Just in time before the first snow of this winter arrived, I got to test my new bike on one of Norway's most famous bike tracks: Rallarvegen (the navvies' road).
Rallarvegen is the old road that was used to construct the Oslo-Bergen railway beginning in 1875. It took 34 years and 182 tunnels to complete the railway. Being one of the most scenic train journeys in the world itself, it is no wonder that riding with a bike next to it can just be more spectacular.
The "official Rallarvegen" starts at Haugastøl, at about 1000 m elevation, and ends after 82 km at the fjord in Flåm at 0 m elevation, with the highest pass in between being at 1320 m.
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Rallarvegen is not open to normal vehicle traffic, so the shortest official road connecting Haugastøl and Flåm is a small road crossing another alpine pass on Hardangervidda, which takes 2 1/2 hours (140 km) to drive by car. Another option is of course to take the Oslo-Bergen train, and the Flåmbana (another "worlds best train journey") between Haugastøl and Myrdal, and Myrdal and Flåm, also a 2 1/2 hour journey. If one doesn't want to cycle the Rallarvegen up- and down, it's therefore a bit of a challenge to organize the whole trip. It is even more a challenge, if one is as unorganized as we are and decides only hours before leaving that one wants to buy a train ticket for the Bergen to Oslo train, as they're usually sold out by that time... .
Well, long story short: We managed to buy the very last ticket for the train leading up from Flåm to Ustaoset (the next stop after Haugastøl, another 10 km further, as due to the change of season the train was not stopping in Haugastøl). And yes, only one ticket. The very last single ticket.
So, as we couldn't just both take the train, one had to wait in Ustaoset, while the other had to bring the car to Flåm where Rallarvegen ends and where we would arrive with the bikes in the evening.
So, we drove up to Ustaoset Friday night, slept 5 hours in the car, then I kicked Micha and the bikes out in the freezing night at 5 a.m. in the morning, drove the 2 1/2 hours down to Flåm, parked the car, and caught the first train bringing me up to Ustaoset again. Here I met Micha and the bikes 6 hours later at 11 a.m. . And now our bike trip along Rallarvegen could finally start. :)
Well, it started after cycling another 10 km along the Riksvei 7, when we reached Haugastøl. Here, an official sign opens the start of Rallarvegen and explains the track.
The first couple of kilometers were really easy. The road is good, more or less flat, and the landscape beautiful. Once again we were so lucky with the weather, blue skies, and the sun warming our cold fingers. We reached Finse, the highest station on the Bergen Railway (1222 m), after about 3 hours (including sun-bathing and lunch breaks :)). There are a couple of houses at Finse, hotels, a restaurant, and a research station. But otherwise it really reminded us of some abandoned places on Svalbard. Probably also because the rough alpine landscape and the flat mountain plateau of Hardangervidda pretty much resembles Svalbard.
After Finse, the track became a bit less well prepared, and the area got more and more quiet and very remote. Still the Rallarvegen followed the train line all the time, but now the rails vanished more often in tunnels, leaving us all alone in this sparse area. In addition, some clouds came in, and by the time we reached the highest point of the track (1320 m), I felt not only very cold, but also a bit uncomfortable since it was getting late and we were all alone up here.
Naturally, after the highest point it started to go downhill. And only downhill. Downhill for 1320 m until the fjord. Pretty fast we left the cold wind and snow fields at the Hardangervidda plateau behind and I had to extract myself from all my layers of clothing again. The colors changed from grey to red, and orange, and green, and everything in-between, and I couldn't help myself stopping every couple of 100 meters to soak in this colorful landscape. The track got really bad at some parts, so enjoying the landscape while biking could have lead to a fast undesired dismounting from the bike, which luckily did not happen.
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After every corner further down, the landscape was more beautiful. By the time we reached the turquoise river connecting Klevavatnet and Seltuvtvatnet, I was totally lost in the beauty of the landscape... . And then, another bend, and there was this spectacular view of the lake Reinungvatnet surrounded by yellow glowing birch trees. Wow. It's really hard to express this beauty with words, or even with pictures - it must have been the combination of coming down from the sparse alpine plateau into this color-richness that made it appear so extraordinary.
After winding down the steep 21 hairpin bends to the Flåmsdalen valley, the road got better again and in no time we reached the car in Flåm. At 7 p.m. we were back from our 14 hour Rallarvegen journey.
As the final touch to this perfect day, we drove to the very best Restaurant in the area (2 hours drive to Hemsedal), where Micha was overly happy with a big bacon burger. :)
I must admit, for such a popular and touristic trip to do in Norway, I was very positively surprised how great it was to bike "Rallarvegen".
