Day 8/19 (2023 Summer Biketrip)

Intro: in the summer of 2023 I did a 1.614 km (1.000 miles) long biketour in Denmark and a bit of Sweden. I wanted to ride on a couple of old railroad-tracks, now converted into bike trails.
It took me 19 days in the sadle and it was a great adventure !

Thursday 13th of July 2023

Today will be a short day, I “only” need to cycle approx. 60 km to reach the town of Felsted, where my friend Michael lives. Gonna be nice with a bath, bed etc. I got my gear packed up and I was all ready to leave at 8.00 am, when I  discovered that my rear wheel was completely flat. 🙁

For those of you who don’t know, I ride a gravel bike with some pretty good puncture free tires. A gravel bike looks like a racing bike, but is a little tougher and with slightly thicker tires so you can ride in the woods and on gravel, etc. It has no suspension. So I was very surprised to se the flat tire, since there were no problems with it yesterday. I can’t remember the last time I patched a bicycle tire, but it would not fix itself (I thought)… Fortunately I have patching tools with me. 

I got the rear bags off and, with some caution, the rear wheel off as well. With a little more difficulty I got the tire off the rim and carefully examined the tire inside and out to find the hole, but found nothing… Then I went through all of the hose by pumping a little bit of air in it and then look and feel for any leaks for the few seconds that there was still air pressure in the hose. This took some time, but then all of a sudden I discovered that the hose stopped losing air…

  …uh ok… But then I finally figured it out: I didn’t have a puncture at all, but rather a faulty valve. I have actually experienced something similar, once before when I had the bike in servicing a flat tire, where I was told that it was a fault with the valve.

I assembled the wheel and began, very suspiciously, to pump it up to the 50 psi (approx. 3.5 bar) I usally ride on. The pressure seemed to hold ok, so the wheel was fitted back on the bike, as were my bags. So after an hour of delay, I could finally begin today’s ride.

The whole day had some strange weather shifting from sun to sudden heavy downpours. I had opted out of bringing along my normal rainwear this year as it is a bit of a hassle to put on in a hurry – Instead I had invested around 10 kroner on a rain poncho (think disposable poncho, just a bit better and reusable). I had the poncho rolled up on my luggage carrier. This way I could very quickly put it on when I needed to so. It worked out very nicely for for me today, because there must have been more than 20 of those annoying heavy downpours.

I rolled out of Chistiandfeld and south of the N8 which I was also on yesterday. I came to Haderslev after approx. 10 km.

I encountered both cherries and wild strawberries on the route, so naturally I had to stop and feast on them – my consumption of berries, according to some of my friends, is not quite normal hehe.

I was surprised by a downpour when I has sitting at a cemetary having my lunch (there is allways free water and a toilet at cemetarys). My luch consisted of a tin of mackerel in tomato, nicely spread over three slices of rye bread. Nice and easy and does not require refrigeration. I put on the poncho and my problem disappeared. my bike and all my gear have no problem with the rain, in fact it often needs washing on such a trip.

I came down through Sønder Viltrup, a small spot I didn’t quite catch the name of, Løjt Kirkeby, and then came down to the beautifully situated Aabenraa, which has a lovely view of the water. I was also here last year when I cycled the Hærvejen (N3) and home along the West Coast Route (N1). Here you cycle right down by the sea.

I had to fight my way up a long hill south of the city to find myself in Felsted after a short time. Now I’m going to have a nice, much needed bath. I spend the night here for two days, and must figure out a alernate route to Ærø now that the ferry “Ellen” is not sailing at the moment because of those overheating batteries.

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