Day 1, Hour 1, Minute 1, waking up at 4 in the morning to finally start my journey. I had decided to cheat a bit and take some trains. Just to get away from Stockholm and the roads I have traveled so many times.

It was massive fog and only 11°C, birds singing like crazy. I loaded the bike and went the 400 meters to the train station, elevator up to the platform and I was good to go.

In Uppsala I just made the next train (Upptåget) with 4 minutes to spare, fortunately it was on the same platform so no elevators. Had breakfast in Gävle with the rough crowd, face tattoos and drinking beer at 07:30 in the morning.

After a nice ride on the X-train I arrived in Söderhamn at 10, a quick and nasty lunch at McD. When I am leaving town I see the back panniers of two touring bikes on the horizon, they are too fast for me so I loose them.

After going trough some small logging and service roads I bump in to a local that is curious on how on earth I found that small road. I told him that google maps helped me. He said he just saw two other cyclists on the road 10 minutes away by car, must have been the same two I saw earlier on.

I never caught up with them, I arrive in Hudiksvall and decide to stop for early dinner on the way out to the camping (4 km outside downtown). Then I check in at the camping, Internet is soo sloooow so I go to bed and sleep before 21. The day was gray and cold, around 14C

Woke up at 4 in the morning, 12C and very moist, decided to sleep some more. Woke up at 5 again, decided that I could rest some more, after 5 minutes it started to rain. So find the rain clothes quickly and then go to the service building. Breaking camp in the rain was not funny, the inner tent was almost dry so I packed it separately. I went in to central Hudiksvall only to find out that the cafe/sandwich shop opened in one hour at 9. At the Statoil service station I found some breakfast.

Went through the woods on small gravel roads, maybe not the best option in the rain, but after a while I emerged on a bigger road. I decided to go with the bigger road and to switch from the east to the west side of the highway in hopes of a smoother ride. While doing that I ended up on the road from hell, it wasn’t really a road, 1-2 km was more like a forest track, ended up pushing the bike for a long while.

I was getting tired and realized that I wouldn’t make it to Sundsvall, so started to look for somewhere to stay the night. I found Rike Per Guesthouse in Bergsjö, it was really a bit more expensive than I wanted but I couldn’t really find any info on any options along the route to Sundsvall so I decided to stay.

The guesthouse was great, hotel standard, but with a guest kitchen so I could prepare some jummy tuna and noodles. Sleep came fast and hard.

Woke up late in the guesthouse, blue skies and almost 18 C. I left after raiding the breakfast buffet, looking forward to biking in the sunshine. I had decided to follow a route called “kustvägen”, with a nice map from the tourist office. The route was mostly sealed and flat, going through the silent woods, almost without any traffic. I decided to focus on sealed flat roads for the next weeks or so, gravel and hilly roads are too slow and strenuous right now.

I think I also followed the track called “cykelspåret” most of the day, I will reroute my trip to follow the “cykelspåret” more.

During the morning there was a storm front approaching from the south, since I was traveling east I saw it coming, but I managed to turn north and escape it. So the day was sunshine and almost blue skies all day, 16-20 degrees. I definitely liked this so much more than yesterday, it really wears you down when its cold, wet and dark.

The last 15 km or so was through the outskirts of Sundsvall, easy flat cycling, looking forward to having a whole day of rest tomorrow. The last km to the hostel was a really steep uphill, nothing to do but get off and push, push, push and push.

After unloading all the stuff at the hostel I went to the next door china/thai restaurant and when I ordered the food I mentioned that I was hungry, I got about 2 liters of food, almost hard to finish. Back at the hostel I got acquainted with Diezel the dog. Tomorrow is a full day of rest.

http://www.sodrabergetsvandrarhem.se/sv/om-oss/vi-alskar-djur.htm