Cycling Oslo to Bergen , Norway by All Terrain Cycles Team Rider Harry Carpenter
When a planned trip to Iceland fell through, Ben Rodgers (who lives in Oslo) and I came up with a cunning plan to do some touring in Norway. Neither of us are big tourers, I’ve not done any for years and Ben was new to it so we cobbled together some kit and Ben devised a 3 day route taking us from Oslo to Bergen on the west coast. Having a Yorkshire-Norwegian on board made life a lot easier and a whole lot cheaper, with all our accommodation being taken care of by friends and family, with our eclectic mix of bags stuffed with thermals, almonds and snickers we headed off on a beautiful sunny morning……………..
Day 1 Oslo to Øyfjell 136 miles https://www.strava.com/activities/324664204
We headed due west out of the city following the course of the motorway but using the excellent network of cyclepaths (whilst dodging cross country skiers on wheeled skis) we soon found ourselves in Drammen. And a tunnel. Norway has hundreds of tunnels, they love them, they can’t dig enough of them, in fact I think they dig tunnels and then have to build roads just to join the tunnels together. The problem cyclists face is that we’re not allowed through a lot of them, sometimes there’s the “old” road which goes round or over the hill they’ve tunnelled through, but sometimes you just have to find an alternative route, the tunnel at Drammen is nearly 4km long, a quick check revealed no “No Cycling” signs so we dived in. A number of things soon became very apparent, firstly tunnels are very scary, very noisy and very narrow, secondly Ben really really doesn’t like tunnels, we averaged 19mph and it was a climb, he went off like a rocket and I struggled to keep on his wheel but the heady mix of exhaust fumes and adrenaline soon saw us back in the sunshine laughing in relief.
Our smiles were soon wiped off our faces when we pulled over by a Police Patrol, they’d received over 30 calls in 2 minutes about us, no there weren’t any signs on the tunnel because we shouldn’t have even been on that road (E134), let alone in the tunnel. Oops. We ate humble pie and pleaded (genuine) ignorance and were sent on our way with a formal warning, a close call!
We dived off the E134 as soon as we could and followed back roads till it was safe to rejoin the E134 to Kongsberg. There we headed north then west onto the smaller 37 which climbed up to give some beautiful views before dropping down on the 361 to rejoin the E134 to Flatdal where we joined backroads.
By this point we were well past Ben’s distance PB of 100 miles but we were rapidly running out of steam, it was gone 6pm and we’d given up any hope of finding any shops, but we were in luck, a small cafe in a tiny village was still open, coffee, Snickers and Coke soon got us rolling. Now well into the beautiful Telemark region the houses were all wooden and were very few and far between
but eventually we rolled into Øyfjell and our home for the night
Day 2 Øyfjell to Lofthus 99 miles https://www.strava.com/activities/325534954 https://www.strava.com/activities/325535159
The day started well with glorious sunshine
our route taking us along lake Totak
very picturesque but straight into a headwind. A snickers break at the head of the lake
led us out of the valley through an enormous boulder field before a nice run back down to the E134.
Our route then climbed up onto the large mountain plateau of the Hardangervidda, at over 3000ft the road was soon snaking between snow fields and ice covered lakes.
We then came to the first of a number of long tunnels that we knew we couldn’t ride through, the only option was the old road but this hadn’t been cleared of snow, shouldering our bikes we headed up
finding the odd bit of clear tarmac
We dropped back onto the E134, the weather was being kind to us but even a breeze at 3000ft when it’s only 2 deg C felt chilly in lycra. We stopped for a refuel at the Haukeliseter before we came to a grinding halt at the Haukelitunnelen, a 6km tunnel. The old road was completely snow blocked with no indication of the route, it would be a 10km hike through snow over the coll, suicidal with the kit we had.
The emergency back up plan was to hitch through the tunnels so we stuck our thumbs out and smiled. After an hour my smile had been replaced with a painful grimace, the sight of a dog-sled team on the route we’d considered totally convincing us of it’s impassability. Just as we were considering calling it a day and riding the 60 miles back to Øyfjell two German campervans stopped, Dr Klaus as he was called, soon had us and our bikes on board providing us with hot tea, blankets and the offer of a drink of wodka. Politely declining the wodka we soon came to the decision to stay in the van through the tunnel and through the next two, getting them to drop us off after the Røldalstunnelen where a run down the valley, past amazing waterfalls
led to the fjord. Tunnels were easily avoided by the stunning old road cut into the cliffs
and were soon at our overnight stop amongst the fruit orchards at Lofthus.
Day 3 Lofthus to Bergen 81 miles https://www.strava.com/activities/326034642
After much debate we decided to catch the ferry across the fjord, the road west was easy rolling and we were soon stopping for a quick lunch break, the clouds were growing and Bergen looked like it was going to live up to it’s wet reputation. At Norheimsund we headed up and over the last big climb on the Fv7, we knew we had a few more tunnels but they’d shown as being safe for bikes on the map. On the ground it was a different story, the tunnels were climbs and too narrow for comfort so we opted for the old road clinging to the cliff face. I suppose the warning signs were there, what with the old road being blocked by concrete barriers and there being “DANGER” warning signs but we gladly ignored these-what could be worse than a tunnel? Well the answer soon came to us, it was now raining and the cliff side track had been obliterated by rock fall, we decided to clamber over the boulders not easy in road shoes carrying a laden bike with a 200ft drop next to you
but we got past, Ben enjoyed it so much he even went back for his gloves that he’d left behind. The shuffle along the 2ft wide concrete bridge to get back onto the main road seemed quite tame in comparison but once there I vowed I was sticking to the tarmac whatever happened. The weather closed in and a wet dash over the pass had a us quickly dropping down to Tysse, a small climb up and over (with yet more tunnels…) had us dropping down to follow the fjord at Trengereid along a contouring bike path and roads to Indre Arna, now following bike signs for Bergen we rode along the busy 580, quite a shock having spent the last few days almost traffic free. Then a bizarre thing happened, Ben and I were on the cycle path, with priority when a white van (it would be wouldn’t it) pulled right across us from a side street, we both had to brake hard and I shouted our displeasure at the driver (in quite strong terms) only for me to be then told off by a cyclist travelling in the opposite direction, I got a “Hey Hey” and a finger wag. Initially annoyed with Mr Van Man and now the cyclist it did highlight to me the difference in attitude the Norwegian’s have to life in general, pretty relaxed and non-aggressive, a good way to be. Now chilling with some inner Norge love we found a great traffic free bike path which took us straight into the city centre and before we knew it we were done. Having raced to the supermarket to avoid the 6pm alcohol curfew (it was in fact 8pm..) we cracked a celebratory tinny in the square and posed for our end of the line photo
We spent the next day chilling out in Bergen before getting the train back to Oslo, a stunning 7hr journey.
Cycling in Norway Top Tips
The E134, from a point just east of Kongsberg it was safe to ride in a westerly direction, east of this point towards Oslo it’s not allowed but is easily avoided.
Tunnels! The best advice is on cycletourer with a great interactive map telling you if you can ride through or around the tunnel but beware the old roads aren’t necessarily cleared, we were caught out by a very late snowfall, it was Mid Summers day when we were there and there was still total snow coverage on the Hardangervidda. Some of the tunnels, have web cams, something we only realised when we were stood right directly underneath the camera!
Oslo has a brilliant cycle path network but there’s very little information on line, I visited the Tourist Information centre near the Cerntral Station (Oslo S) and they gave me 4 excellent maps covering the city.
As a one day ride I rode out to the Swedish border and back ( Strava link ) which was very pleasant, the border area is very quiet and with no tunnels or major hills it made a great 137 mile route.