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Outside Magazine, April 2005

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The Hard Way
Valhalla on Wheels (cont.)

PEOPLE MAKE MUCH of ominous beginnings. Not me. The first day could be great, could suck—either way, it portends nothing about the rest of the trip. It's a shakedown. You make a mistake or two, things go wrong, you get in a fix, you get out of it. That's adventure.

We took the first exit and

People make much of ominous beginnings. Not me. The first day could be great, could suck—either way, it portends nothing.

with boundless gratitude escaped E-39. (The term became part of our private trip lexicon: "E-39, n: anything ghastly, deadly, or outrageously stupid.") In Flekkefjord, we fortified ourselves with hot chocolate in a cozy wharfside café, watched a grizzled, white-bearded sailor repairing his nets in the rain, then set out north along the crenulated coast of Norway.

Harald and I had chosen to travel by bicycle because it was where our disparate physical worlds overlapped—and because bicycling is a singularly sensory form of exploration. You roll through geography, unhurried and immersed. You smell the rain, feel the voluptuous ground, hear its whispers and groans. And every day you grow stronger, your body slowly transforming into the physical specimen it was meant to be.

Our plan was to link together three epic Norwegian bicycle trails—the North Sea Cycle Route, the Rallervegen, and the Numedalsruta—on a 500-mile arc through some of the most stunning landscapes in Northern Europe.

Staying in hotels was part of my compromise with Harald. All my previous bike tours—across the U.S., Europe, Africa, Russia—entailed "stealth camping": riding till dark, then pitching a tent wherever I was. I'd slept illegally in Central Park, the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, fancy estates with low fences, cornfields, vineyards, town parks, and beaches. Alas, Harald wasn't interested in roughing it. Instead we would be wallowing in elegant Scandinavian hospitality—hotels with blond-wood floors, ergonomic faucets that separately adjust volume and temperature, large windows that actually open, fluffy down comforters, chocolates on the pillows.

That first night on the coast, we had reservations at the Sogndalstrand Kulturhotell, 50 miles southeast of Stavanger. We wheeled in just at dusk, having climbed over Jossingfjord Pass, and were met by one of the hotel's hosts, May. She was expecting us. I'm afraid May was the woman you dream of when you dream of Norway: blond, piercing blue eyes, athletic physique. She showed us to our private house, once the shop of the village tailor. When we asked where we could lock up our bikes, May was amused.

"There is no criminality here," she said, smiling gaily. "Leave them there."

That night we had a traditional Norwegian dinner: delicate boiled monkfish and heaps of peeled potatoes with a robust bottle of Leon Galhaud chardonnay. For me, accustomed to bread-and-cheese bike fare, it was a feast. Later, Harald slept like a baby—through the wall I could hear him melodiously sawing logs—but I got so hot under the comforter that I had to open all the windows and pace around naked to cool down.

The next morning was wet and blustery, and we had another big pass to climb. Without the load of camping gear, my bike danced uphill. It was glorious. I shot straight to the top of the pass, thought, Why the hell not? and then spun around and rode back down to where Harald was grinding away.

"Please, Mark, noble as it may seem to you, do not come back for me."

I tried pedaling at his pace, but Harald clearly found this annoying, so I blasted back up to the pass, pulled out my tiny journal, and scribbled this note: "Perhaps it's worth suffering through sleeping in a capacious down bed in exchange for flying a bike light as a kite."

Over the pass, our little highway turned first into a bicycle path and then, just as we entered a dark, damp coastal woodland, into a muddy two-track. It was the kind of otherworldly place where you might spot a pointy-eared elf: boulders blanketed in teal moss, small, gnarled trees, scarves of mist wafting over emerald ponds.

"I christen this the Troll Wood," announced Harald, adding another phrase to our trip lexicon.

I said nothing, not wanting to break the spell, and we glided on in silence.

"Cycling is such an intimate way to see the country," said Harald miles later, while deftly negotiating a slippery one-log bridge. I agreed. The method of passage is the message.

"You know, traveling by train or car is like watching a movie from some great distance," he mused. "There's detachment. An invisible glass wall between you and the world. But bicycling, you're in the movie."

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