Saturday 14 June 2014

Day 2

This morning we all splited up and Kurt and I where on our own from now. We arrived in Kopenhagen in search for a shop to get breakfast. After finding some food we went to the camping spot to maintain our bikes and do some other stuff, and get ready for tommorow.
Not long later I meet up with Frederik a guy I know from the PC we went together into Copenhagen and he showed me around wich was really fun!
After a simple soup for dinner its now to to bed after a small evening cycle trip.
And getting ready for our first real planned cycling trip!
11 June (21:49)

Day 1

Today the plan was easy. Get on the train from Eindhoven to Utrecht and from Utrecht to Kopenhagen.
The trouble already started in Eindhoven after a little storn there were delays of 90 minutes... So after waiting so long we eventually got on a train wich was so full that there was almost no room for the bike, but we managed to get in to the insanely hot train it was really warm.

In Utrecht no problem we got in the train and took of. But then at 11 O'clock the train stops for over half an hour. With heavy rain ans wind. We get to hear from other people that there are problems with the railroad but it will be fixed. After 9 hours going around the train inside and outside we were told that this train is not going to move anymore and then we had to go to a station in Dortmund with a taxi, but our bikes don't fit in there so they said. That's your problem...

So here we are just 120 km's from home stuck. We met up with other cyclist and came to the idea to cycle to 60 km's to Dortmund wich was a hell of a ride!

So we teamed up with a road cyclist and 2 other tour cyclists. We got our GPS set and after a short time we figured out why the train wasn't going to drive anymore.
Germany was like a battlefield tries everywhere cars hidden under fallen trees roads closed and traffic accidents.

After a while of intresting driving because of the trees and closed roads we came to Dortsmund where they should help us on a train. We had to go to Hamburg and get a train there but every train to Hamburg would't let us in with the Bikes. We were stranded in Dortmund, eventually we came to the idea to ask for the nightlane to Kopenhagen. Wich was going from this station. But she was not sure of there was going to be place.

After a nice dinner in town we come back at the train wich is standing ready to leave to Kopemhagen we sneaked our cycles on board and went outside talking with the staff and see if we can get in. We had to pretent like we are a family so we had more chance to get in. And right now I am wrighting feom the train directly to Copenhagen.

Goodnight.
11-06 (01:17)

Tuesday 10 June 2014

Stuck

On our way to Kopenhagen we got into a storm no problem we tought. Until we stopped at 10 in the evening at Überhausen central station we waited over 9 hours. Then around 11 in the morning we got told to make our way to Dortmund. 80 km's away.
They didn't help us we are on our own we teamed up with some other cyclist. Now we are getting breakfast and preparing to travel to Dortmund.
Looking into some nice weather it's time to departure. Right now it's 25 degrees and it will get warmer, we are heading into Germany right now this part of Germany is completly in chaos, the storm made a lot of damage.

Sunday 8 June 2014

Last day home

Today it's time to start packing my bags, I couldn't do that yet because I didn't have all my stuff. Maybe
tommorow I still have to get last equipment as we departure somewhere around 4 O'clock.
Right now Kurt is on his way cycling to my house where he will stay the night and we leave tommorow. In a few hours I will get a text from Kurt and I will cycle towards him.

Tommorow I am making everything ready, ready to go!

Thursday 5 June 2014

Last stuff

Today I went out to get the last stuff for my trip I got myself some nice sunglasses and some clothing. Tommorow I am getting some last camping equipment and then I would be ready to go. Only thing left to do is pack my bags.

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Catch the train

We got liftoff. It was pretty hard to get our bikes onto a train but I did some calls around and managed to get a train to Kopenhagen with our cycles for a cheap price.

I only have to buy a few last little things. And pack my bags but that is not a big deal. We will be getting on the nightrain on 9th of June. 10th of June we will go around Kopenhagen and 11th of June we hit the roads!

Tuesday 15 April 2014

My bike

I told my uncle about half a year ago about my cycling trip and he said: You could borrow one of my cycles if you want. So that's what I did, and this is what I got now!


It's just a very basic bike but still better then my Gazelle.
He also provided me with bags on it, cycling shoes and a few other things.
The bike does the job well I am driving a lot with it to get a good feeling of the bike.

The only thing left for me to do is packing my bags and I am good to go. 

The final route

Because of the smaller time I have with school we have chosen to shorten our route. Then I came to the idea to visit Norway. Just to check out the mountains. So this is what we came up to.



We have taken our original route from Denmark but now from Skagen we move to ''Hirtshalls'' to take a ferry to ''Stavenger'' then we cycle just over 400 Km trough a super terrain of mountains and a beautiful scenery with challenging and dangerous roads. Then we come to a place called ''Langesund'' Where we cross over to Denmark where I take the train back home again.

An example of the Norwegian roads


Thursday 27 February 2014

Even more changes of plans

As you might noticed the title of the blog has been changed to Cycling in Scandinavia / Baltic states.
Ofcourse this has a reason. Recently I got an email from a Belgium guy called Kurt. I met him and Kurt and I were going to cycle together trough Denmark where Kurt continued in Skagen towards French. So we came to a great idea to go trough Sweden en Finland and go down to Poland because in Poland there is a train that heads back to Holland.
So Kurt and I made a new route and this is it.

The route

I am going quickly trough the plan country by country

Denmark

So the plan as it was stays the same in Denmark, we start and meet up in Copenhagen and then drive about 1000 Km's up towards Skagen. Then we go a bit south again towards Frederikshavn and then take the boat towards Sweden.

Sweden

So in Sweden we have two options we can go up north wich gives us in total an extra 1000 Km's or stick to the south. Most people say the northern of Sweden is more open and less people. Also they say that the northern part of Finland is more pretty so that is more easly for us to start north in Finland so we do not have to make a loop.
So we decide of we stick south or head up north on the way towards Sweden.
The northern route is 1265 Km. And if we stay south it's 646 Km.

Finland

When we enter Finland we can enter it at two points. Or the northern point or south this makes a huge difrends about or time in Finland. If we come in in the south we just have to travel 264 Km. to get to the harbor and cross over to Estonia entering the Baltic States.
If we come in from the north we have to travel 678 Km to reach the same harbour to cross over.

Baltic States

Crossing Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania we here join the longest part of our trip covering just over 1400 Km.
We staying close the Rusian border not because it's Rusia but because there are less tourist at the western part of these countries so we see more ''untouched'' ground.

Rusia

As most people don't know there is actually a little piece of Rusia inbetween Lithuania and Poland. Wich we are going to check out. There are just 3 roads were you can enter it so we take the East border and leave Rusia at the south west. As you can see on the picture we didn't plan our route there, we are going to improvise because we have almost no data about roads in Rusia, this way we can't make an ideal cycling route. Also a funny think about this little part of Rusia is that the timezone is GMT+3 where the rest is +2.

Thursday 23 January 2014

Change of plan

I made a slight change of plan. I changed the starting location of my trip, first I was going to start in Flensburg but I changed that to continue on with the train to Copenhagen.
From Copenhagen I will go south going over those small islands heading towards Odense, then up to Ebeltoft and eventually Skagen the most northern point of Denmark. Right now I am trying to make a route that follows the national cycling routes of Denmark, witch follows the eastern coastline all the way up to Skagen.
The only problem right now with making the route is that I have to make it with a special program called BaseCamp for my Garmin, but that program is really hard to use for such long routes and still having to follow the national cycling roads.

Tuesday 7 January 2014

Where am I?

Where am I? I will never need to say that again, because I bought a GPS!
First I was looking for a Garmin from there Edge series specially designed for cycling, but it was not where I was looking for until I found the perfect GPS. The Garmin GPSMap 62S
The Garmin GPSMap can be used from kinda everything where the Garmin Edge touring could only be used from Cycling. I can take this on many different trips and I can use it for years!

And this is my first product to start my journey to Denmark. I just need to get a steering mount to mount it on my bike.