The Ski Journal • Volume 13, Issue 3 • TWO-WHEELED APPROACH

I’m standing frozen in the middle of an icy Heggmovatn lake, a few miles outside Bodø, Norway with a fully loaded bicycle between my legs. I turn up the music in my headphones, let my legs go like a whisper, and focus on riding straight ahead without any sudden movements. An eagle pulls my focus away from the ice. I lose balance and the bike disappears under me. The dark abyss below, a frozen bay, is broken up by countless intersecting white cracks that form a giant patchwork. I hear the crackle in the ice. Survival instinct sets in. Everything happens automatically, and suddenly I’m back on the bike. With my heart in my throat I roll on. After a nerve-wracking mile, my tires hit solid ground. I’ve been planning this trip for two years. I’ll access the mountains by bike, regardless of ice, lack of snow, freezing temperatures.

Like most other skiers, I have always traveled, both around Norway and in foreign lands. Nearly 10 years ago, I saw the snowboard movie Bikecar: a documentary, and ever since I’ve thought of doing something similar. It doesn’t take huge budgets to embark on a great adventure, just energy and willpower. Then, in October of 2016, my car needed expensive repairs. The old Ford was dead.

I started searching for people who have gone ski touring via bike and found nothing but spring trips—I wanted to find good snow, to do it during winter. The Ford’s departure meant it was as good a time as any to put the dream into play. All of northern Norway was the goal.

Every form of skiing involves some kind of race: bash as many gates as possible while the hill is hard. Get the first track up. First track down. First decent. First man down. Be the best. For the first time in almost 10 years I was without a car, unsure as to how I could manage to participate in the winter rat race. My bike missions became like an extended ski tour, beginning as soon as I hopped onto the saddle in December. What will I discover today? Can I find good snow? Each day provided a newfound sense of discovery.

With a powerful tailwind I blast down the road. I push and pull the bike over a grassy field before I reach a tent site on a small promontory in the Sløverfjord. The tent pops up like a toad and I crawl into the sleeping bag. Tomorrow, I’ll ski.

Since that first trip, I’ve been on 50-plus bike-and-ski missions. Some last a week, some just a day. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve found that it works when I keep an intensity in which I don’t sweat too much, so travel is usually moderately fast, but I can cover a fair distance in a day on a steel touring bike. Most of the time I ride alone on the shoulder of a frozen road, feeling like John Henry fighting the steam engine, my thighs against the motorized vehicles.

Yet during the winters I have, a handful of times, resorted to motorized transport. The times I’ve gone by car have been the times I’ve skied with friends. They’ve also provided some of the deepest snow, like when we went to a spot that has Norway’s cheapest day pass, one chairlift that takes you up to exactly zero groomed slopes, and few guests. It pays to cheat, but most of the time I ride my bike to the mountains.

According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman, there is a difference between what we experience here and now (the experiencing self) and how we subsequently remember the same experiences (the remembering self). When we think back on an experience, we tend to mostly remember the highlight, whether that be positive or negative, and the end. The temporal aspect of memory does not match the actual perceived duration.

When I go on a bike-and-ski trip, I know I’m going to spend many hours outdoors. It’s just something I do. After a very long journey, I’ll stand atop a mountain, ready for the descent. If the descent is outstanding, the struggle to reach the top of the line will soon be forgotten. But if the descent isn’t that great, the journey will remain salient. So long as the skiing is good, the whole trip stands out as a great experience. Thus, I load the bike with skis, ski boots and backpack time and time again, and set out to find a new kind of adventure on two wheels and two skis.

Photo Caption: An overnight dusting—sometimes dreams become reality and on my first weeklong ski-and bike-ride, this was one of those occasions. I pitched my tent on a snow-covered field close to a mountain called Jægervasstindan, in Norway’s Lyngen archipelago, far above the Arctic Circle.

The Ski Journal - Volume 13, Issue 3

TWO-WHEELED APPROACH

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