July 28, 2023
Drammen, Norway to Lampeland, Norway (July 28, 2023)
Drama in Drammen
Ah, yes, those banana peels! Well, let's start with the weather forecast which we obsessively review before riding. When we looked the evening before, the weather looked like rain would be off and on throughout the day, so we surmised there would be no rush to get going. Upon waking, however, Jill said the newer forecast for Drammen showed only light rain in the morning, turning harder later. She said that maybe we should get an earlier start than planned. This was problematic, especially for her. Remember last night's aquavit experience? Jill doesn't tolerate distilled liquors very well and her glass of aquavit hit her hard that morning. Yep, she had a hangover. You can only imagine how excited she was to start earlier than planned? Regardless, she soldiered on and we had a relatively early breakfast, hurriedly packed and got ready for the day's ride with me doing my best to stay out of Jill's fog shrouded way.
Again the rain forecast proved wrong and by the time we got the panniers on the bikes it was raining steadily. We waited for a bit hoping it would clear to no avail. We donned every piece of warm clothing and all of our rain gear and prepared to shove off. We got maybe a hundred yards when I realized that my front tire was completely flat. I was suspicious of my experience with the public pump in Oslo and figured that had something to do with my tire flatting. We stopped in the middle of the town square and I proceeded to dig out our hand pump from my pannier --in the pouring rain mind you. I had a 50/50 chance of choosing to open the right pannier, and of course guessed wrongly. Now both of my panniers would be exposed to the rain, but I did finally find the pump and started reinflating the tire, but nothing happened. It didn't look as though any air was getting to the tube. I suspected I had somehow damaged the valve back in Oslo, although I had no issues with the tire the previous day. Either that of there was a leak in the tube itself. Either way I felt I needed to change the tube.
We sought shelter under the eaves of a nearby coffee shop, and Jill went inside to buy a cup of tea in compensation for using their benches. Of course nobody was sitting outside in the rain, but we did feel a bit guilty doing this repair in front of the coffee shop and figured we should buy something.
After removing the tire and tube I managed to put a very small amount of air into the tube to look for a leak. Jill pointed out a puddle nearby and I proceeded to run the tube through it looking for telltale air bubbles. None were to be found, either on the tube or the valve. To all appearances the tube looked fine. I attempted to put more air into the tube but it just wouldn't accept any. I dug out an unused spare tube, checked the tire for thorns, reinstalled the tube and tire and proceeded to pump up the tire. No amount of pumping put air into this new tube. Now I was getting nervous. Clearly there was a problem with the pump. While I worked on the tire, Jill found a bike store only a couple of hundred yards from where we were and I said we'd need to walk the bike there for assistance. That's when Jill noticed the damn place was closed until Monday, and this was happening on a Friday morning (Who closes a bike store on a Friday? Answer: Norwegian bike stores in July). Jill found another bike store that was open but it was over a kilometer away and across a busy bridge. So much for our early start to the day!
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Wait ten years, and this will all be hilarious. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear it’s the best remembered day of the tour.
9 months ago
I proceeded to remount the tire on the bike when an older man came out of the cafe and began gesticulating in the direction of the park and tried to tell us something in Norwegian. We surmised this guy must be the cafe's owner and he was tired of having us parked in front of his store and was trying to direct us to a park bench. Unable to understand anything he was saying, Jill went inside to ask the clerk if she could translate what the old guy was saying. There then occurred this hilarious interaction with about four customers and three clerks madly talking to each other (in Norwegian) about which bike shops might be open and how to help us. Finally one customer asked Jill in English if he could help as he was a cyclist and a pretty handy mechanic. She suggested we go back outside. His name was "Joe", a much foreshortened version of his irreproducible Norwegian name. He adopted Joe when he lived for 5 years in Michigan. I, of course, was much abashed at having to ask for help on such a minor mechanical issue, but I was desperately hoping not to have to make that trek to the bike store in the rain and happily accepted his kind offer.
Joe had the same issue when he tried to pump the tire, so he took the pump off, dismantled it a bit, mumbling about one of the fittings looking misaligned. He reassembled the pump, reattached it and began pumping anew. Sure enough, the thing worked flawlessly, just as I remembered from my flat tire incident last year. The morning was saved thanks to "Joe"! We finally, after an hour and a half, fully pumped up my tire and shoved off.
At breakfast Jill had checked out the weather radar map and it showed that the rain system currently soaking Drammen broke up to the west, our direction of travel. So we pressed on, grateful for our excellent rain gear. We both remarked how much nicer the booties (which I purchased in Gothenburg) were which helped keep our feet both dry and warm. Eventually Jill decided that she preferred wearing both her Showers Pass rain socks along with the added protection afforded by the booties. The NRS river gloves we brought were much better than the supposed water proof gloves we used last year. Unfortunately, Jill somehow managed to lose one of her gloves somewhere along this day's route.
The radar picture turned out to be accurate and as we continued, the rain gave way to a glorious day of cycling. The storm clouds parted, we dropped layers and thoroughly enjoyed our ride. Today's route took us up our first taste of what was to come as we approached the Norwegian mountains. For a long way we followed the Drammenselva River. Our path was in excellent shape and we enjoyed multiple vistas. We were finally seeing some Norway's legendary beauty.
Our plan was to take a break in Kongsberg in which Jill had identified an Espresso House, several of which we've enjoyed on this trip. It seemed easy enough. Google maps gave us a route directly to it, or so we thought. Following the suggested route, we took a long descent down a busy thoroughfare to what appeared to an entrance to a parking garage. There was no coffee house there. We meandered around a bit, perplexed at not being able to find the place. Google was telling us, "It's right there, you dummy!" Only it wasn't. Neither of us wanted to clamber back up the hill in vain, so I volunteered to try. Eventually, and back to where we began our search, I realized the cafe had to be in the mall. Sure enough, we both came to the same realization, me a hundred feet up from where Jill was. Eventually, after a good half hour, we met up, found the entrance to the mall and a coffee spot. It just wasn't the one we originally were looking for. The Espresso House was one floor down from our stop.
About half way into the ride, the route veered away from the river and towards the hills. We began our first serious, steep climb which proved to be a good warm up for the hills ahead waiting for us. We arrived in Lampeland, a mere grease spot on the road with but one hotel which sported the only restaurant in town. It was actually pretty nice and we parked our bikes in the conference room and split a deer sirloin for dinner in a quaint dining room.
Back to Jill: That night Dave got his Chrome Cast working and we watched the “Twelfth Man”, a 2017 film based on the wartime adventure of Jan Baalsrud, a young Norwegian who was on a resistance mission with 11 other Norwegian soldiers. They were dropped into the Norwegian Arctic on a mission but were betrayed and the Germans killed or captured 11 of them and Jan got away. Then ensues a crazy adventure as Jan evades capture, is injured, gets frostbite, starves, and is helped by numerous Norwegians at great personal risk. Near death he is eventually taken across the Swedish border by the Indigenous Sami people via reindeer sled. Spoiler alert: He survives. It’s a great story; the film is pretty brutal, but a long time ago I read “We Die Alone” by David Howarth, which tells the same story.
Again back to Jill: one good thing about the flat tire drama is that it totally diverted me from my hangover: no more aquavit for me.
Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 971 km (603 miles)
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9 months ago
9 months ago