I did the following at the end of last June (15) with a similar Gothenburg to Bergen route to yours:
Norway (Oslo to Trondheim) was the highlight easily due to the dramatic landscape and also the hardest cycling for the same reason. Random bits of information that may or may not be useful to you:
- Yes Norway is expensive but as ever there is always a way to keep it manageable. I only wild camped once in Norway and still spent little on this trip as a whole. I found most campsites pretty cheap (as low as £4-5 but more commonly £10-15) and I had cooking equipment so usually just cooked pasta/tuna/pesto in the evening and whatever reasonably priced cold food I could find for breakfast and lunch. I bought food in supermarkets 99% of the time. Some people might argue you miss out on the local cuisine etc but if it's that or not go it's still well worth going in my opinion. I have a bad sweet tooth so felt their policy of taxing sweets etc worked well as I didn't touch the stuff after seeing the prices. That is until a Canadian cyclist I met told me she buys cooking chocolate from the bakery section of supermarkets as a work around
.
- Small portions of the open cycle map routes I did not find enjoyable because of fast roads and little verge and sometimes I managed to find dirt tracks through the forest that ran parallel and were much nicer. Some of these dirt tracks seemed to be private and often had toll information at the start of them although no obvious method or place to pay (or even anyone at all on these tracks). The exception was a dirt track through a national park out of Dovre where there was a manned toll booth at the high point of the track but when I got off my bike to approach the guy in there I was met with a smile and "'bicycle free". If some of these tracks are private it would possibly explain random gaps in the national cycle routes such as this one (
http://www.opencyclemap.org/?zoom=11&la ... yers=B0000).
- Unless you can find dirt roads the routes you can see on Open cycle Map in Norway are sometimes the only option because of large/fast tunnel/roads that are illegal for cyclists to use on the other roads.
- I managed to wild camp only once inside Norway itself (it was easier in Sweden) which was before I truly got into the mountains and fjord areas. Around the fjords it seems the only flat spaces are man-made flat areas such as a road or the garden of a house - neither of which may be ideal for camping! It
may have helped slightly if I had a free standing tent as you might be able to find a flat rock to sleep on(!) but as I mentioned I could find reasonably priced campsites which would often have kitchen, showers and fellow (cycle) tourists to chat to. They would also mean I had access to drinking water. Whenever I wild camped I had to buy a load of bottles which could cost more than a campsite if I bought a lot at a tiny convenience store somewhere...
- The Rallarvegen was closed last year due do it being still snowed under (start of July 15). I attempted it anyway and went as far as possible, pushing my bike through snow in the end before I had to bite the bullet and take the train at Finse until Myrdal.
- On my route above you can see that gap in the purple line just east of Bergen where I also had the take the train (Arna - Dale) due to tunnels not legal for cyclists. This may also be the case on your route. Open Cycle Map route 4 goes up to a random little tourist steam train station at Garnes for which I never figured out timetable or whether they take bikes etc so went back to the mainline at Arna. There are only a set amount of bike spaces on these Bergen - Oslo trains. I never had a problem with space but once took the last space and saw people trying to buy tickets with bikes after me being told they'll have to wait until the next train so guess I got lucky.
- Even though it barely gets dark in the summer lights are essential for the tunnels.
- Although not unpleasant in anyway I didn't find Swedish part of the route particularity inspiring compared to the Norwegian part although it was obviously easier to ride.
- One afternoon in Sweden I cycled with and wild camped with a cycle tourist from Switzerland who had wild camped every night for three months on his trip from Switzerland and just spent a small amount of money stocking up on food from supermarkets when he needed to so goes to show it can be done on the extreme cheap if that is your thing.
- On the route above I never felt I was anywhere remote enough to be worrying about finding help if something went badly wrong. Although many roads are nice quiet cycling roads you are never far from at least a house/farm/tourist or a passing vehicle if you wait around. Also my phone signal seemed better than at home in the UK.
- As for flying home with bike it was all pretty cheap and pain free with Norwegian from Trondheim back to Gatwick. I paid about 20 quid for me and 30 for the bike. A local bike shop got a box for me for free which was good of them because they didn't have one immediately so gave me a call when they did. (I personally wouldn't be comfortable using a bag but plenty of others do). The only annoying thing I remember was having the throw my new (for that trip) MSR stove away at the airport because it has been used and wouldn't have even been allowed in the checked luggage (the used fuel bottle was absolutely no problem and I still have that).
Overall I really enjoyed the trip and Norway was easily the most memorable part
I think your trip looks great and I like the idea of taking a cargo vessel out there. I found the England part of my trip one of the most enjoyable parts outside of Norway. Ideally I wanted to take a ferry back to UK but with the difficulty of it and time constraints opted for the plane instead. Some may advise training but I personally never train for cycle touring and just count the first few days of it as 'training' : )
