From Nar­vik to Lyngsei­det

Bet­ter wea­ther an stran­ge folks

colors of the north At Nar­vik I re­place two bro­ken spo­kes and buy a new, red front pack to be fi­xed at the handle-bar. Fur­ther­mo­re I car­ry new links as I can't get a new chain. I lea­ve Nar­vik in hea­vy rain but the sun re­co­vers soon. I have Bjerkvik, Regenbogen my first break at Bjerk­vik whe­re I me­at a ve­ry un­u­su­al guy, Da­ve. He claims to be one of the ow­ners of a re­stau­rant at the Yel­low­sto­ne Na­tio­nal Park, wor­king on the books in win­ter and cy­cling six month a ye­ar in sum­mer.

camping at a lake There are other fel­lows on their way in the north. A ger­man, who star­ted at the ca­pe, is on his way south to Gi­bral­tar, so­meo­ne el­se is car­ry­ing his gui­ta­re -  and there is even one french cy­clist going north, ve­ry stran­ge, be­cau­se french­men un­for­tu­na­te­ly ne­ver get on any bike ex­cept for ra­cing. Any­how, Da­ve tells me that he has tons of mo­ney and in­vi­tes me for din­ner at a re­al re­stau­rant. And he's got what I have ne­ver seen be­fo­re, a moun­tain bike, as he calls it.

house with a roof made of grass Well, that item is ve­ry im­pres­si­ve. To me it looks li­ke won­der. A bike so light, spo­kes so strong, (cen­ti­le­ver) bra­kes so ef­fi­cient and three sprocket wheels at the pe­dals is un­known to the ave­ra­ge ger­man cy­clist at that ti­me, 1984. A ye­ar la­ter I shall im­ple­ment a bike about li­ke that, Unterwegs in Nordnorwegen vor Lyngseidet though not that light weight. A cy­cle that will ac­com­pa­ny me on eve­ry sin­gle trip af­ter­wards - and the idea is ba­sed on the ex­pe­ri­ence with Da­ve's bike.

cycling in the north of Norway All in all I ride three days with Da­ve. But soon I rea­li­ze that his bike ena­bles him to go ve­ry slow­ly for a ve­ry long ti­me. I can't do that. I have to over­power the hills and ta­ke lon­ger rests af­ter­wards. We part in the end but meet again he­re and there on our trip north - for the last ti­me we will spend a night in the hos­tel in Hon­nings­våg.