First day on what is going to be a different bike ride this year.
For a start I don't have much time and secondly I have to plan everything around midsummer with Susie and work commitments with regards a trip to Italy to deliver software.
So the bike ride this year is in two parts, first I will cycle up to Tällberg in Dalarna for midsummer and then i will complete the section between Uddevalla and Oslo so that next year I can start cycling in Norway. It's going to be tough though because of the distances, time constraints and lastly lack of accommodation.
Only found out I was going to be go cycling now at the very last minute, literally, so packed up everything and headed out onto the road once Susie got back from her doctors visit.
The first part of the ride today was a repeat of last year as the route followed the same roads as my initial day of last years ride as far as Bålsta. The big difference this time was that I was using some different technology. First of all I had planned my trip using Google Maps and then exported it as a series of GPX points using http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ which is a free application that let me create a GPX file. This I then uploaded into a free app on my android http://osmand.net/. This gave me offline maps that I could use to navigate, a huge improvement over last years effort.
So this meant that I found my way through them jungle of the Stockholm suburbs and was able to navigate successfully to Sala without any problems whatsoever. So effective was the navigation that I was able to miss out all roads that had cars. Of course it wasn't all a bed of roses, at one point I popped out on a golf course much to amusement and the golfers confusion!!
Of course having missed out on all the cars it meant that I found myself winding my way through endless farms and forests, beautiful days cycling and an easy 127km to start the trip with. On top of that Sala was a nice little town with a cheap(ish) hotel used by workmen.
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