SELF ORGANISED TRIP

| Lindesnes, Spangereid |

18.04.21 – 20.04.21

Cycle touring trip sounded cool since the first moment we knew about that, the combination of getting to know Norway and cycling is so great. Following the recommendation from Thomas, going to the most southern part of Norway seemed interesting and cool, even more with the weather conditions of that week.

The group was composed of people I was not used to do trips with, people that wasn’t that close to me, which was also challenging for all of us. The planning and preparation of the trip was faster than expected, maybe too fast for how it ended. We knew where do we wanted to arrive, Lindesnes Lighthouse. We decided to get there in one day, it was around 90km, which didn’t sound so bad since it was quite flat. What we could have improved was the starting time, since we left Kristiansand around noon (quite late!); consequently the arriving time to the lighthouse was late too. We did some breaks in between, such as an ice-cream Mandal, but all of them were short because we couldn’t waste time. It was coincidence that we arrived at 20:53, the exact sunset timing.

This first day was hard mentally and physically, more for some members than others. Personally I felt physically good, willing to achieve our first objective, and thanks to that I was also motivated enough to think in a positive way, so mentally strong enough to help others that weren’t in the same position as me. The night in the lighthouse was much warmer than expected and not windy at all, which was also surprising. Although we were super exhausted, we had to carry our bikes all the way up, which were steep and long kind of stairs.

Second day, we decided to change plans due to our fatigue. This included to change part of the way back home and make it shorter, then we were talking about reducing the amount of kilometres to do. So from that moment on we were partly improvising, specially because at some point we didn’t take the right path and then, instead of going back, we decided to take a shortcut which wasn’t asphalt, it was a gravel trail very steep. We kept going afterwards until the next lake trying to find a good spot to sleep, but we couldn’t, the road was too close and then we just kept going further. Finally we found ourselves being 15km far from home and then we were thinking: should we go home or should we sleep here somewhere? Finally we decided to sleep there, even though then, after the trip, I realised that would have been better to ride some more km and get home.

Regarding mechanical failures we were lucky, no flat tires; as well as injuries. Although it was a three-day trip, meaning that is not long at all, everything can happen. The food we carried was more than enough for most of us, the equipment/gear fit perfectly inside the special bags for the bike. Overall everything went good. Happy to could had experienced this kind of trip with good weather conditions, now I’m really looking forward to do it at home, I just have to figure out where tp find the proper equipment and stuff to do it.