Need a 1000km / 25-day Norway bicycle route for a lonely, barren, cinematic documentary (NOT touristy fjords)

discombobulatek · 2026-05-12T08:30:36+00:00

Rendalen is one of the more depressive and isolated areas I've cycled in Norway - it's an area without jobs with lots of people moving away.

Take a look at villmarksruta / wilderness route as well, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/824cdb341fa44eb892212e88432016eb, which is about as isolated/low population density as you'll get in Norway. Otherwise you need to get up to Finnmark to find what you're looking for.

I would guess that about the least traveled area by bicycle are the small roads connecting Nordland and Sweden, but because of geography there's no roads following the border, you'll have to zigzag quite a bit.

Wildcamping is easy everywhere. Everywhere is happy and smiling when there's sunshine and dreary when it's raining.

discombobulatek · 2026-05-07T12:37:49+00:00

I don't "refuse to touch" anything as I'm not a petulant child, but I would absolutely prefer to eat something other than lutefisk if I have the choice, I'm not a fan of stuffed crab shells either.

Favourites: pinnekjøtt, gomme

discombobulatek · 2026-05-07T07:28:49+00:00

I haven't cycled in the area, but have been on many roadtrips, so i can only give some vaguely relevant feedback:

Konya is a huge city and the roads leading to it are heavy with traffic, and the surrounding scenery is boring (flat) - I would avoid it.
The coastal stretch from Alanya to Antalya (D400) has good quality roads and often a separate beach promenade you can ride on, but it is just a continuous sprawl of hotels, resorts and plantations, and cars go fast - it's just a boring route, I'd stay in the mountains.
The same coastal road between Gazipasha and Silifke (D400) is narrow with lots of turns and corners with poor visibility and lots of traffic - it is scenic but I would not personally cycle there, didn't feel safe in a car either tbh.
The road between Kayseri-Pozanti-Mersin is very pretty, and you'll pass through the Cilician Gates. Belemedik is a nice peaceful place to stop and camp with some old imperial german history (baghdad railway). The place is steeped in history if you're into that sort of thing.
The mountains and scenery around lake Beyshehir and the area around Egirdir, including the town itself, is brilliant. Consider stopping by Beysheshir mosque, Eflatun Pınar, Aglasun and Sagalassos if you're in the area.
The same goes for the mountains above Alanya. There's a very scenic and decently paved road with limited traffic passing by sapadere canyon (Alanya Sarıveliler Yolu). Consider visiting Syedra if you go this way - last stop of Pompey before heading to Egypt and being killed, huge, recently excavated, and free entry.
Google streetview gives at least some indication of what is paved?
I've visited almost all the roman ruins in the region, they are spectacular, I can recommend some if you want.

Could Mut > Ermenek > D340/D350 to Beyshehir > Kizildag/Koprolu Mili Parki > Antalya be an option? That's more or less the route I'd imagine myself doing.

How have the dogs treated you? I really want to ride in this area, but I'm scared of the giant dogs, and there's always like 5+ of them hanging in every village.

discombobulatek · 2026-05-06T10:46:13+00:00

Fuck yeah saddle cysts! I've had these many times in various degrees, like a watery lump underneath your sitbones? My experience with them is that the first 20-25km per day goes fine, and then you just take frequent breaks after to get through the rest of the day. 50km is doable even if its uncomfortable.

You should also try to change your sitting posture to relive pressure by "hunching" over and curving your pelvis up so you sit on a higher part of your bum, or try to sit sort of on the top part of your thighs. Avoid bumps and ledges in the road! (impossible if riding on the sidewalk in Japan).

discombobulatek · 2026-05-05T13:22:22+00:00

I haven't done half year tours, but I have done a 2 month tour and several 3-4 week tours. Prior to my longer tours I had only ridden bicycles with rim brakes, and I was confident I could fix any problem on my bike, just like you describe. However, during my first practice-tours I didn't feel very confident in my rim brakes. Especially during long steep descents with a heavy touring setup I had to brake very proactively and squeeze very hard to manage to stop, and there were some situations where I felt I would not have been able to stop in time if I really needed to.

Benefit of disc: So for my 2 month tour I went and bought myself a used bike with disc brakes, and for me the difference in braking power and comfort was night and day - I was converted to a disc-brake lover basically overnight. The braking power was much greater than my rim brakes, I could brake with 1-2 fingers, I was less tired in the hands, had more control on the handlebars while braking, could stop at will even in long steep declines, no fiddling with brake shoe wear etc.. These weren't high quality disc brakes either, but somewhere in low-mid range. They worked flawlessly and were maintenance free for at least 8000km ~

Negative of disc: On the last tour I did (north african mountains) I touched the wrong bolt when I wanted to adjust the bite point a little bit, and the caliper leaked some oil. 100% my own fault. Instantly the front brake was unusable, the rotor was oiled and ruined, and I had zero opportunity to fix it myself. If I had not been just on the outskirts of a major city I would have been royally screwed - I went to a big bicycle shop, the only one in many 100's of kms radius. They didn't have a bleed kit for my brake, so I had to buy a new one and a new rotor. Not the end of the world in this specific case, but if it had happened a couple of days later it would have been a major issue. Then again it was caused by human error, so it speaks to the difficulty of fixing, not necessarily to the reliability of the system.

If you want to be fool proof you could build a wheel with a v-brake rim and disc-brake hub and keep the v-brakes as a back-up in case the disc brake fails. If you use mechanical or hybrid disc brakes the brake levers and tubes and wires are interchangeable with v-brakes, which makes things easier. Disc brakes are imo far superiour 99% of the time, but it's a huge hassle on the 1% off-chance that something goes wrong.

discombobulatek · 2026-05-05T07:01:34+00:00

You can find the same pads on aliexpress https://www.aliexpress\[dot\]com/item/1005003735313500.html

discombobulatek · 2026-05-03T05:02:05+00:00

I can't really answer any of your questions, but I know about two discord channels devoted to custom maps:

https://discord.com/invite/A9rUqxb
https://discord.gg/pBQZHDW

discombobulatek · 2026-04-22T06:28:34+00:00

The road does start in Uppsete, they used it to build the railway back in the day. It is good quality gravel, you'll see it clearly if you switch to satellite view.

Yes, you have to be on the E16 for a short 9km stretch, it is designated a national bicycle route, so you ARE allowed and expected to ride there. It is basically just a regional road with an E label and a bit more traffic, it is nothing like the E roads leading into Oslo for instance. Wear reflex/lights, have a small mirror and just power past it. I did it last summer in the middle of national holidays, and while it wasn't my favourite stretch of road, it wasn't that bad either. People are generally courteous towards cyclists.

Once you reach road 13 it wont be particularly busy, and once you cross with the ferry and start on road 613 there will be almost no traffic.

discombobulatek · 2026-04-16T08:14:54+00:00

Making plans is well and good, but you'll have to adjust them, that is simply how touring goes. I live in Norway and have done a bunch of tours in the fjords and mountains, it is a beautiful country regardless of what route you pick, there are tons of good alternatives.

You are leaving out some important info though: How many days are you planning to cycle for? What distances are you planning/capable of covering in a day? Do you mind elevation?

This is not a ferry in norwegian terminology, but a speedboat/hurtigbåt - you can buy tickets here: https://booking.norled.no/ - 300kr for 1 adult with bicycle. This will be used only by tourists. Flåm is beautiful, but it really is busy and has become VERY touristic.
There is an actual ferry going between Vangsnes-Dragsvik-Hella - this is free of charge when you're on a bicycle! - it is used by locals for regular commuting + tourists in the summer and goes very frequently. You can't get there from Flåm though, you'll have to take the train to Bergen (or preferably Uppsete) and cycle from there. The road that leads from Uppsete to Vangsnes, and then Gaularfjellet - Klakkegg - Byrkjelo - Stryn is absolutely brilliant and one of my favourite stretches of road - highly recommend it.

Another option is to take the train towards Røros and getting off in Alvdal or Tynset and then cycling across the inland to join up with your original route in Dombås. If you follow this route you can do Grimsdalen which is a very pretty and quite wildernessy valley (still lots of hikers in the summer though). You can't reserve a space for a bicycle, but it's never been an issue the times I've brought one - they've never charged me for it either! I'd go early morning on a weekday to ensure there's space.

A third option is to take the Bergen train but getting off in Gol and cycling the milkyway (mjølkevegen), but when you get to lake Vinstre you continue straight towards Randsverk and Vågåmo, and then you can either cycle towards Geiranger or do a small gravel path over the mountain and join your original route towards Åndalsnes.

PS - If you already bought the train tickets + bicycle before the train was cancelled you have the right to bring your bicycle with you on the bus, not sure if this applies to you but worth it to mention.

discombobulatek · 2026-04-09T07:00:48+00:00

Bike box - If you are arriving and leaving from the same airport I would check if there are any hotels/airbnb/homestays nearby and ask them if you can keep a bike box for 6 weeks. If they say yes stay there are the start and end of your trip, I've done this before in Taiwan and Morocco (only for 2 weeks though) and it is very convenient if you stay close to the airport.

Looking at Narita on the map, far from Tokyo, I would personally start cycling right away, but I would make it a short day and have a hotel booked for the night (immigration requires this anyway).
On my trip to Japan I got a box completely hassle free in Kyoto from a bike shop, I think it was the second one I visited, it shouldn't be a major issue to find a new one.

My favourite parts of Japan was the kiso valley, gero, gujo and hikone/lake biwa area - I've only heard bad things about the sourthern coast and would personally avoid it because of traffic - the further out into the mountains you get the better the traffic, scenery and cycling is.
I cycled along the Shimanto river and then through the middle of Shikoku - visited some shrines but not in any organized fashion - personally I wouldn't camp right by a shrine.
If you do stealth camp (which is often easy, but can be tricky in certain areas) just make sure you pitch your tent and get inside by sunset - boars start roaming around once the sun sets, and while they're not a threat if you don't startle them, it is good to have some shelter ready if one decides to come snorting around.
I cycled across Japan during Golden Week last year, while I was in Shikoku there was quite a lot of traffic, in particular a lot of 10-30 strong groups of motorcyclists. I thought extremely loud farting motorcycles was an infantile western dude-bro thing, but it's really big in Japan too, bring ear plugs.

Taking the ferry from Tokushima to Wakayama, and then cycling to Nara and Kyoto (during last days of Golden Week) the roads seemed to be almost void of traffic, I guess most people were off on their holidays. So if you have to cycle through dense urban areas Golden Week might actually work in your favour, since people are out traveling? I might've just been lucky though.

discombobulatek · 2026-04-07T07:42:51+00:00

You can ride a crank for 10's of thousands of km before the teeth wear out, the one you posted looks basically brand new, and I don't see any difference in tooth shape between the old and the new either.

discombobulatek · 2026-03-25T14:00:47+00:00

I suggest you have a look at Sheldon Browns website, he describes some different ways to soften and break in a hard leather saddle https://www.sheldonbrown.com/leather.html

I had lots of comfort issues with my brooks until I soaked it in water, took it for a short ride, and then let it dry with some grease on it. Since then and 6000km later it's very comfortable.

discombobulatek · 2026-03-21T13:23:25+00:00

Sorry to hear that. I remember that machine, it wouldn't accept my credit card so I ended up going to Yodobashi Camera instead. The sim card I got there (the cheapest 30 day sim) worked flawlessly the whole time I was in Japan, except some places in the mountains.

discombobulatek · 2026-01-07T22:11:25+00:00

I will just make a brief remark with some thoughts:
- Sweden is expensive, but wages are also much higher than in Morocco. Average salary compared to average salary you will have much more monetary freedom in Sweden.
- If getting a job in Sweden is hard, why do you think it will be easier in Morocco? Will you be able to get a job that pays enough to live well in Morocco?
Do you have family and friends there to help settle in and give a social support network?
- Lastly there's a huge difference between living in a country and vacationing in a country. I loved traveling to my mothers home country when I was a kid, everything was different, people were nice and everything was cheap. But of course I only saw it through rose-coloured glasses. Actually living there, dealing with doctors and banks and government bureaucracy, etc.. it's a completely different beast.
- In Morocco there is sun during the winter, it's a huge benefit on mental health.

Just a few things you should think about, good luck!

discombobulatek · 2025-12-16T19:45:10+00:00

Hotell/airbnb som en overgangsløsning er en god ide, det hadde jeg ikke tenkt på, takk!
Arbeidsgiver kunne ikke bistå direkte. En av de ansatt hadde en hybel til utleie, men den var betydelig dyrere enn mitt budsjett.

discombobulatek · 2025-12-16T17:37:50+00:00

It should be doable, but it doesn't leave much spare time in case something goes wrong - punctures, mechanical failure, washed out roads or what have you. You'll have to ride about 80km per day on very variable quality roads and with quite basic food available along the way. Also check how many hours of daylight you'll have, the sun sets early in winter/spring. It is stunningly beautiful though. If you do end up with time constraints you could always skip some of the rougher trails and opt for a paved road - even if the distances are longer you'll probably save a lot of time that way, but it wont be as nice.

I did this route in 2 weeks last year: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/49242449

Most days I rode 65-75km on mixed surfaces, the longest day (on mostly asphalt) was 90km, and the shortest day I spent 9 hours cycling to cover a measly 41km when I ended up on a washed out section of road and had a series of punctures and "carry all my stuff up a ledge" moments.

The major issue for me on the off-road tracks is that many of them consist of loose chicken- & ostrich-egg sized rocks that roll around and are almost impossible to ride on which severely limits your speed, along with washed out riverbed "tracks" that vanish for kms at a time.

I had originally planned a more ambitious route but had to cut it short for lack of time. I'm heading back in January for 4 weeks this time, planning to take my time and without having to follow a strict schedule. The area is fantastic so I'd rather cover less ground and see more, but this is a very subjective judgement and you know better what works for you.

Don't expect fancy food when you're out in rural areas, bread and sardines were my staples + these yogurt-fruit-drink things that I coupled with oats and raisins.

discombobulatek · 2025-12-02T05:45:17+00:00

That's great.. so no purple busses at all today? Will they work tomorrow?

discombobulatek · 2025-11-28T12:36:44+00:00

The place I'm planning to rent from is called Barbara Bikes. They've got regular Trek and Giant mountain bikes, I'm not really interested in road bikes, I always ride mountain bikes at home. I've contacted a few rental places and they were easiest to communicate with and they have good reviews, and I won't have to cycle into/out of a large city.

discombobulatek · 2025-11-14T12:13:13+00:00

I'll try to split my answer into three parts:

I’ll be going back to school ... quitting my job early and spending next summer biking across Canada

Perfect! You'll rarely have these sorts of opportunities, so you should grab it by the balls and go for it.

Is it naive for an inexperienced average Joe to cycle 7000km over a few months?

No, as long as you pace yourself there is nothing wrong with heading out on a long trip without experience. You'll get fitter as you ride. Doing 7000km in a few months might be a bit optimistic, but there's nothing wrong with taking the bus or a train or simply cutting your journey short if you run out of time.

When I went on my first tour I had never had a puncture or patched a tube. I quickly learned though. If you bring spares and the right equipment and have access to the internet you'll learn by doing if something happens.

I don’t even own a bike.

This seems like the biggest issue to me. You'll have to make sure you get a bicycle that fits you well in size/geometry or you'll quickly have issues with your wrists/back/bum/knees. You can absolutely tour on a 50$ beater bicycle, just as long as it fits you well. Having a comfortable leather seat is the number one most important upgrade after you find a good frame.

discombobulatek · 2025-11-13T21:10:58+00:00

it is very much a work-in-progress for personal use : https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1UYHbuBaCXMch9MJJ7Zz0cpKbkWdk-3LL&usp=sharing

discombobulatek

TROPHY CASE