Tuesday, July 1st. After camping at Bengtsfors and charging up my batteries, the day started with sunshine and awesome weather forecast. I left the camp at 9:30am. The landscape changed to more forest and hills. My cycling route was mostly on the asphalt roads, which were great.
Cycling was challenging going uphill but I had to pull the bike just a couple of times. The gear range was sufficient for most hills. Racing downhill was the most fun part: fresh wind and high-speed feeling. This “up and down” repeated for the next 70 km or so until 11 km prior to Töcksfors.
I kept following the Route 4 but the terrain changed suddenly to gravel/forest walk paths and steep terrain. The roads were rather made for mountain bikers than for regular travel bikes. I had to push my bike a lot and the mosquitoes started to bite me 😅
At some point and struggling ~1.5 hours, I reached Töcksfors. The morale was low so I had to eat something. I shopped some food before moving on to the border, which was only few kilometers away.
Everything went well until some 2 km prior to the border. The route changed from regular road to the well-known steep forest gravel thingy. So I had to literally push my bike and hike to the border.
At this point, it was just annoying. Will I ever be able to ride my bike again? After 45 minutes of pushing uphill, I finally reached the Swedish/Nirwegian border. It was very rewarding and I was proud of achieving this.
After walking a bit out of the forest and returning back to the regular roads, I cycled downhill to the next place called Ørje. I found a small camping spot at a local parking lot/rest area with toilets and set up my tent. There was another guy from France who also set up his tent. We talked a bit and got ready to get some sleep. The french guy told me he was hich-hiking from France to anywhere he wants and has already been in Vietnam… I was mind-blown by his story, bonne voyage!
99.8 km, 8h19m, average speed 11.98 km/h, 51.7 km/h max.