Has anyone done any bikepacking in Norway? Looking for information on possible routes and ideas for a trip, probably next year so very much just at the drawing board at the moment.
It looks like it has a landscape perfect for exploring off road by bike.
Not sure what’s accepted up there, do they have an equivalent of bridleways, paths that are rideable and marked on maps.
Are there any established long distance routes?

There's a section of the North Sea Cycle Route along the Norwegian Coast

Link to someone's blog about the route

The NSCR is more a traditional touring route rather than a bikepacking route.

have a good read of this http://www.turistforeningen.no/english/

its a beautiful country, but topographically is at two levels, sea level and on the top and the transition between the two is a steep one! Im not sure Id want to do too much touring off road by bike because of this, but hiking/bivvying, definitely!

bump for the daytime crowd.

Has anyone done any bikepacking in Norway? Looking for information on possible routes and ideas for a trip, probably next year so very much just at the drawing board at the moment.
It looks like it has a landscape perfect for exploring off road by bike.

Norway is a pretty good place to go cycling. There is a national network of cycle routes across the country all the way up to Nordkapp. A lot of these are on quieter roads, some sections are very busy however. Of the ones we have cycled so far all of them are cycleable with touring bikes (26 and 28" wheels). Drivers are generally courteous and the landscape offers plenty of challenges. Coastal routes are remarkably demanding, due to undulating terrain, more so than other routes where you encounter long three hour climbs. The main thing to watch out for is tunnels. There are many that are closed to cyclists. Often there is an alternative route for cyclists on the old road that the tunnel bypassed. Some of these like the one from Røldal up over towards Odda for instance has some lovely views.

However there are also some parts of these routes where you are cycling on dirt roads, the NSCR for instance has a couple of very testing gravel road sections. We also encountered a fair bit of gravel and dirt roads on National Cycle Route 3 and of course there is the Rallarvegen which is extremely rough in places and relatively demanding. However parts of this are full of day trippers and pensioners, mostly the bit from Haugestøl to Finse. Haugestøl to Flåm is a long day on a touring bike with baggage.

In addition to the national routes there are also many places that have good networks of shorter routes and routes design to challenge mountain bike riders. This is a popular weekend past time in the warmer months. North of Oslo there is an area in the forest criss-crossed with mountain bike trails some of which follow the old Pilgrims Route (to Trondheim). We used this to travel towards Hamar and found them hard going on fully laden tourers with wide MB tyres. Also in Gol, where I will be emigrating to shortly they have around 250-300km of cycle routes in the Golfjellet. Besides local tourist offices try SLF (Norwegian Cyclists Organisation)or Bike Norway for basic information. The SLF website is mostly in Norwegian, Bike Norway has some English language information.

I'd tell you more but I am a bit busy trying to finish a whole load of things off before we move. However if you are not in a hurry send me an email sometime later in the year if you have any specific questions.

One other good place to look is the are:CycleTourer website . They have a some good background information and links to other sites with Norway Travelogues (including mine). They also are involved in the 'unofficial' tunnel map of Norway. This is a very useful resource. Try also searching for travelogues about Norway on the Trentobike website.

Don't forget to take into account the climate. Temperatures can often exceed 30'c in summer but you can also experience +-5'c the next day especially if you are up high say on the Rallarvegen. The weather on the coast varies a lot more than inland. Considering how far North you are it is remarkable temperate.
HTH
Stan

[hijack]

Have you biked Hellesylt – Flofjellet – Stryn?

Any comments?

[/hijack]

Something via Bergen-Oslo train line might be good, can use the train to hop less interesting or less accessible sections east-to-west or west-to-east, maybe.

Found the route for the 6 day stage race, Trondheim to Oslo, looks good, doing it over 8-9 days instead of the 6 of the race should allow work out quite nicely.

http://ornweb.no/styrkeproven/traseer/Trondheim-Oslo/

I'm also interested in Norway, but mostly some shorter day / half day techy singletrack. We are over there this summer and I think will be stopping 4 nights Hemsedal area and 4 nights Gudvangen. I've heard Hemsedal offers quite a lot of singletrack (I've previously found it a problem to find singletrack as nice quiet uncrowded Scandinavia = lack of walking / biking traffic = undergrowth taking over).

A post on terrengsykkel might be useful, but there seem to be about 10 different forum areas and my Norwegian isn't up to choosing which one to post in 🙂

http://terrengsykkel.no

I have done the Trondheim to olso route, sort of. I took a massive de-tour to halsa (friend lives there) and then went to oppdal, took 12 days in total but was awesome.

Plus norwegian chicks are fine 😆

Dirtynap – Member

I have done the Trondheim to olso route, sort of. I took a massive de-tour to halsa (friend lives there) and then went to oppdal, took 12 days in total but was awesome.

Plus norwegian chicks are fine

I have noticed the fineness of Norwegian chicks, and the equally nerdiness of most Norwegian men, my hopes are high.