The paved part of the former railway ended exactly at our sleeping place in Sjövik. Afterwards, the cycle route would turn north to find its way back into the valley of the Göta älv river towards Trollhättan. This national cycle route was now following a very busy road. We did not know this in advance, as we had simply assumed a national cycle route would follow child-friendly bike paths, but we had not checked it outselves. Somewhat luckily, one family had left us this morning, and now only one toddler on a child’s seat and one child with their own bike that can be attached to the parent’s bike were travelling with us, so cycling in traffic was acceptable again.
I must revoke my claim from a previous blog posts that Swedish drivers are non-confrontational. In Sweden, the car drivers themselves decide what a “safe” distance for overtaking cyclists is. They do so based on what feels safe to them inside their motorized metal cage, and anything that is not a danger to the paint of their car feel safe enough. While the aggression towards cyclists is not communicated in such a violent way as for example in Germany or the Netherlands, drivers will still roll down their windows to tell you with a calm voice that you should go fuck yourself, and honk at you just a little bit, and overtake you silently with only a few centimetres distance, if they feel like you are using too much of “their” part of the road.
The hills were not as bad as on some previous days with very small roads, but it was still hilly, so in the end we did not increase the distances too much after all compared to the previous days. A little bit of chaos happened on the road, as it sometimes happens on the Biketour. Some people had gone ahead to look for a suitable campsite next to a lake, but couldn’t find anything. Another person found a suitable site, but when they came back to tell everyone, the group had already decided to stay in the garden of a café that offered us to stay there for free.
The café was actually quite a large real estate on the countryside with several buildings, some bungalows and a big meadow with perfectly cut grass and a lot of young birches. It seems like it even hosts festivals sometimes. We pitched our tents under the birches. The owner was incredibly hospitable, and we could fill our water there, use the toilet, charge our devices and even misuse an old barbecue grill to make a campfire for cooking.
Our original plan had been to follow the national cycle route along the river Göta älv to Trollhättan, but after the experience of the previous day we decided to take a detour back into the hills to have a rest day in a less populated area. We found a beautiful place on a small peninsula at lake Bodasjön.
It would be the end of the Childish Weeks here. After a rest day, the group would pass through Trollhättan (unfortunately this time missing the waterfall unlike 11 years ago) towards Vänerborg and spend a night on the shores of lake Vänern, the largest lake in Europe outside of Russia. By then, all the children would have left the tour and the group would go back to its usual daily distances.
The dry waterfall of Trollhättan
But don’t worry! More blog posts about the Childish Weeks will follow, and it seems very likely that we will organize Childish Weeks or something similar again next year!
