Length of Sweden Ride Report 2024: Larry Oslund

A wet, grueling, steep and totally epic adventure story from Larry Oslund's first brevet. Since it's Larry we're talking about, this first brevet was no 100km warm up. It was the iconic 2100 km Length of Sweden ride. Enjoy the guest post below!

As with any long ride attempt like this, it usually starts with a dream followed by many months of planning and training, and then finally all of sudden you are there, doing it! This was surely the case with me. I first saw Tor had mentioned that he had signed up for this event back on January 4. I had thought it would be fun to do it together and the dream was born. He had already signed up for the 150 time limit fast groups, so I threw my Cruzbike into the ring. The start groups ranged from 150 hours up to 210 hours and the longer times went off earlier.

How it all began

In an email exchange on January 14 - Tor tempted me by writing:

Oh, by the way, I will be riding my Cruzbike more this year. I am signed up for the Length of Sweden ride this summer. That's a 2100 km ride, and the elevation profile is gentle.

Haha! Elevation profile “gentle." That was not true. But, I truly believe Tor believed it when he said it - and still does. I quote him “This was indeed the gentlest long ride I have ever done!”

To me, the climbing was anything but gentle from my Hilton Head Island perspective, and I believe even Tor who regularly rides the steep mountains in Norway was surprised to get more than he expected. Not that it really taxed him at all - but wow - I was totally unprepared to ride up so many steep slopes with a 55 lb Cruzbike under my body! We encountered “a lot of climbing” : 53,000 feet with grades up to 18% in the 1350 miles and just over 6 days of riding. I was so unprepared for that! Not that all climbing was in the 8-18% - the majority of the hills were 6% or lower.

To close this chapter: on January 18, I blindly registered for the event and hoped for the best.

To his credit, Tor has done many brevets (and he is no doubt the king of brevets on a Cruzbike), but this was my first one! He had not done this one though and it would be his longest yet. He did know others that had completed it in earlier years (even on Cruzbikes) so was able to glean knowledge from them as well.

The plan

The record for this 1350 mile brevet is 101 hours and we briefly considered trying to break 100 hours. However, I told him I would rather do it as a tour and schedule “good” sleep breaks each night of at least 5 hours. He agreed that would be best.

True to his form, Tor used prior ride information from other riders, his knowledge of the area, and put together several “likely” schedules based on how hard and how fast we wanted to go and how much sleep we wanted to get.

After he did a “local” 400 Km brevet in Sweden on some of the same roads, he further modified the schedule to something more realistic after he personally experienced the “gentle elevation profile."

Initially, Tor scheduled us for 308 miles on day #1 and 277 miles on day #2 - but modified it to a more realistic 214 and 231 respectively. Even then, we kept getting in later and later in the early morning due to daily long 1+ hour “unforeseen challenges” that really ate into our schedule.

But I am giving it all away before we even start, aren’t I?

So let's back up a little bit.

Training and preparation

Once I decided I was going to do this Length of Sweden ride I doubled down on my training. I started making sure I was putting in at least 800-900 mile a week (mostly on Zwift) - while at the same time running the Cruzeum, doing many custom Cruzbike builds, planning and running both Bike Sebring in March, and Calvins Challenge in May, and continuing to certify all the ultra-cycling world records for WUCA and Guinness. My days were full for sure because that also included prepping the V20 I was going to ride with multiple bags and testing the aero of different set-ups carrying all the gear I needed to carry while riding. My V20 ended up being over 55 lbs with all the gear. Wow - All that extra weight sure made the V20 ride differently. Sadly, I never tried to do any real climbing with it (since all then climbing was “gentle” - haha), which turned out to be a huge mistake that caused me much grief later during the ride.

Larry with fully loaded V20 in Sweden - and at home when testing it.

As anyone will attest, just planning and getting ready for any ride you expect to last at least 24 hours is an “endurance test” in and of itself. The longer the ride is expected, the more time you spend getting ready. This was of course no different - but luckily I had months to plan, buy, install and test. Even with all the time, the date just seems to creep up on you though - and before I knew it I was scrambling.

To make things even more exciting, we planned a trip to see my parents, sister, grandson, and daughter in Wisconsin for a week and returned home only 2 days before I had to leave again for Sweden on July 3. To add to the misery, our flights were delayed and instead of getting home at 9pm June 30, we rolled in at about 4am on July 1st! No rest for the weary. All part of the ultracycling training really! And of course Gayle’s birthday was July 2 - I had to have everything ready to leave at 9am July 3 for the drive to the airport.

The travel

I worked like crazy and of course made it. Then 24 sleepless hours later I was in Narvik, Norway. Here is the flight path.

I had a 2 hour layover in Frankfurt that was reduced to only 90 minutes after a delay in Washington. If anyone knows Frankfurt - 90 minutes is not enough time to do everything you need to - even if your itinerary says your gates are beside each other. They bus you from the plane to the terminal, then you go through Passport control with the other 600 people from your plane (not to mention all the other planes), then a gate change - and misdirection. I was actually sent to 3 different gates and finally made it to the 4th (correct one) about 90 secs before boarding closed. It really takes the fun out of flying!

The Narvik airport was a 1 hour bus ride, and 1 hour train ride away from the ride start. Tor managed to schedule his plane to come in 30 minutes later than mine (Yes - he is that good!). So we gathered our 2 big bike boxes and 3 suitcases, boarded the bus (that so nicely waited for us), and went to our overnight apartment in Narvik. The bus trip was a really nice ride around a fjord. Here is the path it took.

 

After a ½ mile walking trek with the boxes and suitcases, we finally were at our little apartment. It was very nice. I literally had to roll my bike box down the sidewalk for about 50 feet, leave it, then go get my 2 suitcase - repeat, repeat. Tor finally came back and just picked it up and carried it for this old man! We walked around town, took pics, ate at a lovely little restaurant - great steaks, bought groceries to make breakfast and then tried to get some sleep. This was the hard part for me since I had a 6 hour time difference to get over. I think I managed about 4 hours so I considered that a win.

The next morning we had to catch the train to Riksgransen, Sweden where the event check in and starting line was. I cooked us my breakfast specialty - scrambled eggs, ham, and cheese. At about 9:30 we got a taxi to the train station and took a wonderful 1 hour train ride through the mountainside! It was an amazing journey, truly! Here is the route. The train line is mostly used for transporting iron ore to the port in Narvik.

View out of the train for miles and miles

The train dumped us off with our boxes and luggage - at the “train station” - I say that with a little laugh, as this was an old building with no one in attendance, and no help. There was about a 1 mile walk down to our lodging. Amazingly Tor looked around the building and found the world's largest wheelbarrow to use - and borrowed it.

Tor is “The Man!” Day after day he took care of me like this. I look up to him in every way - even though he is the age of my oldest son! And since I have trouble walking and he is the young guy - he did most of this work! This included taking the cart back up the hill, and then bringing my suitcases down on the return trip. Thanks Tor. 

We then both proceeded to fight off swarms of mosquitoes as we each built our beautiful Neon V20’s back into rideable shape. It was a beautiful bright and sunny day to do it - too bad that would not last!

And here they are a couple hours later - ready for a shake-down ride.

We took them out on a 40 minute ride and did whatever adjusting needed to be done.

We also had to ride them to the closest grocery store to buy a late lunch and supplies for supper and breakfast before the 9am start. Here we are parked at the grocery store trying to figure out how to carry everything back to our room.

It was dry that night, but very wet by morning - what a contrast!

Day #1: Saturday, July 6

It was Saturday morning and time to start. We had to ride to the start which was the border between Norway and Sweden - about 2 Km. Here we all were - ready to start a cold (50 deg F), wet ride at the beginning. I think about 35-40 of us crazies were there for the rainy start. There was one other recumbent in this 150 hour group. (Benny is the only one I can remember at this time.) There were also 3 other groups that had left 24, 48, and 60 hours ago with many other riders. To the right: Larry and Benny (We rode with Benny more than anyone else - He is a great new friend now in Sweden!)

Yeah - I look a little dazed. Or maybe just cold and blind since I took my glasses off, which turned out to be my first mistake of many!

It was raining so hard and between that and the speed coming down the hill from the start I could not go any faster than about 20 mph due to the pain of the rain hitting my eyes. Because of that I never got to ride with the pack at the start (they just poured past me) - and poor Tor had to pull back and ride with me. Sorry Tor!

We spent the next 30 Km fighting the rain, the climbs, and the headwind but finally caught up to them! Then only to stop with them on a nature-break (that I did not need) and then get dropped by them on a long climb. As I had mentioned earlier, I found the “gentle” climbs much more than I planned for. The aero of the V20 was great on the descents, but the 55+ lb bike was much harder to get up the climbs. Truthfully an S40 probably would have been faster and easier to ride with all these climbs - (just like on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the USA).

Another big mistake I made was leaving my narrow handlebars on. Sure - I flew down the hills faster than anyone - even Tor, but the narrow bars and extra weight made the climbing slow and hard to balance. It took me about 3 days to learn how to climb with these narrow handlebars and all the weight without weaving back and forth in the road. It was quite frustrating - and in those 3 days I either fell over while wobbling up a climb or just fell over because of the steepness and inability to balance that slow. It was embarrassing, frustrating, and humbling to say the least!

Like a dad who is always there, Tor was there to help me. He was always there to give me a push to get going on an 8% grade, then cool as a cucumber starting by himself and riding straight as an arrow up any grade!

Tor was amazing to watch. I am sure he thought “what have I gotten myself into with this Larry guy?” Tor, you had the patience of a saint - and I will never forget it.

We met up with Benny who was riding a Pelso Recumbent and rode several hours with him to the first stop. We also gave Benny a quick riding lesson on Tor's V20 yesterday - He hopped right on it and took off! Amazing balance Benny!

After about 4:45 of riding and 83 miles we came to our first checkpoint in Kiruna. It had finally stopped raining after about an hour - but we were still battling severe crosswind gusts. I finally took off my rain jacket only to find I was soaking wet inside with sweat! Literal streams of sweat poured out of the arms as I removed it. It was still nice to get it off and start drying out. We had a quick hamburger and coke for lunch and then wasted over an hour trying to get me a Swedish sim card for my phone. Part of that was me accidentally leaving my bag with my passport and Driver's license on the counter of one of the 3 places we visited. We did end up finding it (Praise the Lord) but it took us cycling backward to the 3 locations and then back again to the hotel where we had to get our stamp on our brevet card.

This was a horribly long 2 hr 15 min break that should have only been 15 min for a quick meal. We were now at least 2 hours farther behind everyone else and still had 136 miles to ride before we got to our lodging for the night. It was already 4pm now!

We took off and it started raining again too. It rained on us the rest of the day and it even hailed for a short time - so we got a little bit of everything on the first day! We rode through lots of forested areas. The roads were very nice (although wet) and there was not much traffic except for campers.

We stopped in about 6 hours for a hotdog and mashed potato supper at Gällivare - which is quite a popular thing in Sweden apparently. This is the place where the woman made me some french fries after the man behind the counter said they did not have any. That was nice! We pretty much gobble down whatever we can get. Amazingly because of the rain and colder conditions we barely drank anything from our bottles. I carried 3 and planned on drinking 3 every 100 Km. Up to this point after 10 hours (and 200 Km) we each had not even drunk one!

We quickly got riding again, and we finally arrived at our place at 12:30am. The good thing is that it was still light as we were still above the Arctic Circle. The bad part is that we were soaking wet and there wasn’t really any way to dry our things off other than wringing them out and hanging them on a hook. Once you get to your place you still have to do about an hour of work to get unpacked, dried off, showered, eat, etc. This put us going to bed after 1:30 this first night.

As you can see we went down more than we went up, but we still climbed 8240’ this day.

Our total time was 15:30 (including breaks), and total riding time was 12:44, so as you can see we did not ride for 2:45 of the time. My normalized power was 130 w (so 2.0 W/Kg for me for 15 ½ hours.) My HR average was 127 bpm.

Jokkmokk was the area where the hostel was which we stayed for the night. We saw a couple other bikes and met the Australian woman who was afraid we were stealing the bikes.

Sleep did not come as fast as I had hoped, but we were still able to sleep for several hours. Tor set the alarm for 6am (for our 5 hours of sleep), but we woke up on our own shortly before that.

Day #2: Sunday, July 7

Our Hostel as we left in the sun!

Tor and I got up around 6 a.m.. Most everything was still wet with no way to dry it out - at least it was not cold and it soon warmed up even more against our skin. We rode off to a petrol station that we hoped would be open at 6am - only to find they did not open until 7 - so we sat around and swatted mosquitoes for 15 mins. Then we had something to eat before we left.

We finally got going after breakfast at about 7:30am - The day started nice and sunny, but still with a southern headwind. It was surprisingly hilly and we stopped very soon at the Arctic Circle.

I was really curious how I would feel in the morning - but I never really felt tired riding so that was a good thing at least. And we sure did not have to worry about getting overheated or sunburned with all the rain! Lots of silver linings in those clouds! But these were nice blue arctic skies.

We stopped halfway to eat a sandwich from the petrol station - and as you can see above, we ran into a wee bit of rain - actually a lot!

The morning was dry at least, but it started raining after lunch for virtually the rest of the day.

At about 115 miles of the day we had to navigate about 14 Km of a gravel (and mud) road (the road was under construction). This was terribly hard for me and I fell or had to stop many, many times. Sometimes there was only large 1” round gravel to navigate. I thought it would never end. Sometimes there was a 6” clean track to ride in. However I could not keep that straight and was forever sliding out on the gravel, stopping and having to get going again. Once again Tor showed his amazing bike handling skills and pretty much rode through it all without any issues. We lost a lot of time (maybe an hour) on this section - mostly from me.

It started raining in the early afternoon and continued for most of the day.
It rained so hard at one point that you could barely see and I had to brake a lot going downhill - the rain and hail was hard to take on the face - no where to get away from it.

More cold rain, and climbing, and headwinds from the south continue. Very tough day.

Made it to the pizzeria in Sorsele soaking wet and very cold at around 6pm. I had this great pizza and Tor had a kebab. Amazing how easy it was to eat a whole pizza just like that!

Another issue that had cropped up for me was that I was leaning heavily to the left on my Vendetta. Tor even mentioned that it looked like I was leaning to the left from behind. I stopped a couple of times to try and correct it, but sadly I never really felt totally comfortable. We adjusted my boom which appeared to be off a couple of degrees - but it never totally solved the problem. In the end, I think I also had mounted my handlebar a little askew - and my right brifter was also much lower than my left. This probably added to my instability and propensity to drift to the left and goofy balance when climbing slowly.

I should have paid more attention in our shake-down ride. But most of our attention was on my FD not wanting to shift correctly when riding. This was later found due to the stalk holding the FD being a tad loose.

It was a long break of about 90 minutes and I was so tired of being wet and cold. We both took turns drying off (in the one restroom in the place) and changing into “kinda” dry clothes - only to step out the door into heavy rain again that pretty much lasted the entire evening. The landscape was more open now and not just forest. Very beautiful! As the evening and early morning progressed, it got foggy as we descended down to Vilhelmina. We finally made it to our “lodging” at about 3 a.m. I was starting to have trouble riding into the evening now with my double vision and still was only using one eye the entire day to steer by. It was mentally draining me.

Here is us in the rain late that day or early morning.

We stayed in a campground in a Wooden lavvu (teepee) - Everything was soaking wet and there was no place to really hang stuff. We barely fit the bikes in so they would stay dry.

We also fell another hour behind our schedule - which means to get the sleep we want ended up starting later the next day - it perpetuates itself unless we ride faster, take fewer breaks or cut down on sleep

Here is our path and elevation for day 2:

As I said Day 2 was quite hilly with over 11,000’ of climbing. Even though I had a lot of trouble balancing during the steep climbs I was at least really happy that I did not feel fatigued in any way or even sleepy as we were riding into the early morning.

Probably the main issue I had to deal with (which was quite frustrating) was that I continued seeing double again - this started about halfway through day one. This means I was basically riding with one eye closed all the time. When I got tired of holding one eye closed I would switch to the other and then I would swerve around a little bit until I figured out where I was on the road. For this reason I really tried to ride in the center of our lane. Tor told me it was dangerous and I really tried to stay to the right, but for some reason I actually gravitated towards the left more. I think this was due to the fact that I felt more comfortable riding with my left eye open.
As you can see from the Strava SS below we were on the road for 17:24, and of that were moving for 15:50 (Tor had a moving time of 15:05) - covering an amazing 232 miles.

 

Day #3: Monday, July 8

We woke up around 7am, and started out about 8:30 am. My charger/inverter shorted out because my wet clothes were dripping on it. Ruined it and also shorted a fuse. Tossed it in the trash. We met up with Falk and Benny there also - they camped right next to us. Nice weather to start - so sad everything we owned was cold and wet! We had breakfast at the petrol station. Once again, we brought extra sandwiches, but forgot to stamp our brevet cards.

Another very tough day. Good thing however I still seemed to have the same energy or power. We kept riding later than expected. I was so tired each night I did not make any notes, which I regret now - as I am struggling to piece together what happened from Tor’s notes and both our pictures.

After just getting started and realizing we did not get our brevet cards stamped we stopped at a camping ground one km off route so we could get our stamps. Ended up costing us another 10 mins. The owner was quite impressed that we had ridden from Riksgränsen in two days. Passed Dorotea without stopping. Made it to Strömsund in excellent weather, but then it started raining again and was quite cold.

The descents were hair raising and fast. I got way in front of Tor and he said he could not catch me - a likely story! I missed a turn onto a less busy bridge and ended up riding a steeper and busier highway. I dropped my chain at the top and decided to wait on Tor at a small bus stop. It was now 6pm and we had been on the road for 9 ½ hours - still much to go. That was the story of our trip so far - get in later, start even later, get in even later.

At right below: Me at the bus stop - for an unscheduled 60 min break!

Tor tried to message me, but I did not get it. I stopped at the top of a killer climb to wait for him. After waiting over 30 I finally tried to call him on the phone. He had been waiting for me for 45 mins. :( Eventually we met back up (another hour wasted because of Larry!) and made it to Östersund and the drop box location. We got to stock up on clean dry clothes, a new chain, whatever we put in our little drop box. They served us a nice little bowl of excellent pasta - although I could have used about 10 times as much for what lay ahead.

As we were leaving Östersund, Falk showed up. Benny was a little further back.

Beautiful country roads out of Östersund, over some long bridges. Tor’s back was aching due to the back of his bibs rubbing his spine, so he had to make some adjustments to his wardrobe!

Right below: This was a steep climb late in the 3rd day - if you look closely you can see my red tail light.

We had some nice, dry riding on country roads at first. Then it started raining again. In the evening, we turned right onto some steep roads that were officially closed for traffic. Then the two major mountain climbs. Very cold and wet. Then the final 10 km to our accommodations on extremely steep slopes also while cold and wet. I did not think we would ever get there!

My Garmin said it was 40 F. I could not feel my fingers or toes. I was so scared of falling and stopping and freezing that I just kept going. Tor implied we had a really hard 3 Km to the Chalet at the top, but what he did not tell me was that after the "really hard" 3km (6-9%) - there was another 11km of 3-4% to get to the actual place. They sure felt steeper than that so late and tired. I was now psychologically and physically drained as I used all I had to get to what I thought was the top - only to have to ride another hour up a slope I could barely climb, all sopping wet and cold, and on an empty tank. It's amazing what you can do if you think you are going to freeze to death if you stop!!

We arrived around 3am and then had to get our bikes up and then get everything sorted out, hung up. At least the place had a sauna and drying racks where we could lay out our wet stuff. Everything we had was totally soaked - so it was nice to get it finally dry. I had a great sense of accomplishment but it was a pretty gruesome final couple of hours. We were then 3-4 hours behind schedule.

I also continued to have even more trouble riding in the dark (yes, now it was getting dark on us) with one eye- actually I was having trouble riding in the day with one eye too - just not as much.

Day 3 had the most climbing of any day - probably because of the last 2 tough mountain climbs. I was still able to keep above 100W average - which meant about 120W when flat, lots of coasting down steep hills at 0, and 160-200W up the hills.

 

Day #4: Tuesday, July 9

We cut our planned sleep at 5 hours down to 3 that night to try and gain some time back. Then we ended up spending extra time on a big breakfast, which was probably needed. What a nice buffet breakfast it was. We stuffed ourselves. Tell me, who looks more refreshed? I don’t think Tor actually sweated the whole ride, even on the toughest parts, and it wasn't because it rained a lot! Tor is the Cruzbike strong man!

We left the Mountain Ski Chalet room around 9 am. The best thing was their breakfast buffet. We ate well that day, although I am still not sure it was worth the effort to get there the night before.

We started riding around 10am on this 4th day. Still about 3 hours behind schedule probably with no hope of gaining it back at this point - which meant if we stuck to the schedule we would arrive at the finish sometime after 4 am on Friday.

We had a long descent down the mountain, turned left and saw Benny coming out of a shop. We surprised him and he slid out right in the road as he looked left and saw us coming. We stopped and helped him up. We rode together on easy terrain to Sveg. We were like the 3 musketeers - All Benny needed was a Vendetta! Note: He has one now, as I left mine with him for a few months so he could demo it.

Then we stopped at the petrol station and burger joint in excellent sunshine. A tourist took a photo of the three of us. We bought cheeseburgers and packed them away for a stop later.

On our next stage of the day, a green desert. Benny was out of water, and stopped at a creek. At some point we lost Benny, not sure why. Heavy rain shower just before Älvdalen.

On one long and steep climb the 3 of us were making, Tor came up alongside me and commented how well I was climbing now - about 2 seconds later I got too close to him and had to brake and swerve hard left and promptly fell in the middle of the road. This one hurt and they both had to stop and help me up - I ended up being okay, just a couple more bruises - and of course a bruised ego!

Next stage, first a steep climb. At the top we found Benny again. Rode together. More road works, not gravel, just scraped tarmac. After some rougher road works, Tor saw sealant seeping out of his front tire. It sealed up nicely but we kept an eye on it.

Quick pastry break at Venjan before moving on.

Then Falk appeared from the left. Apparently, he had taken the route via Mora that the organizer at some point told us to take. We started going hard, and left Falk and Benny behind.

We passed Vansbro, with the "goofy" gravel cycle path, across a railroad bridge.

We had a pretty good stretch with no rain today, but the weather did not disappoint - we stopped to eat our burgers and it started raining on us! Right pic: our 90 sec stop! - the fastest of the week!

We had one hour of absolutely hard and cold rain before grocery shopping and a stop. It was another long stop (90 mins) to put on dry clothes and get something substantial to eat. Then only to be greeted by pouring rain when we left! We just could not seem to catch a break!

As we got farther south, it started getting dark earlier and earlier. Midnight to 3 was the darkest time and then it started to get light again. So we had to ride in the darkest part, cold, and rain for the last 3 hrs.

During that time on another difficult wet and cold climb, I lost my focus and swerved to the right and fell really hard. I was all tangled up in my Vendetta this time and was kind of stuck - and too tired to free myself. At this time we were riding with a German rider (Morton) who was riding an M5 CHR. He was just in front of me. As soon as I fell, Morton dropped his bike and was next to me at the speed of light (or maybe it was the speed of dark) either way he was fast. He could not untangle me as my legs were trapped in my narrow handlebars. Tor came back too and between the two of them, they rescued me. Once free, I asked Morton for a hand up. He stood in front of me and looked 10’ tall (He really was tall - but more like 6’8”) - He grabbed my arms and yanked me up like a rag doll. Thanks, Morton. He's another hero of mine. We rode 40 minutes mostly descending to our house for the night as it kept raining on us. We arrived at about 3 am.

We got lucky again as this house also had a little sauna - so we turned it on and let all our stuff dry out. Got to bed a little after 4am - it was already getting light out when we went to bed.

Day 5: Wednesday July 10

We woke up around 7:20 am, cutting down our sleep in hopes of doing less night riding (it helped a little, but not enough), and left the house at 8am - It had already started to rain (not a surprise to me now!). Tor said to expect rain pretty much all day. A super nice breakfast, and we got our card stamped too. The owner made us amazing omelets and sat there and talked to us as we ate.

We left at 8:40 am for the start of day 5, in the rain of course. I had briefly thought of staying there and eating until the rain stopped - but then we might still be there. :)

It started raining a bit more. We did a couple of efficient stages, to Hällefors, then to Karlskoga. We didn't see any open petrol stations there, so we kept moving. When the rain intensified, we stopped by some mailboxes to put on rain gear and to eat some pastry. But we needed more substantial food by now. Luckily, 10 km later in Degerfors we found a nice little restaurant that had amazing cheeseburgers.

We ate good this day...and we were going to need it to get to the top of the next climb at Skövde.

The next part of the day was really wet, and we got lightning as well. Passed the hotel that Tor had earlier booked but canceled. We got to the steep climbs (10+%) up to the checkpoint hotel in Skövde. I barely made it up. I lost focus and balance on the steepest part near the top. Tor stopped and gave me a push to get me going again and I finally made it over the summit and to the fancy hotel at the top. We saw several other riders there too. Falk turned up for a quick stamp and quickly left.

Long descent down from the hotel, then another super steep climb (19%). I had to finally walk that part. But Tor of course just kept going, slow and steady, unwavering combo of balance and power!

We made it to Falköping, where the re-used railroad trails started. We needed a power nap/rest on the tarmac. The narrow trail in the dark was difficult to maneuver. Eventually, we got on a road, but the fog was so thick we could barely see. I didn't have any lights (mine had died) or much reflective material on the bike, so we rode by Tor’s lights. It was quite scary. We were very tired, and the final 30 km felt like a very long stretch.

To make the ride even harder and the day longer we had to ride up the hardest climb yet to the checkpoint at Skövde. I made it up the 10% grade, but failed on the final 19% section and had to walk it. Tor of course just slowly rode up without even breathing hard! The climbing really never ends on this ride. We got our brevet card stamped and then had to go back down (in the rain) and ride another 60km.

This is the night we had to ride on trails converted from train tracks. They were nice and flat, but in many cases were barely 4' wide. With only one eye and limited balance I was really struggling - not to mention the fact that it also got so foggy that you could not even see 20' in front of you. Then my glasses fogged up (but I did not realize it) and I went even slower.

We rode at least 30km on these trails and I became mentally exhausted just trying to navigate them.

Imagine riding the trail below at night and with fog & with one eye closed!

This was also the only place that I ever felt sleepy during the entire ride - but I was also mentally drained. Tor suggested a 10 min power nap. We lay on the cold asphalt for 10 minutes on the trail next to our bikes. After my bones were cold and my back hurt, I decided I would rather be riding and suffering with one eye than letting my bones freeze.

We finally made it to our room on the ground floor of a house in Ulricehamn, which was also up about a short 15% grade (which I walked and Tor slowly and still amazingly pedaled up). We arrived at about 4:15 (yes, all wet again) - and did not get in bed until about 5am - it was already getting light. Tor took a shower and I went to sleep after I dried off. All our stuff was totally soaked again. We just wrung it out the best we could and hung it up to drip dry for a few hours.

Day #6: July 11, Thursday

We got up at about 8 am after about 3 hours of sleep.

Tor had to work on his bike RD cable as it frayed and was in danger of breaking off. This took a little while but too long. We ended up starting about 9:45am after the repair and breakfast. We ate some leftover pastries for breakfast.

More narrow rail trails to ride on - It was still a little challenging for me (as I still have to ride with only 1 eye even during the day) but still much better in the daylight.

Left below: here’s me riding on the rail-trail - you can see how much I am leaning to the left on the V20. Yes, that’s Tor smiling during one of 5 rather intense showers we rode through this day. Tor has that smile on his face all the time - no matter what our obstacle or hardship was. He just embraced everything as a great experience of life! His acceptance and joy was infectious and I needed to tap into it daily.

In Hyltebruk we first stopped at a petrol station, but Tor checked the maps and said we should cross the river and go to a shop. There we got a stamp. Larry bought another microwave meal, but didn't get a spoon. Luckily, the shop girls gave him a cardboard one. There were some other riders there too stocking up on nutrition too.

Nice riding to Laholm, going down to sea level for the first time. Stopped at a petrol station where the lady made me a pizza. I quickly ate ½ of the pizza and saved the other half for when we stopped at the end of the day. Again, we met some other riders.

Final stretch for our “short day” to Klippan. A bit hilly and foggy, but we made it to our small cabin before dark, which was the goal. They had modern bathrooms, and a kitchen with a microwave for my egg-bacon-bagel sandwich we bought the night before.

It rained at least 5 times this day and the fog had even started to come in a couple hours before dark - especially in the dense forests we rode through. We also had several extremely tough and long climbs in the 10% range - one of them was on a road that was called St. Lawrence Church Road. Tor thought it would make a cool picture.

Beautiful scenery here in the south - but still not totally flat. I started keeping track of how many climbs we had every km. I did not do super small rises, but actually something that you felt you had to pedal harder through for at least a minute. It turned out that on average there were 20 climbs for every 25 km of riding. Amazing. No wonder it seemed like we were always hitting another climb.

We cut this 6th day 140 Km short and stayed in a little cabin in a campground - it was quite nice and cozy. The main reason for the change to our initial schedule was my inability to ride safely in the dark, especially with the fog after all the rain. This worked well for us. Instead of riding all through the night and getting to the finish about 4am, we had a quick rest, started in the daylight and finished before noon in the sunshine. We finished the day as planned around 10:30 pm and hoped to get up around 4am to get an early start. I ate the rest of my pizza and Tor ate his pastry. We went to bed around midnight about half dry this time, which was nice after all the rain.

Day #7: Friday, July 12

Tor totally slept through about 10 minutes of his alarm as it kept getting louder and louder. I just let him sleep as I figured he needed it, and returned the favor to him that he allowed me days before. We still managed to leave at 5:40am well rested. 9 am would mark exactly 6 days since we left on Saturday. We would not make it under 6 days, but really close.

This was our final short day of only about 140km. It was a beautiful day of sunny weather and clouds - no rain - finally! We had a great time rolling towards the finish together and had a great time flying down the road together.

Here we are at the finish spot posing for our finisher photo - No way was I going to try and hold up my 55 lb Vendetta above my head today! - I would have toppled over for sure!

Tor said he never felt better - all his aches and pains were gone - he was faster than a speeding bullet! I was not feeling too bad either (for an old man that has aches and pains all the time anyway) after more than 6 days of cycling with limited sleep and a lot of rain.

Pretty good considering all the ordeals we had been through. Tor calls this “Type II” fun: really hard, but great memories and stories for life.

This final short day was the only one without rain - we stopped two short times and arrived at the finish around 11:15 am - in bright sunny conditions. Despite all the difficulties, we still made the 150 hour fast group time limit. Our final time was 146 hours 15 minutes.

I was so glad we did not try to ride through the night and foggy conditions again with my limited and double vision and Tor agreed this was a better way to finish - during the day, and the sunny conditions!

Our victory lunch near the beach!

The lighthouse hotel where we had a room to sleep and great fellowship with other riders.

My first brevet card - 2128 Km - Length of Sweden!

Here is the entire ride on Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11943395385

Epilogue:

I said it at the start and I will say it again: There is absolutely no way I could have completed this ride successfully without Tor. He was the master planner, the encourager, the guy that knew where to go, what to do, etc - every day! All I really had to do was get there with Cruzbike, pedal it for 146 hrs, and eat as much as I could at stops!

There is a reason that the randonneuring community has 100, 200, 300, 400, 600 km Brevets. It is to “learn” how to do it. By taking these shorter rides you eventually figure out what works and what doesn’t. It was foolhardy of me to attempt this 2128 km brevet without any earlier experience. If your aspiration is doing an awesomely long and famous brevet like “Length of Sweden” or “Paris-Brest-Paris” to name just a couple, do yourself a favor and start small. Learn the ropes and it will save you from many pitfalls.

Another thing about brevets (having just dipped my toe into this otherworldly ocean of this style of ultracycling events): it also became super obvious that the way we did this one is kind of the “easier” way to do it. It is equivalent to saying you are going camping, but then stay at the Hilton instead. Most hard-core brevet riders, like two of the new and awesome friends I made: Benny and Morton, not only carry all their clothes, electronics, food and water, they also carry any camping gear they need. They do not sleep in beds and have bathrooms to change in. When they need to sleep they pitch their little tent and lay down and sleep. Wet or dry, then don’t care - they just persevere, smile for the awesome memory, and get up and keep riding.

In many ways this is harder and more uncomfortable, but it is also quicker from the perspective of spending way less time on accommodations and sleep. For those that wonder: that is how Tor usually does a brevet. He did the easy way for me for a reason: so that I would finish and so I would still be alive to write this.

Takeaways:

Things I did wrong that made the ride harder and more frustrating:

• I took way too much stuff on the Cruzbike with me - 55 lb bike is too heavy
• I did not practice climbing as part of my ride prep
• I should have planned to get there with more time to rebuild and test my V20
• I did not have sufficient lighting or charging capabilities for lighting

Things I did right that helped me succeed:

• I rode a lot of miles before the event
• I had Tor with me

Goofy and usually irritating things that tried my patience on this ride:

• I finally switched my Garmin to km from miles after the 1st day as I was tired of converting all the miles to km - only to have to convert it the other way.
• Tor said we should shoot for 25 kph (15mph) including minor breaks between major segments. After coming from only riding flat roads I thought this was so slow- I thought how hard is it going to be to average only 15mph, when I can ride 20+ mph virtually all day without even stopping? Well, I learned a hard lesson on that one. It was actually impossible for us to keep the 25kph average, much to my shame. Part of it was all the climbing with such a heavy bike, the other part was all the stops, uphill crashes, and many other 1+ hour “things” that just happened and sucked the time away like a black hole!
• My left pedal would not spin freely, so it was incredibly hard to clip into it once moving - especially when starting on 6-8% grades - sometimes I never got clipped in and it caused me to eventually slip off the pedal and eventually fall.
• I fell over or crashed when climbing a lot of times. I highlighted a couple of the above, but am embarrassed to say that this happened to me probably 20 times or more. So much that I even just screamed out in frustration at times - usually when I was also cold and wet.
• I usually use an electric shaver but left it to save room. Instead I packed a disposable razor and some soap to use. That was such a mistake. After the first day I basically scraped my face raw shaving - and it got horribly sun-burnt. It took me 2 weeks for my poor face to recover from this bad decision. Best way is to just not shave.
• Putting on a raincoat when it is going to rain - If you don’t take it off right after it stops raining, then you end up totally drenched in your own sweat. Eventually I figured that out and just passed on rain gear unless it was going to be really cold, too. Tor uses a shake-dry jacket and does not have that issue - I’ll put that on my list for the next one!
• Taking my glasses off during rain - always a big mistake on a recumbent - as you can only go so fast (and it is not fast enough) before the pain of the rain hitting your eyeballs causes you to stop.
• I kept forgetting I had my cleat covers on my shoes after breaks. I would start off and wonder why I could not clip - then have to stop, take them off, store them and start again. I just could never remember I had them on - eventually I just stopped using them and hoped they would last. They did, but just barely!

Was the Vendetta fast for this ride?

I was no doubt the most aero rider in this event - but that was not really worth much because of all the climbing and how much we have to carry ourselves. Even Tor with his vastly superior strength could not keep up with my coasting speed and powering back up short hills with such speed and momentum. An example: I had to sit full up in my seat and hold my shoulders and arms wide to coast at the same rate as Tor down steep hills. However that is only about 5% of the ride. The things that make the Vendetta so aero also make it harder to ride on hill-laden rides such as this Length of Sweden.

Narrow handlebars, and a more reclined seat also didn’t help much. If you look at Tor’s setup - he has really wide handlebars and his drops are way up in the air. This helps him with balance and climbing.

Bottom line: If your goal for an average speed is only 15 mph, then you don’t have to worry about aero as much as you do when you are trying to break a 4 hour Century.

Thanksgiving:

I am so thankful to have been able to do this Length of Sweden ride and make it back alive.

I thank Gayle, and my family for supporting me and cheering me on.

I thank the Cruzbike (Company and employees) and especially owners: Jim & Maria Parker for creating a great recumbent bike for me to ride in comfort and as always their unwavering support and especially their friendship.

I thank the Cruzbike tribe for their encouragement and awesome support.

I thank Tor for all of his help - Tor you are awesome - I knew it already from a distance and watching your videos and following you on Strava - now I know it in person - and you are even better than I thought. You are the epitome of strength, agility, courage, honesty, thoughtfulness, toughness, generosity, humor, & joy - all rolled into one! You are and will be a great and dear friend always.

And finally and foremost thanks to The Lord my God and the Savior of my life: Jesus. It is so overwhelming to see this part of the Lord’s creation. It is awesome and beyond words really - and reminds me how small I am and how big my God is! If you doubt at all that God exists - go do something like this and get a glimpse of just a sliver of his wonderful creation. There is no way all this beauty and majesty could happen by accident.