Day 3

The trail of food continues

I am proud to announce that I have managed, for the 3rd time in a row, to spill over my food while cooking. If this tradition catches on, I’ll leave a trail of canned food all over Scandinavia.

On to more important news: according to some almost invisible sign today shortly after resuming cycling, I am now officially in Lappland.

My back wheel took this as a sign to increase its level of noise, drawing more attention to it. This led me to the decision to have it checked out in the next town.
Easier said than done…
Sports Shop A: “yeah, we don’t really do bikes, but go back the way you came, you’ll find a tractor & atv shop which does bikes”
Atv shop: Doesn’t speak English. Luckily I paid attention in my Norwegian classes (a little) and Norwegian is close to swedish so I managed to say something like “I have a bike problem”. He probably figured that out before I opened my mouth, since I basically look like a hobo in lycra and neon colors, but I still felt proud to use my language skills… I then showed him my bike, demonstrated the orchestra of noises and looked at him expectantly.
He said lots of stuff I didn’t quite understand, checked out my bike and called his colleague. They started talking to each other, and I really had to try not to laugh, because they actually did that weird thing where they suck in air in a noisy way to show affirmation. There is a great video on YouTube, just check for Swedish people saying yes.
Anyways he basically made clear that it’s the bearing that’s fucked and that I have to go to another shop, 45km away.

Luckily this was in my route anyway, so I hopped on and ignored the sound.
There is little to say about the time in between towns. Trees trees trees…

2 hours later I arrived in the next nest in the middle of nowhere. They did have a tourist office though, which was able to explain to me where to go. Apparently someone already had looked for that shop today in the tourist office, so I was hoping for something sophisticated.

Turns out it was just some dude repairing stuff in his garage. Still, I started explaining my problem again. He then came to the same conclusion, broken bearings. Which is nice, since I just had the whole thing checked out less than 5 days ago…
Anyways, we go into his realm and he starts dismantling the whole wheel. He then shows me the balls, which now are covered in rusty grease and have dents or flat spots. Somehow he communicates that I probably need a new hub, which he doesn’t have. I look at him with very sad eyes, which prompts him to put new balls into the bearings and telling me to ride to the next city. If I am lucky the new balls are all I need for the foreseeable future, if not I need a new hub.

Those new balls seemed to do the trick though. By the time I arrived in i-forgot-the-name everything was closed. But I haven’t heard any noises from the wheel, so I carried on into the outback again.

All in all it was a successful day. Thanks to the wind at my back I still managed the 200km in spite of the delay. The weather is quite nice and I am actually glad that it’s only around 8 degrees at night, since those pesky mosquitos are starting to show up everywhere I stop. For now, I can still hide in warm clothes, we’ll see how it goes once the temperature goes up.

Next Post: Day 4: Vill du kjøper bingolotto?