July 5: Day 65, Kirkenes-Grense Jakobselv
It’s the last day today! Another big day: 8.5h, 120km, with 1500m of climbing. It's to Grense Jakobselv and then back.
Breakfast is a buffet, and it's really good. There are croissants, and they're good! But to back up a bit. I'd got a first bowl of cereal, but it was quite busy in the restaurant, to the point where there wasn't a table available for me. I went to a table with two gents and two spare seats and was just asking if I could join them when someone said "Hey Hugh!".
I managed to not spill my cereal, but it was close - being recognized in a random hotel at the edge of the earth, after weeks of travelling utterly anonymously is very high-G social whiplash. It was a gent I'd met earlier, along the European Divide! He'd finished the day before, had wisely taken a few post-ride days to decompress, and had swapped to this hotel because the other one was so horribly bad. So I happily jumped over to his table and shared notes. He hadn't done a monster ride to get to Kirkenes; he'd found a place to stay midway... Anyway, I ate continuously - good practice when alone, bad manners now - and then had to leave early to try to arrange bikeboxes, find lunch, and get on the road before it got too late.
My first stop for the bikeboxes was a sports shop around the corner called Sportshjørnet, and this is not the first time they've had this question; in fact it seems like they provide bikeboxes regularly! They advised me to come back tomorrow morning, and they'll sort it out. They also advised me to swim in the ocean at Grense Jakobselv which I'm going to ... consider.
Then it's time to visit the supermarket, figure out the NOK-EUR exchange rate, decide if the pastries are expensive or cheap (this is important biking stuff, I'm an expert, and I'm not taking questions), find some lunch, and get on the road.
Well, the 1500m climbing starts right away. The highest point is 230m - so it's not one big climb, there's a lot of short hills up and short freewheeling down. And that was pretty much continuous through the whole day.
The route follows the main road directly to the Russian border: in saner times Murmansk was the next city, but now the border is closed. About 50 meters before the border checkpoint there's the turnoff to Grense Jakobselv, and it's one-lane rural roads from there on.
From left to right: turn right to Murmansk. View of a bridge, from another bridge. The cliffs on the right are in Russia. The fog was serious, unfortunately the rain doesn’t show up in photos.
More climbs. The scenery looks a lot like North Scotland: rocky cliffs, desolate landscapes, fog and rain. The forecast predicted rain, and it was right - I'd had the rain gear on for a while. Before long it was time for some lunch. Try to find a sheltered spot to take a break? After about 30 minutes I gave up, there was nothing; I pulled over and ate the sandwich I had for lunch. Actually: I started it. Then I figured that since I'm getting rained on I might as well cycle while I eat, so I did.
I need to say that this wasn't a regular sandwich, it was a ring-shaped ham+cheese thing. It's possible that these ring-shaped sandwiches are designed for this! Gripping a regular sandwich one-handed while you eat it is possible, but easy to get wrong - the bread is soft, changing grip is tricky, it's easy to leave something hanging and then bits fall out. Especially since you should be paying more attention to steering than the lunch.
Wheras the ring-sandwich is shaped like a handle, there's two obvious options for what to bite off next, and it just works. I yummed it up while dodging potholes, going wide to avoid cars, and climbing hills. Consider me converted.
Since this is next to the Russian border there's big signs with warnings that attempts to cross the border into Russia, make contact, or take photographs in a threatening way are going to get you prosecuted. The Norwegian military has a presence here too: jeeps and landrovers also went past a few times, and also a small tracked truck with a tracked trailer.
From left to right: more rainy roads. Warnings about the border area. The chapel; it was open but I was too cold to be interested. Grense Jakobselv: the end of the road!
A few kilometers from the end the asphalt road switched to a fine grit. It was wet, it sprayed up, the grit got into my gears, and they immediately sounded like bolts in a blender. It was bad, I could feel the grinding with every pedal. I figured there was no point in washing it or applying lubricant until I was back on asphalt ... so I kept going, hoping that things didn't escalate.
The Grense Jakobselv area is quite forlorn. There's a few houses around, where they can admire the amazing stone cliffs. There's also a few ruins, of houses with great views that fell into neglect. There's a church: King Oscar II's Chapel, which comes up as the signature image when you search for Grense Jakobselv in Google Maps, which I did many times when working on this trip.
I stopped to get a picture, which was not simple! I'd put on a second layer of gloves, they were wet. So getting a picture meant getting the glove off, unhooking the phone, taking the photo, reattaching the phone, then putting the damp uncooperative glove back on, then I'm ready to go on. Also my hands are cold and the side buttons are uncooperative, so they don't always respond. So it's quite a process.
After that it was not far to Grense Jakobselv. This is the edge of the world; north of here is the Barents sea and North Pole, a few endangered species and people who made questionable life choices. Since this is the end of the trip, I'd expected to take a bit of time to hang out there, take a proper look around, see all the things I'd seen on Google Maps.
But I was cold, and the weather was so unpleasant that after a few minutes I'd had enough and got out of there.
The gears still sounded like they were suffering from sabotage. The moment I reached asphalt I tried to wash the grit out with my water bottle, and put on lubricant. Not sure if it helped ... it was still the grinding and was equally bad in all gears. Maybe something else...? I tried a few more things, couldn't make it better. So I kept going, with fingers crossed that I'd get back to Kirkenes.
I usually attack hills, standing up; but now I'd take a low gear and go up in S-curves trying not to push too hard, while the gearing made horrible self-destructive noises.
It was a nice change to retrace the route, and recognize all the landmarks I passed on the way in: signposts, a reindeer maquette, a lookout place. Always seems to go faster! But it was still about four hours back, with 750m of climbs, so it wasn't that fast. And the bike was suffering, I worried that pushing a bit harder could do something permanent...
But it kept going. And the grinding decreased for some gears. I passed the Murmansk turnoff. Along the state road. Back onto the cyclepath. The bike did not fail, and I got back to the hotel at 1830, and that's the end of the cycling! The bike made it; it needs a full service back in Amsterdam.
But I needed to clean the grit off before putting it away. There was a lot: it was caked on the panniers, the rack, had sprayed everywhere around the back wheel. Some had sprayed onto my back, then run down to the seat, leaving the grit which had dried into something like clay. It couldn't be brushed off, it needed to be wiped. Several times. I took the bike over to a fountain and wiped the bike down as well as I could: it wasn't really done, it really needed a hose.
From left to right: more rainy roads. Me, trying to not be bothered by the self-destructive sounds of the gearchain. The state of the panniers at the end; my clothing looked like that too. Tour complete!
I also needed to take care of the grit on me and the panniers - so when I got back to the room I basically put everything into the shower and carefully washed it all, in order. I do hope that it doesn't cause plumbing problems, because that grit so evil I can see that happening.
And after that went out for pizza and beer. The European Divide Tour is complete! And it was pretty smooth: there were no injuries, no showstopping mechanical problems, no route failures - very glad to have avoided some big problems.
What I’m listening to: Prelude To War / Bear McCreary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJiqwdWOhz8
