Älvsbyn – 3,177km completed
I already knew a few things about the day ahead before venturing outside the hotel – foremost of these being that it would be my last full day of cycling in Sweden. What had seemed an impossibly long stretch riding off the ferry from Denmark was almost done. Definitely lower on my excitement ladder was the prospect of what lay beyond Boden: an ugly, unrideable (by all accounts) stretch of roadworks. For days now, I’d travelled with that dark shadow wondering what option I’d take. A few had followed a slippery gravel and forest trail diversion, but some had suffered nasty crashes on slippery surfaces that way. In fact as I sat in the room eating my usual breakfast of iced coffee, yoghurt and doughnuts I got a message from Christopher that Benjamin had suffered more than one bad fall and was carrying some painful bruises and had to find a bike shop to help fix the damage to his rig. That short chat exchange was enough to convince me – I’d stick to the route, and walk the bits that weren’t rideable. Even if it was a full 10km (which seemed the consensus) then it would not delay me long, and would mitigate any chance of bike damage or injury. At least I’d pass through Boden first for some proper food before the slog.
On leaving Alvsbyn there was a short stretch of busier road which thankfully the route almost immediately left onto quieter roads. Although in doing so, it also headed up the hillside I’d been riding along. It wasn’t a long or strenuous climb, but the road afterwards rolled up and down for most of the opening 40km until dropping down into Boden. The centre of town was easy to reach and lovely – relaxed and scenic. But boy did it smell. It wasn’t clear if it was some short term issue with the drains, but it smelt like a burst sewer. Although it was sunny enough to eat outside, I headed inside at a café for food and coffee. Aircon was a bonus but the lack of stink was the real attraction. Handily, the coffee, paninis, and cake were also decent.
The “bad road” began, in a sense, almost as soon as I left Boden. The road out of town was obviously on the route of a quarry or aggregate works of some kind. Truck after dirty truck thundered past, scattering gravel and turning the air into a choking haze of dust. Worse still, it was not the widest of roads and the trucks mixed with speeding cars, all of whom seemed to think any kind of passing distance was optional. I was worried the whole way to the roadworks would be like this, but the turnoff for wherever the trucks were going came a few kilometres out of town. That was the only good news over the next couple of hours though. Posts on the group chat had shown a fork for the diversion at a point I’d waymarked around 72km into today. For some reason I’d assumed his was where the roadworks started – but it wasn’t. That point was the first option to leave them – but as my Wahoo clicked up 67km I came upon the first of the barriers, roadwork signs, and gravel section. As we’d all been warned by now – it was deep, loose gravel with large stones. Except for a few rare, very short, sections of hard pack it was totally unrideable. I spent the first kilometre of walking thinking this was probably just an initial section. But eventually, in the rising heat of the day, I realised this was it – and it was going to be further and worse than I imagined. Even walking was slow – like trying to trudge along a pebble beach, every footstep sank and slipped in the unstable coating of stones. I was so fed up when I reached the diversion option 5km into the works I paused and looked at it for a long time, seriously considering whether I should take it. The opening part that was visible didn’t look too bad – but I knew somewhere further along, it got much dicier. Eventually, I decided to stick to my plan and trudged on. There was a junction 5km ahead, and the lakeside 2km further – somewhere around those I figured would be the end. So I was nearly half way through already.
As if to underline this dismal section, one of a few bashed up cars stood where they had died – hauled to the side of the road by the massive machines which chugged and hammered all around. Tractors pulling water tanks to damp the dusty surface occasionally past – thankfully pausing from dispensing what smelt suspiciously similar to the Boden sewer water. A few cars and vans hurtled by so fast that they sent stones flying against the bike and me. I took to hunkering down so I could shield my face and eyes when anything travelling fast came along. Thankfully though, traffic was light – mostly just lorries feeding the excavation monsters. I made the mistake of speaking to one of the drivers. He was a friendly enough chap, but his news was not good. He showed me on my map where the works ended – and it was much further than I had expected. With almost 10km left, I wasn’t even close to halfway.
At this point, I’m going to shortcut the rest of this dismal stretch. It was really more of the same, grim, trudging although some longer rideable sections did crop up towards the end. Overall though, it was easily the worst and slowest 15km of the whole event so far. It was a huge relief to see the final barriers, and mount up to ride again on proper tarmac with just the odd scattering of loose stones as a memory of the horror now past. The more than two hours had also destroyed all my water and a lot of my snacks, so as soon possible I diverted off route into Niemisel to find a shop which was marked on my cue cards.
The little village store was ideal – sandwiches, cold drinks (including coffee of course!) and plenty of snacks for the road. Even a small table inside where I could sit and rest a moment whilst cramming in some of the food. Whilst sat there I struck up conversation with a couple and their friend (who in fact turned out to be their driver and guide). They turned out to be Americans on a tour, although I forget any specifics now of their trip. We did, of course, exchange a few words on my mad cycling journey – they’d seen a few other riders, and their driver knew a fair bit about the ride. At some point the store owner joined the conversation too, when we got to discussing the nearby roadworks. He explained that locals just didn’t even bother trying to drive through it – hence the lack of traffic. Only people who didn’t know better ventured through, and there had been any number of damaged cars and destroyed tyres or suspension over the weeks it had been going on. Sat there in the comfort of the shop, slowly recovering, I realised that as crap as it had been, coming through unscathed having only lost maybe an hour and a half was a decent result.
Sadly, although the next section was pleasant enough, a further chunk of the rest of the day would also have to go down as another (thankfully rare) entry on my “not my favourite part” list. About 40km on from the shop, the route swung left onto the E10 at the town of Morjärv. After another short stop for supplies at the shop there, I ventured onto this road. It was not fun – two carriageways (mostly), no cycle lane, and busy with fast moving, cyclist-intolerant traffic. Worse still, one of the opening sections was significantly uphill, slowing me to a crawl, extending the difference between my relative speed and the vehicles, reducing their thinking time as they flew around a bend to find me. I was very glad to see the right turn towards Överkalix, leading back to quieter lanes again. There was one positive though – combined with a slight tailwind, I had flown over that 24km of busier road (compared to my usual cruising speed anyway).
The little lakeside town of Överkalix was very picturesque and I regret not stopping for a picture – but I was keen to get done for the day, maybe in time for a restaurant at my destination (despite Google suggesting otherwise). I knew even before reaching the edge of Övertorneå though that I’d missed out on that. The yellow glow of evening light was already falling as the town came into sight across the last main road junction. Reluctantly, I checked my cards and Google for shops that would be open for dinner supplies. The CoOp in town looked a good bet – although I stopped a couple of times, unsure I’d taken the correct route in.
The manager of my lodging had confirmed they had self-serve breakfast available, so I focused mostly on pasta dishes for the evening and sandwiches for the road tomorrow (I couldn’t resist adding some breakfast pastries of course). Winding back a couple of blocks along the quiet main street, the hostel turned out to be part of a small cluster of multi-storey apartments. It was unmanned, with a code entry pad and my room key on a pegboard inside with my name above it. With no one to say otherwise, I squeezed myself and the bike into the lift and dumped all my gear in the room, putting all my devices on charge before coming down to the communal kitchen area to heat up food.
There was a large dining and lounge area with couches, TV and games. But aside from a chap who was just finishing his meal and leaving as I arrived, it was all empty. A quick check around the kitchen whilst I waited for the microwave revealed cereal, milk, and a coffee machine with coffee. Tomorrow was sorted, as had been promised. Eating what I’m sure would have been a pasta dish of some form, I scanned ahead for accommodation tomorrow. For some reason, I could not resist a glamping experience for my first ever night in Finland. Luxury tents on raised platforms beside a lake in the woods with a wood fired sauna just seemed too good to miss. I chose to book it on AirBnB rather than booking.com – which did result in a somewhat slower confirmation of the booking, but it worked out fine and the lady running the place promised a video on how to find and use everything in the morning. With tomorrow sorted, and the usual calls home, I hit the small, but comfy single bed of the hostel hard. Only whilst sat in bed studying the route for tomorrow did I realise quite how close I was to Finland – if I rolled over the wrong way in bed I could almost cross the border accidentally in my sleep.