Onsdag Part Ett (1) - Blogging On - Sweden 2018

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Good morning everyone and welcome to the latest chapter of my perennially popular travelogue blog.  This time I am off to Sweden.  Like most people I had never heard of the place so when a friend suggested we go I jumped at the chance.  I don't really listen when I am excited so it was not until several weeks later and an exchange of emails that I realised that rather than a weekend of sightseeing and Roxette concerts what I had in fact signed up to do was:

http://vatternrundan.se/vatternrundan300km/en/

If you didn't bother to click the link (and why would you) in summary it is a 300km bike ride around a massive lake.  A 300km ride is nothing to an experience international cyclist like me, however I would usually tend to spilt the 300km over several days.  Not this time.  This time we start at about 20:00 on Fredag and don't stop until we finish sometime on lordag.  For fans of television weather news the lake in question is the lower right of the two you can see in Sweden on the European weather map so at least we will have accurate weather information throughout the event.


In contrast to my earlier long distance cycling endeavour (see http://bigbenslejogblog.blogspot.com/ for details) my attitude to training has been somewhat lackadaisical.  I have ridden to work a couple of times a week if it wasn't raining and completed the 80 mile tour of Cambs a few weeks ago, the latter in under 4 hours which I was quite happy with.  That said I am of the firm belief that cycling, like most things, is a mind game therefore I am sure my huge and often misplaced self belief will see me through to the end of the ride.  I also did a spot of last minute training yesterday evening in the form of a curry and a few scoops:

On the right you can see Dan who got me into this mess. 
Centre is Mark.  Mark is staying at home

Before visiting a new country I think it is respectful to the natives to learn at least some of the language, for Sweden this is easy as many Swedish words have been adopted by the English, if you don't believe me I suggest you take it up with the blog fact checking ombudsman (<<<<that's one of the words).  

The logistics for the trip are a bit hazy, I think I transferred some money to someone and today we pick up a brace of motorhomes.  I think I am driving one of them.  I am hoping someone else has a map.  That said it can't be that hard, get to France and keep the North Sea on your left and eventually you will get to Sweden.

Anyway that is the pre-amble to the main blog, more to follow later today when we actually get going.  I will sign off with a picture showing the main contents of my luggage:

Ass cream

In handy sachets to avoid the need to double dip......

More later!


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