Äppelknyckar

1300 km of gravel cycling and camping in Sweden

In the summer of 2018 we set out for a two week gravel cycling trip through southern Sweden. This multi-part article narrates our experience.

Sweden, the North, lakes, woods, moose and fermented fish - those were our first thoughts while coming up with the idea of doing a cycling trip through this scandinavian country. Beyond this romantic view our discussion led us to more practical advantages: You can get there quite easily, camping anywhere is totally legal, most Back Roads are gravel and barely used by cars, almost anybody is fluent in English and the weather is normally not too bad in the summertime.

So it was settled: We would be going to Sweden for 11 days in the summer of 2018, ride our cross-bikes on gravel roads and sleep in the woods as much as possible. Our route would take us from Stockholm to the south, around lake Vättern, along the Göta canal and back to Stockholm covering roughly 1300 kms.

Click through the links below for what happen during the trip and tons of images of what has been one of our best trips yet!

Content

Day 1: Roll out! - Arlanda airport to Enköping
Day 2: Endless gravel and Swedish rednecks - Enköping to lake Näsnaren
Day 3: The green tunnel - Lake Näsnaren to Kisa
Day 4: Tinned ravioli - Kisa to Gränna, lake Vättern
Day 5: 50% Vätternrundan - Gränna to Hjo
Day 6: Bikepacking vs Cycle touring - Hjo to Göta canal
Day 7: Cannons and Mister Nobel - Göta canal to Karlskoga
Day 8: The coldest lake - Karlskoga to Köping
Day 9: Wasp infestation - Köping to almost Uppsala
Day 10: There be vikings and blast beats - Into Uppsala
Day 11: Always too short... - Uppsala to Arlanda,  Lessons learned and what´s next?

Adventurers: Torben and Bengt