Riding with the Weather: A Bikepacking Detour Through Norway

Norway doesn’t really let you make the rules. You can plan routes, check forecasts, and time your departure perfectly, but in the end, the weather decides.

Last summer, I learned that the hard way. Twice I ended up pushing my bike through deep snowfields for hours, convinced that by the end of June the mountains would be clear. They weren’t. On Norway’s high gravel roads, the riding season can be only a few short weeks — sometimes from mid-July to mid-August, if you’re lucky.

So this year, starting in mid-August, it finally felt like we’d found our window. The sun was warm, the air calm. Two days later, we were riding in frost covered valleys, pulling on every layer we had. Same trip, completely different world.

A Change in Direction

Our plan with Francesco was to head west into the fjords. But forecasts shift fast here. By the start of our trip, our perfect 20 degrees forecast had turned into heavy rain and near-zero temperatures above 800 meters. So we changed plans. Longer days, fewer breaks, a race against the front moving in from the coast.

After the first night spent hiding from the northern wind between old fishing huts, the decision made itself. The west was closing in with rain quicker than we could make it through, but the east looked clear. We turned our wheels toward Rondane National Park and Mjølkevegen instead.

Highlands Instead of Fjords

Norway might be most famous for its dramatic fjords, but its central highlands are often less talked about. However, when it comes to bikepacking, they offer a lot more gravel roads to connect and wild nature to enjoy. Rondane, Norway’s first national park, is still home to wild reindeer. We didn’t see any, but a moose appeared for a moment standing between the trees, still and curious.

Just before Rondane, we biked through a forest carpeted with thick lichen, colouring the whole landscape pale white. I’ve never seen that much lichen in my life, not even growing up in Finland. It’s one of those things that happens when you travel by bike, you see places no one stops for, because the journey takes you there slowly enough to notice.

Racing the Storm

The weather was still on our heels, so we pushed harder. Strong winds, luckily behind us, carried us over the plateaus. We rode until dark, set up camp by a still lake, and woke to another freezing morning.

We’d planned to take the Bygdin ferry a small boat that cuts across the lake and saves about 70 kilometers of riding. It would help us finish the remaining 180 kilometers in one go instead of spending another cold night in the mountains. To make it on time, we woke at 5 a.m. and rode through the coldest hours of the day. Even with every layer on, the frost on the valley floor made us shiver. Hard to believe it was mid-August.

At the harbour, we thawed out with hot soup and waffles with brown cheese, the essential Norwegian fuel. Once on the boat, we fell asleep quickly, wrapped in our jackets as the mountains drifted past the windows.

The Last Light

Ninety kilometers still separated us from home when we got off the ferry, but that short nap have us a perfect little reset. With the thought of a hot shower and a warm bed ahead, the legs found a second wind.

As we layered up before the final descent, a car pulled over. The driver, who worked for a Norwegian baselayer brand, smiled and handed us each a mesh shirt. “You look like you might need these.” He was right. We pulled them on, laughed at the timing, and dropped into the long, cold descent.

We reached Sogndal just as the light faded, Francesco’s red helmet light blinking in the dark. The route hadn’t gone as planned, but that’s the thing about Norway. The weather shapes the journey, and sometimes the detour becomes the reason you ride.

"...sometimes the detour becomes the reason you ride."