So, overall I'm willing to call it a success. I overworking myself considerably, and had to illegally jump on some light rail when I got sick of getting lost in the Oslo suburbs, but nothing went dramatically wrong with either my body or the bike and a good time was had by all.

When planning this (and other) trips I have a continual internal tension between the anal side of myself that want to know exactly how everything will work - that's how I knew the precise hidden gateway to get into the Söderasens national park - and, what I shall call my Huck Finn or screw it, it'll be fine side. You can certainly overplan, but the good news is that you can't anticipate everything, so fortunately there's enough opportunity for a bit of serendipity. So while I'm very glad I spent my first night in Söderasens and I didn't know it was there until I started looking through the wikipedia list of all Swedish national parks, my best camp of all was in Varmland. And I'm very thankful for the Åsengården and Gota canal camping appearing when it did.

Generally I leant to go with the flow, and in somewhere like Sweden where you can camp anyway and you're highly unlikely to run out of food and water (especially the latter), the risk is comparatively small.

I was very happy with the Shift and the way it stood up to the tour - and it is indeed an extremely easy-going bike to ride over a thousand kilometres. My body did reasonably as well - except that I was definitely showing signs of burning out in that last dash to Norway. I became fixated on getting to lake Siljan, and it was only when I got there that I realised I had somewhat cycled myself into a corner. In the event, I got through those hilly and remote days, and saw some great scenery, but it really was too much. Even the average for the whole tour remains high: 76 miles a day, and I didn't have much of a rest day. It's nice to know I can physically do this, but it isn't sustainable, and getting closer to the 60 mile/day mark I had originally intended would make it more pleasurable I think.

Shorter days would mean more time to find good wild camp sites, and to explore the local surroundings. I was definitely victim to picking places to stop based on exhaustion alone - in a couple of cases I found far superior spots a couple of km away, and moved to them. Having said that, there were no problems with camping, and the tent held up perfectly - I never got cold or wet.  The weather was extremely kind to me though. My main limitation remains variety of cooking, and washing and drying clothes.

While the multi train-ferry plan did work out, it was not what I would call stress-free. I think I shall have to get over my reservations of getting the bike on a plane for more far-flung adventures.

Most of my equipment also worked out pretty well. The Thermalite sleeping matt remained incredibly comfortable, and despite my fears about its puncturability I haven't had any trouble yet. The silk sleeping bag liner was an extremely good idea to prevent my sleeping bag from becoming too gross. Likewise, the merino wool shirt was a great investment - it seemed to be wearable for over a week. My £3 blow-up pillow, in contrast, was rubbish and kept deflating.

Biggest discovery in food was the ease and deliciousness of frying up Halloumi. In fact, in general I was surprised with how long and well cheese kept in panniers (and I hardly had cool weather): my English cheese lasted all the way to Jönköping. Sealed packages of olives and dense pasta source is also a reasonably weight-conscious way of transporting tasty food; and a little bottle/drum of olive oil allowed me to add good-tasting calories to whatever I wanted to eat. What I won't be doing again is bringing a whole head of garlic with me. Don't know what I was thinking there.