Tuesday, July 8th. This day was really long and intense. I had a bad night at the shelter and did not get enough sleep. It was raining for 4 hours until 3am. I managed to get back on the road around 7am and stopped a few times for “reasons” (toilet). The weather calmed down at around 16 °C and it stopped raining.
I didn’t want to wait a few more hours for the ferry, so I planned an alternative route. The route was similar to the previous days: hills, hills, and more hills… Being tired and not getting enough sleep deteriorated my performance significantly. I had to take breaks just to be able to continue riding. At a certain point, my route app guided me through a forest with gravely roads and steep hills. This slowed me down, and riding through gravel got me a flat tire. God dammit! Sharp stones punctured the tire while riding a heavy bike. The repair went well but cost me another 40 minutes.
I’ve reached Tvedestrand at noon, and all of my time advantages by starting early in the morning were gone. The road to Arendal was very exhausting, albeit having the best weather and nice landscapes (did I mention hills?) 😁
I’ve visited Arendal (wonderful city, met a cyclist from Hannover there) at around 6pm and continued cycling to Grimstad and finally reaching Lillesand at 10:30pm. My app suggested a shelter place near Lillesand. However, it was located on top of a 100-meter high hill. So I pushed my bike uphill late at night – luckily, there was a gravel road. Once standing on top of that hill, I was rewarded with amazing views of the landscape during dusk time. That was worth it. I stayed at the hut that night, albeit it was not allowed to sleep there 😑 That was a small emergency situation, and I did not disturb anyone or anything…
113.28 km, 9h35m, 11.81 km/h, 50.21 km/h max.