Road ride visit.

My brother and his girlfriend was visiting my mother in Grängesberg. They were going to leave for Stockholm today (Tuesday) so yesterday (Monday) I decided to go and say hallo before they left.

Since the weather was nice I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to go visit using the bike.

Passed the Ludvika forsen that has been dry after the snow melting until now, there was a LOT of rain this weekend.


Only one dam hatch open.


Nice view over lake Väsman.


Some activity behing ABB, VB-energi is making a sea cable, apparently I missed the divers...


District heating central in the horizon.


A few rolls of fat cable. And a barge to deploy it.


On my way past Blötberget. (Wet mountain :))


The mandatory shot in the new tunnel.


Passing the swamp.


Made a short detour in Grängesberg, passing the bandy rink, yes, that's snow. :(


Finally here! The bike lane is slowly ascending all the way to Grängesberg, the ride took 1h, with a short chat with a colleague on the way. :)


Got some food and for that I had to help carry out a old freezer to the garage, well worth it! =)

A few hours later it was time to say good buy and get home again.

This time it was descending!


Making good speed.


Back in Blötberget. Old railroad station...


Had to make a short brake to catch this scene.


Full speed ahead!


Some faint halo effect from the sun.


Behind ABB again.


More halo over Väsman. Can you spot the sailboat?


Zoomed in.


That was it. The ride home took 35 minutes, avarage speed was 10km/h higher! :)

GPS-plot. Going to Grängesberg:


Back home:


My legs is totally depleted from power today, will go to bed early!

Schwalbe Wicked Will MTB Tire Review | Mountain Bike Blog || SINGLETRACKS.COM

Schwalbe Wicked Will MTB Tire Review | Mountain Bike Blog || SINGLETRACKS.COM

Theese tires sure will be considered next time it's time for new DH-tires.



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Flatspot and fitness

One week in Åre takes it's toll, both on biker and bike! Managed to get a sweet flatspot on my rear wheel, the Alexrim FR32 rims is made of cheese! :)

Removed the rim strip and cleaned the rim, the "cracks" against the tire had let through a lot of moist and dirt into the wheel. Squeezed the rim in a vice and managed to press the edges back some bit, enough to be used on my Giant Reign.

Put the Mavic-rims on the Froggy and hopefully they will keep together some while more, they have worked well on the Reign several years now so the outlook is good.

Exchanged the disc brake discs on the wheel too and put the Alexrims on the Reign together with the Continental Rubber Queen tires, they are VERY high, both in volume and size. Higher than Schwalbes Big Betty tires.

A bit too tight in the rear but they run free so I will let them stay on the bike a while.

The rims should at least withstand some aggressive cross country biking. =)

Sunday = Sunride?

Woke up late today, ate breakfast and after looking out the window the weather was a bit less good than yesterday but there was some sunshine coming through the clouds now and then and the temperature was around 10 degrees Celsius.

Decided to finally get rid of the studded tires on the full suspension bike, let the air out of the front wheel and replaced the studded tire with a regular one, pumped in more air than usually to really expand the tire and tube so the tires got in place for sure.

After that I continued with the rear tire, was watching the Formula one qualifying at the same time and suddenly heard a strange noise, turned out to be the cell phone, had got a message from Tobbe wondering if I was interested in checking out the trail he had scouted out earlier.

Sounded like a great idea and we agreed on a time to meet, I only had to change the rear tire and get dressed for biking. Finnished with the rear tire and were about to turn the bike around when I noticed the previously max inflated front tire was totally flat! What the F*CK!

Oh well, I just had to replace the tube with a new one, knew I had one in the camelbak, pulled it out and started to inflate that tube, hadn't pumped in much air before I head a familiar sound of a leaking tube! Doh! Now I had to tubes with holes! Nothing else to do than call Tobbe and tell him that I would be a bit late and start fixing the holes.
I hope they will hold together until the shipment arrives, at least the one I finally put in seems to hold air!

Well, finally we got started but by now the sun was totally covered by dark clouds. Oh well..
Ahhh!! Such a good feeling swooshing around on the bike with almost silent tires again! I was even possible to keep a conversation while biking. =)
After some climbing we made it to the trail, turned out to be a lot of bike pushing in the snow but the trail sure looks promising when the snow finally melts away!
Right now there is a bit much snow...
And if the snow wasn't enough to keep us walking there was some trees over the trail here and there. Tobbe did some clearing up!
And some more clearing up!
And a bit more clearing up! :)
Then we actually made a few meters on the bikes and Tobbe found a skull of some animal, if you can identify it please leave a comment!
Some bike washing on the roll.
There was some mighty icicles in a old mining shaft, there's ice in there way in to the summer.
At some occasions there actually was some sunshine, believe it or not! =)
But mostly there was a thick layer of clouds.
And when almost back home again Batman drove by!
Think the "ride" took around three hours in total, it was not long but with all the snow, photo shooting and removal of obstacles the time flew by! Next time the ride will hopefully flow a bit better! =)

Dog weather.

There's is a saying in Sweden (and Finland) called dog weather( hundväder), think the English counterpart is called "nice weather for ducks", it's real bad weather, wind, rain, low temperature and so on. It really seems to appeal the dogs, well some dogs at least. :)

Tonight was such weather, it was snowing, wet snow, wind was blowing och it was cold outside. I had my evening saved by laundry day but there was some time to do other stuff between the washes.

Decided to take revenge on the bad shape I was in yesterday and took my bike for a short ride.
Took the same way up the hill as I did on Sunday but this time I went straight down in the opposite direction after I came up to the forest road. Remember this was after work and the sun had set already but the snow did help to scatter the darkness.

After descending half way down the snowmobile track I heard engine noise and saw some light, after a while three snowmobiles full of kids passed by me, seemed to be out on a evening pick nick with their parents. :)

The light were no good for my night vision, tried to take a picture of my bike when I got further down.
Can you see the bike?! :)

Got a bit closer and used the LED-flash on the cellphone camera.
A bit better.

Did my best to avoid the roads but had to pass some residential areas.

Well, got home eventually and it turned out that there was still some time left before the washing machine was ready so I decided to make a bonus round. Now my glasses started to fog up badly!

Managed to take a final shot before I headed home for the second time. =)

Soaked clothes from the wet snow but my mood for sure was better than before the ride, perhaps I'm a dog?! ;)

More moving pictures...

Getting up to speed editing videos, here's another video, this time from 23:rd of January. A short ride up the hill and the down. Much of the snow had disappeared but there were still some snow and ice left on the ground higher up on the hill.



Because of all the ice I opted for studded tires and took my Giant Reign with the Schwalbe Ice Spiker tires. After the long and boring climb it was time to lower the saddle and roll down the hill on the icy trails! :)