stimulating panorama of not really that much at all. Quite existentialist for both nature and man.

5. d08 Lofoten pt. 1: Long day with countless impressions that even my sketchy memory found it worth retaining: Temperate-ish scenery on Langøya. The canned Hurtigrute boat in Stokmarknes. A visit at the Grunnfor shelter. An unexpected invitation to a family barbecue. The long ride into the polar night to the northern beach of Gimsøya.

I feel satisfied with how the three "cornerstones" that I basically planned the route around -- Nordkapp, Lofoten, Trollstigen -- lived up to the expectation. Justifies both the amount of planning and the excitement with which I was looking forward to this trip for years.

Cuisine

As always, I tried various local foods to expand my culinary horizon. In my exploration of dishes I covered both the unhealthy and the more healthy ends of the food spectrum; the unhealthy stuff -- sugar-heavy baked goods soaked in butter mostly -- doesn't really stand out, but the food that exploits your dopamine system to make you buy more never quite does anyways. And licorice, that stuff is plain disgusting.

I found more joy in the healthy end of the food spectrum: locally sourced fish, dairy and indigenous venison like reindeer. All that tends to be just amazing up there:

1. Fiskekaker: the Arancini of the Fjords. Crowning achievement of Norse cuisine. Superfood of Scandinavia. Pearl of the cold, deep sea. Most elated form of fishness. Praised be Cod for manifesting his boneless essence in the Cake of Fish!

2. Joika meatballs: When it's two varieties of meatballs that top the ranking you can be sure the cooks of Norway were onto something. I mean, the mere fact that I got to eat reindeer is already awesome but a carton of Joika with its savory sauce makes a perfect foundation for a meal when you have access to a stove and a pot.

3. Kesam: Quark-style fresh cheese, but fluffier than regular quark. Add some diced apples for a perfect breakfast boosting alertness with L-tyrosine for the day. Too bad there's basically only four kinds available on supemarket shelves, kesam deserves more variety.

4. Leverpostei / Svolvaerpostei: Replaces the weekly portion of liver. Both healthy as heck and awefully tasty, and not overly expensive either.

5. Mackerel in a Tube: Another exhibit of Norwegian ingenuosity. The tube packaging is mostly reserved for caviar but the Stabbur brand made an exception for this later stage of the lifecycle of Mackerel.

While kesam and Icelandic style skyr do rock, the dairy shelves in supermarkets tend to lack variety across the board. There seems to be one monopolist producer, Tine, that hoards all the milk and whose portfolio is the only dairy on offer in 95 % of shops. No surprise that their milk collecting trucks are rolling around everywhere in the country, day and night. Not even close to the situation in Germany where each supermarket chain has its own brand under which it sells numerous flavors of yoghurt / quark / you name it, plus a plethora of more expensive brands and the usual "organic" and whatnot varieties. In Norway that choice doesn't exist: Tine make four varieties of kesam so every supermarket will have at most those on offer; there are no other options of flavors, no alternative brands. Bit of a distorted market there.

Gear

Cycling conditions in Norway are quite different from most places I've toured so far, except maybe the north coast of Scotland. Which puts an emphasis on some parts of equipment that elsewhere one might not give a second thought about.

Rain gear is absolutely essential. It won't suffice for your clothes and bags to be merely "water repellant", it needs to be completely waterproof and designed with handling in bad conditions in mind. E. g. containers need sealed zippers that are large enough they can be operated with numb hands. Shoe covers need to be uncomplicated to put on to get protection from rain quick. Etc. etc.

After completing my first tour ever with cooking gear I'm not convinced it is worth the extra weight and luggage space. Sure being able to boil a pot of water to prepare warm meals practically anywhere is exceedingly convenient. However, it also takes a chunk of time out of your day, ingredients need to be bought specifically with cooking in mind, and more often than not it can be quite harrowing staying outside the tent for cooking when the pitch is infested by midges or the weather is acting up. In Norway at least that last issue can be mitigated by using the kitchen that nearly every campsite has, which alleviates the need for bringing a stove yourself. And of those campsite kitchens, maybe 80 % have an assortment of pots for guests to use, which made the ones I carried around with me rather redundant. Granted, one can't rely on the next campsite having a fully equipped kitchen but for the weight saved by eliminating stove and pots from my gear I could easily carry a night's worth of ingredients through the next day should the campsite be more barebones.

The frame bag can become a source of instability in the wrong wind conditions as it increases the area that gets exposed to crosswinds significantly. In the end I always managed but there were some moments of suspense when I feared the next wind gust might hit hard enough to blow me into the gutter. Other than that undesirable "sail effect" the frame bag was an excellent means of lowering the center of gravity on the bike.

Great minor addition: a second feed bag on the handlebars to hold Koppen, or alternatively the camera when I'm out of coffee.

Unfinished Business

Four weeks can't do a country like Norway justice. If anything this tour has been the first part in a series of visits to explore different and more remote parts of the country. Or repeat those experiences that were incomplete or so memorable they make you want to come back. Nordkapp / Magerøya definitely belongs in the latter category: the convergence of bike tourists on their way to complete the long ride north -- for most of us the ride of a lifetime! -- is a spectacle I haven't seen in this form anywhere else.

Senja on the other hand falls in the "incomplete" category. Haven't really seen much of it despite crossing the island all the way diagonally so next time if there's atrocious weather, I'll probably just sit it out in the tent before exploring Senja again.

Lofoten and the south I intend to explore more. There were so many small backcountry roads leading into niche valleys and on more remote shores, tempting me to leave my route and just follow along until the tarmac runs out. Due to my tight four-weeks schedule acting on these temptations wasn't a realistic option so I will have to return there in full exploration mode.

Time constraints too were the reason for ignoring the far east up at Kirkenes and the Russian and Finnish borders. Uncovering that white patch on the map is definitely on my list for next time.

Maybe Oslo too, but larger settlements are always so much of a pain to navigate.

Pining for the Fjords

Whoa, it's already over now. That was Norway: Two and a half years of planning, then four weeks on the road with wind, rain, wind, sun, wind, freezing cold, wind, clouds, wind, climbs, wind, the sea, wind, fog, wind, tall rocks, wind, bogs and forests, wind, fjords and wind, and wind and fjords.

What a ride!

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