Monthly Archives: June 2013

Vacation biking planning 90% done or there about..

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Right, so far the planning is going good, tickets for me to take the boat the 18th of July is booked, with a cabin and lunch on board, I think it came to something just under 700 SEK all inclusive

boat ride
my booking confirmation, just because I can post it!

What more’s left?
Well Hannu booked the rooms at omena hotel in Turku, still waiting to see if Ilkka is joining, but I’m staying optimistic!
I’we also started preparing my bike for touring, so two new bags attached, the front handlebar bag and a “carb loading bag” that sits between my top tube and the saddle.
Still gotta make sure I got the tools, spare parts and other stuff I need with me, but all in all it seems to be heading the right way!

Recap of the ride itself:


I’we made a new map of the trip and imported it to my new Garmin Edge 800 to.
Two day ride, probably Turku -> Tammisaari on Friday and Tammisaari –> Helsinki on Wednesday, not sure what stops we will have on the way, but more on that later on!

Another day with the kids out in Järva

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I think we went out something like 10:00 o’clock and we came home like 1500(?)

So first off, the map from our bike trip (24.2 km)

A nice mix of gravel road and forest paths again 🙂

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First water break, Viljami having a sip while Mathias is waiting “patiently”… this is somewhere in the woods close to Bögsgård

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Action pictures from the same area, First Viljami then Mathias passing by in a blazing pace!

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The kids on one of the bird watching places by Ravalen

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First fika at Bögs Gård, ice cream and soft drinks for the kids, same for me and a coffee, oh and we got a free sugar and cinnamon bun! awesome time!

From here we headed the gravel roads towards Naturskolan, and headed a detour up past  Fäboda gård before heading down to Översjön.

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A well earned break for the boys at Översjön, searching for fish in the lake, especially wondering if there would be any pike there 😀

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The last fika of the day, at Säby Gård, the vanilla buns are amazing!

After this we went down to Barkarby Handelsplats and bought some biking gloves for the kids and after we got home we ended up going back to Barkarby to get a new bike for Viljami (again), since having both kids here ends up in (apparently) lots of biking, the small one he’s been using (the racer/cyclocross is just to big for him to reach the breaks) is so small and the gearing wrong.

Anyway, he now has a redish orange Scott Voltage 24, looking something like this:

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Viljami with his new bike, which according to himself was “super fast” even on like gear 4! and then a better picture of the bike it self, and yes it came with the water bottle and bottle cage!

 

Exploring the hoods part 2

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It’s been two days or something since my last trip out alone with the cyclocross, but today I managed some more.


Started out from home and then went up the Hansta- and Järvaled

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From here it was a bumpy and wet route, tons of roots, mud holes and mosquito infested areas, and with all the new found paths I seemed to never really get anywhere!

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One of the muddy mosquito places!

Anyway, fun day and all, looking forward to find more places to bike, also I now want a suspension bike even more then before!

Taking the boys out on a ride

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Well, since the boys aren’t allowed on the computers (including xbox) before 12:00 I get to take them out on bike rides!
Today was Järva with kids (or as I like to call it ~1 hour of whining)


The route we took, from home past the motorcross place, over the forest to naturskolan, then up to säbysjön, översjön and down by IKEA and home

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Viljami racing ahead, Mathias coming after, this was basically where we started 🙂

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Mathias going “no hands” and Viljami taking the opportunity to race past him..

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The boys leading the bikes up the hill before our first and only “real” forest track, around 2.5 km in to the ride on the map (this was the most fun part, downhill, a little turns and stuff.

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A quick break, for photos and resting, but mostly photos, we didn’t stop for more then 5 min, the ants got annoying after that.

From here it was gravel roads home, lets see how tired the kids will be tonight!

(I went for another 30 km ride to meet my Wife in central Stockholm after this)

Summer vaccation, cross tires on again!

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Last night I swapped my touring tires for a pair of Conti CX Race tires and today it was time to go out and explore some forest paths in Järva!


I’ll start by adding a map, I went from home and up by the arch saying Hansta skogen/naturreservat or something and followed the paths around there (orange triangle I think)

Well I got my first “stop”
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Some random tree in the roads, no biggie, just jump of and keep going on the other side! and me somewhere close to Bögs gård I think
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Had to go over a field with some cows, thankfully they where a little to the side, on the right side is me at one of my “dead” ends.

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Somewhere around 18 km’s I got to what looked like a prepared skiing place, nice packed gravel and lots of hills up and down, eventually got off it and ended in the forest again, with more fallen trees!

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Finally the last little hill before I was home!

All in all a fun day, I found lots of single tracks, some wide forest paths, alot of dirt roads, some horse roads and the skiing thing, not bad, but I consider it a lesson learned, I know why people enjoy the dampeners on bikes, it got bumpy!

 

 

Bike still on service, Garmin in the house.

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I ordered my Garmin Edge 800 bundle last week and it came yesterday, nifty little thing by the look of it, but I haven’t been able to test it yet due to my bike being in for a little service.

So about that, service thing, I’we had the bike for two months or so now, and I noticed the wheels being untrue, some squeaky noises from the hub areas back and forth and my derailleurs are a little off, time for service.

The closest place to me is Sportson, so I went there to have them give it a full service (roughly 700 SEK).
The service should include fixing my untrue wheels, checking all the bearings, adjusting brakes and gears.
That’s what it says on the homepage of Sportson atleast..
sportson
http://sportson.se/newsite/?sectionid=butiker&contentid=verkstad&catid=stockholmbarkarby

Well, that seems to be untrue, just like my wheel (if I should believe the sales person at least).
Turns out that the part about truing the wheel in this service is a “simple tightening of spokes” and I would have to pay another 250-500 SEK to fix both wheels if they need a proper truing, I’m not sure how to deal with it, but I’ll at least question them about it when I go to pick up the bike, and probably do a proper walk trough with the mechanic to see what they’we done during the service.

Anyhow, here is some pictures of my gps (and the rather large box it came in (the box the box with the gps was in..

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Child’s hand and baby for scale!

June halfway-ish report and a “blast from the past”

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It’s been two weeks of June biking, and some tired legs, a cold and probably some other excuses I cant think of now aside, the amount of kilometers I’we managed has been at a low.
318.6 km in two weeks to be exact, that’s just a little more then I did in one week during may.

That aside, today I took a different route to work, through Kista and then over to Haga, and Vallhallavägen towards work.

Also, I kinda ordered a bike gps, the Garmin Edge 800 CAD/HR bundle, on sale at elgiganten!

Burley Encore kid carrier

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Sales, sales, sales…
We where just going to get the “cheaper” Burley Honeybee but ended up with the 500 crown more expensive Encore.

Well today was the first day of quick testing, Siiri being the test subject:

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Success, at least when you look at the happy face, but I gotta say it felt easy to pull around, even with my tired legs from yesterday.
The only downside, it doesn’t really fit on my bike, I need to get a adapter for the quick release on the back wheel, right now it’s just washers and it’s not “safe”.

 

Saturday biking with Leffe

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What a day!
Started out from home around 11:45 and went to Barkarby to meet Leffe, from there we rode to Kungsängen, Bro, Sigtuna, Märsta, Sollentuna(Hägvik) and back to Barkarby.

It’s been sunshine, warm and not to windy, perfect biking weather 🙂
Had a pause in Sigtuna for some refueling (burgers and fries) and a coffee break once we where back in Barkarby.

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Two selfies of me riding in the warm weather

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My shadow to the left, Leffe to the right


Here is a Google map for the ride, decent distance for our first long trip of the year (our first   long trip at all really, the last one was a bit over 40 km)

More information from the trip can be found on my runkeeper page: http://runkeeper.com/user/ombirons/activity/191909499

Now lets see how our legs will feel come Monday and regular commuting again 😀