June 13: Day 43, Åmål-Sunne
First chore of the day was sewing my shorts. A seam split when I got off the bike yesterday; it reveals the padding, not me - but it needs to be fixed so I got it done early. I will try to be more careful when dismounting in future...
The place I'm staying doesn't offer breakfast, so I picked up some things last night: two bananas, a red grapefruit, yoghurt, milk, juice. Since I went shopping just before dinner I was a little worried that I'd been shopping while hungry, and got too much; but I managed to eat it all. I had thoughts about visiting a bakery for pastries and coffee but to be honest there was no space!
These few days are relatively rural. There's not many accommodation options so it's been tricky to find a places to stay that are at good intervals, and link up without major detours. It would be nice if that got easier, but I expect it's going to be like this for the rest of the trip.
One other thing that's probably the new normal, are roads without cyclepaths. Most of the morning was on a backroad with no space on the shoulder for me to cycle. If there's only light traffic then it's fine; but when it's so heavy that cars and trucks can't move over the centerline to make space for me, it's not so good.
There was also quite a bit of climbing! Today's trip summary says there was over 1000m of climbs today, and I believe it; there was never anything unpleasantly steep but it felt like the whole day was spent either going up a hill or down the other side.
Not many photos today, because they all look the same: I'm on a deserted back country road surrounded by either tall trees or fields.
From left to right: deserted back country road with trees. Deserted back country road without trees.
In addition to accommodation getting sparser, lunch options are also getting more difficult. I stopped at a supermarket a bit after 11, because there weren't going to be more towns for hours, so this was the last chance. They did have sandwiches, but they were underwhelming, so I went for a pasta salad instead, which was bigger and cheaper. No pastries though! I don't like this development.
From left to right: contrails from a jet that was having fun. Takeaway lunch, from the supermarket in Nysäter. My lunch view, in Borgvik. Selfie at the lunch spot. Me doing my day job, from later that afternoon.
The main feature of the afternoon was the E45 road. This isn't a major road, but it's busy, and it was my route for a few hours. There was no space on the sides, and there were quite a few trucks, so I cycled straight down the line.
Komoot obviously wasn't happy with the road either, because it would take detours wherever it could. It'd take me off down a gravel road, which lead to some driveways, then it'd curve around and rejoin the road. This happened a few times, but one time the road ended at a slightly decrepit house instead of rejoining the E45. On checking the map the route went down an overgrown farm track to a closed gate. Unlike the house the gate was in good repair, and it even had an electric fence wire along the top. Lifting and pulling didn't do anything: there was a small hook that needed to be released, then I could get through, roll the bike past, then pull it closed behind me and lift it into place. Fifty meters further was another one, whereupon I realized I hadn't rehooked it, and had to go back.
From left to right: Komoot says take this path. This is the hook which I totally remembered (the second time). The E45, note the slim space for cyclists. There’s probably a way to interpret this sign in a way that’s not silly but I’m not going to try. The monument outside Sanne; a rather serious thing for such a chill place.
Closer to town the diversions got so frequent they started to overlap, and after a particularly complicated one (which featured not just storage piles of logs, but a train station for freighting them out) I got back to the E45 at the exact same place it gained a cyclepath! From there it's plain sailing; Sunne is quite small so I went all the way through town to the B&B without slowing down.
Tonight's B&B is refreshing well run after yesterday: the shower works, the Wifi works, there's enough lights, I can get in without circumnavigating the garden to avoid the sprinkler, it's all good. I'm taking care of my own breakfast again tomorrow, but this place has a cutting board so I'm already happy. There were no cutting boards this morning - I diced my grapefruit on a wooden salad server.
From left to right: this is the salad server I used as a chopping board. The resulting breakfast.
What I’m listening to: Who Will Take My Dreams Away / Angelo Badalamenti (Feat. Marianne Faithfull) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-DCSJI6dwc
This is from the French movie “The City Of Lost Children” which Angelo Badalamenti wrote and arranged the score for; he worked on Twin Peaks as well which came up a few times recently...
