Ride to Gnesta

Trosa turned out to be one of the surprise jewels of this trip. With its immaculate streets, central canal and beautiful buildings, it was a place that you could quickly fall in love with. Our favourable feelings for this city may also have been influenced by the fact that the weather has finally turned to summer. After the previous rain and cold of Finland it is a lovely feeling to be warm again and to start shedding some of the layers of winter clothing.

The hotel in Trosa was also the best we had stayed in so far. Not only was it immaculately clean, but it such an amazing character that you could easily feel like extending your stay indefinitely.

We took a little time to explore the city before finally getting underway at 10 am. The first section of the ride was a relatively easy 15 km to Talgurn Palace, one of the many residences of the Swedish Royal Family. Although it certainly was opulent, it was not in the same level of grandiose excess that characterise most of the royal residences of other European monarchs. Perhaps this is yet another example of the Scandinavian flair for understatement. One feels that if the Swedes were to build another palace, it could well be furnished from Ikea.

We spent almost two hours at the palace and had a most interesting tour of the building itself. The guide was a very knowledgeable young Art Historian who gave us a most professional insight into life in the palace.
After lunch the easy roads gave way to rough and undulating unsealed tracks.
The views were breathtaking but the bikes soon began to fail under the strain we were putting on them, When Jon's rear derailleur sheered right off we were left wondering just what to do. We had no alternative other than to send most of the riders on ahead while 4 of us waited for a rescue and a replacement bike.

It took well over an hour for a replacement bike to be delivered and we had no hopes of ever catching the rest, especially when Jon suffered a rear wheel puncture just a few minutes along the road. After repairing the puncture we set off in pursuit although we were behind by over 90 minutes.

The road deteriorated into a rough and loose surface with numerous short but quite steep hills. Somewhat surprisingly we caught the peloton about 7 km from our destination. The tough ride was taking its toll and some of the less experienced riders were becoming exhausted by this stage.

Eventually we did all make the Oster Malma Nature Reserve at 6.45 pm after a long and challenging day of riding. The location is right on the banks of the lake and that is where we enjoyed a delicious BBQ dinner. Tomorrow we hope to see our first moose !Læs mere