July 27, 2023
Oslo to Drammen (July 27, 2023)
A great day touring
(Dave here. I'm giving Jill a break from the daily journal as she's immersed in putting together her overall impressions of the journey so far. She'll be posting those thoughts later. I too will intersperse some of my impressions as I write this.)
After enjoying a wonderful stay in Oslo, we were finally ready to begin the meat of our trip, the trek from Oslo to Bergen. The weather forecast looked good and after another terrific breakfast ("Best Breakfast in Oslo!") we brought the bikes up from the hotel's luggage storage area, loaded up our panniers and got ready to head out. As we were getting ready to mount up, we met a family from the US who were living the post-pandemic dream. The husband and wife were joined by their two teenage children. We only got to meet the younger daughter as the son was still sleeping. I know, you parents of teenage boys must be shocked at this disclosure. Turns out the wife has one of those jobs where she can work remotely from anywhere and they periodically take their kids on world adventures. This time they were staying for a month in Copenhagen and doing hub/spoke trips to various locations from there.
As we got under way, I ran across a street side public bike station which contains tools and an air pump which is available free of charge. I thought it would be a good time to check our tire pressure as I hadn't touched them since we left Munich. I'm always a bit leery of these publicly available pumps as, in my experience, they are hight unreliable. Sure enough, when I attempted to add air to my fron tire, nothing happened except I appeared to have lost of bit of air in the process of attaching the tire to the pump. I decided to not further press my luck as my tire still felt OK, so we abandoned the idea and pressed ahead. I was a bit perplexed at the experience as the pump did seem to be producing air pressure but clearly the tire wasn't accepting it. Turns out this episode was a prelude to much more difficulty the next day. Stay tuned for that story.
We were quite excited to finally be heading out to Norway's countryside. Our weather was fair and only got better as the ride progressed. We retraced some of yesterday's route when we visited the Fram Museum, but we were soon into new territory. Jill had read that some riders felt this route wasn't all that pleasant as it went through several Oslo suburbs. We found the ride very interesting as it was fun to wander through some of the interesting neighborhoods surounding the city. Mostly they were upper middle class in nature and, as was typical in Oslo in general, mostly free of vehicular traffic.
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We finally reached the country side and enjoyed marvelous riding conditions. The route Jill had planned was mostly on well maintained and paved track, save for a couple of unpaved, but still quite navigable, sections of gravel. The weather was spectacular and as we cruised along, we reminded each other as to why we love cycle touring . Today's ride was in marked contrast to our experiences along Denmark's and Sweden's coastline. We had little wind and no rain! The wildflowers were resplendent and the terrain was wonderful. We finally got to do some serious climbing and we both were glad to have the break from the pan flat conditions of the coast.
Even though the weather in this part of the world is mostly rainy, summer time has to be the best time, maybe the only time, to attempt cycle touring. With all the moisture, the landscape is verdant and wildflowers proliferate, all of which makes for terrific touring, so long as the weather cooperates, of course. Jill had mentioned that the cycling infrastructure isn't as extensive as it was in Sweden, and particularly in Denmark, we have nevertheless found it to be way above average. When we left Oslo, Jill mentioned that she really didn't know what to expect as it was hard finding any other mentions of this route from cyclists, so we mentally prepared for a less than optimal experience and have been pleasantly surpised with the ride so far.
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We were well along our route when we decided we needed to at least stretch our legs, maybe find a cafe in one of the small towns we passed through where we could eat the sandwich I prepared for us back at the hotel. As we cruised along, we came across a lovely park with a couple of empty picnic benches located next to a small lake. We decided this would be a great place to stop and enjoy the lovely weather. Our spot was already inhabited with various water fowl. We aren't birders, so we don't know the specific species present, but there were both ducks and a couple of families of geese, one of which was resting by our bench. We think there was a mother and father along with three goslings who still sported their downy coverings with but a few feathers beginning to show. At first, mom & dad were none to pleased with our presence but they soon settled down as it became obvious to them that we were no threat. The kids continued grazing the grass and as they did so, worked their way right up next to us. Although mom was tolerant of this, at one point, she decided enough was enough and ambled over to collect her brood and move them to a more distant location. All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed the break--dinner & a show!
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As you can probably deduce from the profile, once we finished the climb, we enjoyed a lovely and long decent down to Drammen and to our hotel, Quality Hotel, a chain which has a location in the town.
Drammen is a city and municipality in Viken, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the south-eastern and most populated part of Norway. Drammen municipality also includes smaller towns and villages such as Konnerud, Svelvik, Mjøndalen and Skoger. Wikipedia
Our hotel is kind of our sweet spot for cycle touring. It's reasonably priced, $138 which included breakfast, is modern, clean and otherwise has all the bases covered, in this case even a well-equipped gym which we made use of. (Fair disclosure, Jill was keen on using the gym after our ride. Me? Not so much, as I was looking forward to a post-ride beer, but I was eventually convinced that working out would be good for us. I relented and was glad I did.)
We shared an excellent dinner which included a tray of small "snacks" (potato chips, olives, etc.) and a more than competent cheese burger. We relented to having their special dessert of the evening, something our waiter called "brown cheese ice cream” but turned out to be a semi-fredo with fruit compote. It was quite good. Jill remembers trying out brown cheese in Denmark and thinks it must have been incorporated somehow into the semi-fredo.
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We've learned about aquavit on this trip, a distilled liquor common to the Scandanavian countries. Unlike those from Denmark and Sweden whose aquavits are crystal clear, many of the ones from Norway are aged for a while in oak barrels which imparts a bit of color to the liquid as well as taking off a bit of an edge of the distilate's character. We asked our waiter to bring us two different Norwegian aquavits, both of which were delicious. Turns out, aquavit is just about the only distilled liquor Jill can drink straight up, much to her chagrin.
It was a wonderful day of riding. The cycling gods were smiling upon us this day, but little did we know they had a couple of banana peels to toss in our path . . .
Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 908 km (564 miles)
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