Tell us about your weekend ride

I rode Vatterrunden in Sweden at the weekend. Been talking about it with a friend who lives in Stockholm for a couple of years, we are both keen cyclists, but rarely get a chance to ride together, it was my first time and would be his third..

We had a start time of 1:18am. After a heavy night at a gig in Stockholm the night before, I woke up tired and hungover on Friday morning, wondering why I had done this to myself, before what would probably be a fast 300k that night.

We got up early, packed the car, had some breakfast and headed off for the 3 hour drive to Motala, looking for somewhere to park for the weekend. After registering and eating all the pasta in the world, we tried to get some sleep in the car before starting, neither of us could sleep so we went into the town to watch other riders set off.

Rain had been forecast all week, but all day it had held off. We literally clipped in to follow the motorbike out of town and the rain started, it would continue for the next 220k, and as we found out later was actually a class 1 storm. When we planned the ride I was imagining a sunny ride in a beautiful setting, what followed was the worst weather I have encountered on a ride this year, and I have rode in all weathers in the UK this Year!

After 20k my shifter stopped doing anything, and I couldn't change any gears on the back, I was stuck with 52-12 or 36-12. We were sitting in a quick group, so I decided to keep going and take a look when we stopped at the first
control. We got there, had some food and I decided to get a mechanic to look at my bike, as I didn't have the right size tool to open up the shifter. After some confusion as they clearly had not seen sram hydraulics before, and also didn't want to let me show them, I got them to open up the shifter and found that the cable clip had snapped so there was no repair happening. I put everything back together, pushed the limit screw to make sure it stayed in the same place and decided to crack on with it and just grind up any lumpy bits, it was Sweden and I felt confident it would be fine.

By this point we were soaking wet and the stop had eaten into our time and moral, we pushed on in the driving rain, looking forward to the morning and daylight. I gave all my spare clothes to my mate who was literally shaking from the cold.

After sitting with a club for a good while, with me grinding out too big a gear gear on the flats and the lumps, they stopped at a control and we decided to keep moving. Daylight came and the rain continued we got to a control at about 180k and had the best lasagne I have ever tasted for breakfast, though at this stage anything warm would have been the best thing I had ever tasted.

From 180k we only stopped twice to fill our bottles, and apart from that bounced through, as after the weather and my mechanical it became less about enjoying the ride and more about just getting it done.

By about 220k the rain stopped, but my knees were starting to feel the effects of pushing too big a gear for hours, it was getting frustrating as I needed to push too hard to keep up with the quick groups and after a while would need to back off, particularly as when it came to any sort of climb I was having to drop everyone and smash up it to keep the momentum going and then, not having a different gear to recover in was hard, I'm pretty sure everyone thought I was mental never using any other gears on lumpy bits.

It was now getting a bit hairy, with club riders riding to fast and beyond their talen, causing some pretty bad accidents, there was some shocking riding on display especially given the conditions. One in particular passed us really close with the last person almost nudging my front wheel pulling across thefront of me, then further up the road they smashed straight into the back of a slower group, it was carnage, and probably ride ending for some of the people they hit, absolutely stupid behaviour from people who should no better.

We started riding alone and defensively after seeing 3 more bad crashes, our pace picked up for the final 50k and we finished at 13:50 missing our target of 12 hours, but given the circumstances we were both massively happy with the time, I think my mate found my mechanical more stressful than I did, I knew I could get round, I don't think he was so sure.

It was a challenging ride given the weather and mechanical, but enjoyable as it was time spent on the bikes with a good friend. The route itself was actually a bit boring with not a great deal to see, it wouldn't be a ride I would repeat but I'm glad I have done it once as it was a different experience to riding Audax in the UK.

TLDR I rode my bike in Sweden here is the Strava. https://www.strava.com/activities/613858129

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