Last friday we loaded the bike for a road trip down to Skellefteå.
Stefan or “Stojje” the founder of Northen-safaris.se had arranged a unofficial bike rally. The idea is to run a few heats on different trails, ad the time of your runs to win. It´s mostly all about to hang out, run trails, talk mtb and just have a blast. It was about 25 cyclists on the start list. And we were three from Luleå. One of us dropped of so me and “FatBike-Sven” drove from Luleå to pick up *micke* the geek on the way through Piteå. Three musketeers going south towards greatness.
This would prove itself to be a very nice trip. But luck wasn´t on my side. Actually it started two days earlier when i helped my friend “The Doc” to change the fork on his Canyon Rock Zone. After the upgrade we went for a little ride on the local hill. Just a few climbs followed by some sweet decents. On a gnarly trail, that i ride every week i went heavy O.T.B ( over the bars) and most certainly cracked a rib. This was thursday and the race was saturday. So i got one day of rest. And on saturday morning it did not feel that bad.
Second fail was when we got to Piteå to pic up Micke. Thats half way on our road trip. About 60 km south of Luleå. When i got out of the car to help Micke to load his Stumpy on the car roof i realized that i had my slippers on!?
BUMMER! But luckily i could borrow a pair of five tens, just a half size to big.
One hour later we arrived in Skellefteå. It was great to se all the categories of cyclist represented on the competition. XC-racers, baggy all mountain riders, even a down hill rider and two fat bikes. The second Fat bike besides Svens. Was a local guy with a On-one Fatty. It was cool to see the Fatty in IRL. I sure is an price worth rig at €1200:- and it looks rad to. 
The first heat was an gnarly xc-orienteted flat trail. It was hard for the poor guy on a Santa Cruz V-10. I managed to take the 10th place of 24 with my rib pain. That was much better than i could have imagined. So i was trying to climb a few steps on the result list on the second run that was more down hill/single track oriented. About half way down the trail i got a flat tire. =( This made me drop mayor position but so what. I´m here for the fun. The last heat was a bit technical and fast. I managed to end in 9th place in the heat and that made an over all at 13th place. Pretty good regarding the circumstances.
Over all it was a great arrangement. I really thing this is the future for Mountain Biking. Enduro races and rallys is becoming more common. I thing it represents what its all about. Get out, ride, have fun with your mates. No stress no pressure just ripping trails.
I had the gopro with me and shot all the heats. I do have a problem with the chest mount. So we´ll see if there will be a shorty from the day. 😉
Here are a few pics…
Bike life in Swedish Lapland 