Bike Summit sum up

A few days in to reality i dream back to our awesome weekend in Björkliden.
Since i´m only been doing the vlogg. Here is a little sum up for the weekend. We´ve been riding up here for a couple of years now. Björkliden is located about 250 km north of the arctic circle and is a hiking and ski resort close to the Norwegian border. Cycling up here is not that common and they don´t promote it as the mountain bike paradise it is. When staying in Björkliden you are very close to the tree line and they got a great hotel and both simple huts and more luxury timer cabins. Since we were quite a gang this year we booked one of the later ones. 10 bed two floor timber cabin with sauna and Jacuzzi out on the deck.

We, thats Me, The Lars, Fredrik the photographer and Andreas the notorious fisherman arrived Thursday night after a five hour drive from Luleå by the coast of Bothina.

Before dinner some of us went down to the silver fall, a ten minute ride down to Torneträsk the big lake below Björkliden. Here a little stream falls down to the lake in a stunning waterfall.  We took five and had the weekends first beer. Good times.

During the evening more riders dropped in and we started to plan tomorrows ride down to Rombak fjord in Norway.

This is a 25 km downhill singletrack along the old support trail for the railroad.

Not that technical but the beauty of the landscape in Norway is pretty amazing. On this ride we go across all the zones of a big mountain. Naked rock plains, single track in low vegetation, steep hillsides along canyons and through beautiful forest before reaching the fjord. Loads of waterfalls, river crossings and fast down hill trails bending in hairpins.

Since we´re lacy and saving the legs for the climb to Låktatjåkka mountain station tomorrow we took a boat across the fjord and were picked up by Fredrik and my beautiful wife Jessica and went back by car.

Saturday, the weather had gone from not so good to worse. Heavy rain in the morning and fog up on the mountains and there is were we are going.  Låktatjåkka is thr highest located mountain station in Sweden 1240 meters above sea level. It´s a 10.5 kilometer ride but the vertical climb is 900 meters so that is quite a climb.  Need i say that the decent is pretty damn awesome. By the time we were ready to ride the rain had stopped and the fog had moved a bit up.

We began the challenging climb and after a few kilometers we hit the fog. Not so heavy that we could not go on but still a shame because we missed out on the big mountain scenery. How ever riding in fog can be pretty cool too.

Hiking a bike up hill is hard work but arriving at Låktatjåkka mountain station is well worth the climb. Just imagine push biking for three hours and all of a sudden being able to buy a cold IPA and having a waffle in the middle of nowhere.

There is also an option to stay the night and have a gourmet dinner. We stayed for two hours resting our legs and filling our energy depots before hitting the decent. One of the best i´ve ever ridden. 10 kilometers down hill through snow fields, technical drops and super fast single track.  When we were getting closer to the valley the fog started to fade and we could see the Torneträsk again.

Coming back to the cabin were the Jacuzzi was heated and the beer was cold made an awesome day even better.

Sunday were approaching and we were heading home. But first a ride to Rissajaure (Trollsjön). After packing up our gear and checking out from our luxury cabin  we went by car 20 kilometers up north. The trail to Rissajaure starts by the railway and head up a very technical trail through a canyon. Huge boulder from the side walls has fallen down and created a almost moon like landscape. This was my first ride to Rissajaure but surly not my last. Only about 5 kilometers but quite challenging. Not like yesterday but still pretty hard. I thought it would be impossible to ride down but it turned out the Fat bike is the right weapon of choice for adventures like this.

I was super happy to have my lovely wife Jessica with me on this trip. She is not a cyclist (yet) and we rarely get to go on trips like this together. But this weekend we managed to get my sister to watch the kids. Jessica was hanging out in the cabin with our friend Emma and they were out hiking while we went riding. But on the trip to Rissajaure she joined us and took some pretty lovely pictures. So here are some where i´m actually riding by fat bike and just not taking pictures of it.

The canyon at Rissajaure is stunning.
  Trollsjön is the lake in whole of Europe with the clearest water.

We’re starting the decent.

We were twelve riders during this weekend. Four of us were riding fat bikes. I must say that is the perfect bike for these conditions. Lots of climbing with boulders and rocks. My first year riding here i was riding my skinny bike, all mountain fs Specialized but i go faster both up and down on my Salsa Mukluk. How ever a suspension fork would have been great. When going fast down hill the fat bike might get a bit bouncy and the steep head angle makes for some scary moments when it´s steep. The ultimate bike would be the Salsa Bucksaw but i bet a Surly Wednesday would be pretty awesome.

Still, one of the fastest rider this weekend was Sven. He is on a first generation Pugsly so as always, it is not all about the bike. It´s all about who rides it. We sure will come back next year and hoping that we can offer package trips form riders all over the world. As the Swedish Lapland Bike Summit wants to grow to a international event.