 Oh boy, are we live? Is this happening? Is this real life? Are my people here? Happy Sunday morning from Boulder, Colorado. I know it's probably not Sunday morning for some of you because you're in Europe or Australia or South Africa. If you're here from around the world, in the comments where you're from, I always love hearing that. Also, I'm wearing my Fueled by Free Holes t-shirt, obviously, coolest shirt around. If you wanna buy one, we're selling them through the priority website. I'll put a link here for the t-shirt, right? Now, boom, there, it's in the chat now. Yeah, this shirt, made in USA, 100% organic cotton, non-toxic inks. It's the most environmentally friendly t-shirt you can buy and we're giving away all the money to a non-profit called the Dream Team and they get kids on bikes in Iowa and specifically Ragh-Bri. Good morning, everybody. Looks like we've got Maryland, Saddle and Bars, Tony de Jesus is in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Wow, that's pretty cool. We've got Connecticut, Steve. We've got Bike Touring Mike from Sweden, Hey, Yosferia! So, as you all know, the title of this video is I'm Going to Sweden and I'm Going on Tuesday. Today is Sunday. I'm going in two days. I'm gonna land on the longest day of the year. We've got Gloria from Washington, D.C. How you doing? We've got Chris here from the west coast of Sweden right on. How many Swedes do we have out there? Looks like we have somebody from Denmark, Mark Gray. He's on holiday in Denmark. We've got the Misfits from North Carolina, North Kakalaki, Caleb Wilson from Lafayette, Colorado right down the road. I don't know if you noticed, but I put some lighting on myself today. Do I look better? And I'm using like a real camera, not my webcam built into my monitor. So hopefully it looks a little bit better. We've got Luxembourg here. Wow, Jennifer, that's so cool. That's a tiny country. We've got Adriana from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Man, we've got some South Africans, Rion. Maybe you say it kind of like my name, R-I-A-A-N, Rion. Right on, we've got somebody from Greece, S-M. Caleb says the picture is crispy. Oh yeah, that's the goal. Nice, we've got Ethan from Brooklyn. Brooklyn's one of my favorite places. So anyway, I'm so glad that you're all here. I'm sure more and more of you will join as we go on. I really appreciate you being here on your Sunday morning. It's Father's Day in the United States. I don't know if it's Father's Day all around the world, but it is here. So give your dad some love, some hugs, some high fives from me and from you. Looks like we have Eric from Gothenburg, Sweden. Peter, Sweden sounds great. Looking forward to the video. So yes, maybe I'll start talking about exactly what I am doing. Check this out. Here, I'm gonna show you my route right here. You see that? That is my route for Sweden. Pretty sweet, huh? I will start all the way up here at point A in a town called Kivuna, and I will go all the way down to the very bottom of Sweden where I lived as an exchange student back in 1998. And I've been wanting to do this adventure for a long, long time. Even when I lived in Sweden as an exchange student, I always wanted to go up north and experience the midnight sun, but I just never made it up there. I was in high school. I was busy. I lived with the host family. I couldn't just take off on my own. So I never went way up there. And then a lot of you remember last summer, I was supposed to go to Sweden in 24 hours before I was supposed to get on my flight, scan it even airlines, went on strike, and my itinerary was canceled and I didn't go to Sweden and it was a bummer. So here we are one whole year later, finally making it happen. And I'm so excited. I'm gonna look in at some more of these comments here before I continue. We've got Ed from Palm Harbor, Florida. Let's see, we've got Michael in Holland, also Father's Day, he says. He probably pronounces his name Mikkel. Let's see, I will someday go to Amsterdam. For sure, Laura from Maine. We've got Renee Acevedo. What's going on, amigo? Looks like Alex is in Sweden. So many Swedes. We've got Kel from Guam. Good to see you, buddy. Well, actually I can't see you, but you can see me. Kel, Kel from Guam came out to one of my book events in the San Francisco area. And it was really fun to meet him. He came all the way from Guam, which is very far from pretty much anything on the planet. We've got Peppermann from Germany. How's it going? Somebody's telling me to not forget to bring something for the mosquitoes. I definitely have lots of mosquito repellent. So I've been told that the northern parts of Sweden and Scandinavia are loaded with mosquitoes. I haven't experienced it, I've just heard stories. So I am ready for the mosquitoes. I'm sure they will still bother me and really be a pain in the butt, but I'm gonna do my best to manage the mosquitoes. We've got Josue from France. We've got E-Bike Outdoor from Lancaster, England. Oh, Anonymous Onyx just gave me 4.99. Thank you, Anonymous Onyx. You're so cool. I'm gonna put that money into buying some vegetarian meatballs in Sweden. Let's see, we've got Fredrik Englund. He's gotta be Swedish. Right on. Oh, Jason, thank you for the two bucks, Jason. I got to meet Jason here in Boulder a few months ago. Some of you come through town every now and then and you let me know. And if I have time, I love meeting people. So if you do come through Boulder, let me know. There's a chance that I will be able to meet up with you and eat a duzerito with you, a burrito. And Ricard says you don't have to fear the bears the same way as in North America. Well, that's good to know. Cause I know there's bears way up there in Northern Sweden, but I guess they're friendly Swedish bears, right? Alberto desde Oaxaca, Mexico, nice. So Emma Henrikson, there's so many Swedes in the chat today. It's making me happy because I'm coming to your country. I leave on Tuesday. So I will land on the 21st of June. And do you all know what that day is? That is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, which means the most sunlight. I will be way up North where the sun will not even set. I will have 24 hours of sun while I'm way up North. And I'm excited to experience that. And who knows, maybe I will ride my bike just deep into the night, just for fun because I can, right? It all depends, I guess, on the mosquitoes. I also have a head net that will go around my head to keep the mosquitoes off of my face. We all know that mosquitoes on your face is not a good thing. Mosquito bites is itching your face? No good. We've got high Ryan Lars from Sweden. Somebody said, don't buy alcoholic drinks in Sweden unless you're a millionaire. Yeah, Sweden is expensive, there's no doubt. And good thing, I don't drink alcohol anymore. Hey, Kel, thanks for the 9.99 all the way from Guam. Thank you, Kel, you're the best. Paul says, Mel and I love getting to meet you at the priority bikes, get together in Mill Valley. I hope you have a great Sweden trip. So I will talk more about Sweden. I will try to pay attention to the comments but also pay attention to talking and answering questions. Feel free to ask questions over here in the comment section. There's so many of them flying up that it's gonna be hard to catch them all. But I will do my best. So we have 150 of you out there right now watching. Thank you once again for being here, for watching my videos, you are all awesome, giving you high fives, bop, bop, bop. Those are high fives if you can't sell. Bam, bam, look at that. Like how nice that camera is, how crispy the picture is. I'm using a real camera today for the webcast, not just my webcam that's built into the monitor. So I am going to Sweden and I really can't wait. I'm gonna, I'll show the map one more time for everybody who missed it at the beginning but this is the map of where I'm going. A lot of it is the European Divide Trail. The European Divide came out like two years ago and it's based kind of off of the Great Divide here in the United States and it goes from Portugal all the way to Norway. It's super long. So I'm just gonna do a good chunk of the Swedish section. I'm flying into a town called Kiruna which is way up north. I will get on an airplane on Tuesday, fly from Denver to London, London to Stockholm, Stockholm to Kiruna. Hey Anne, thanks for the 10 bucks. I appreciate it. I also got to meet Anne. She's from Texas, deep in the heart of Texas. And if you give me a super chat, I'll sing you a little song, how's that feel? Mark Gray says, really enjoyed your book. Thank you so much for reading my book. I appreciate it. If you haven't gotten my book yet, it is for sale. Maybe I'll put the link in here but if you just go to the priority website, you can find my book there. It's about my very first adventure and how it led to an unconventional life of adventure and storytelling and connecting with humans. It's heartwarming. It might even make you cry. I'm really proud of the book and you can buy it now on the priority website. Hey, spokesman MTB. Thanks for the 10 bucks. I appreciate it. Oh, from Durango, Colorado. Not even that far. Some of you might remember when I did the Colorado Trail, I rode from Denver to Durango. Durango is a great outdoors town here in Colorado but it's very far away. So I don't go there all that often. Dylan is asking if I will be home in time for Raghbrite and the answer is yes. I specifically made it so I could be home for Raghbrite. I will be at Raghbrite. I know a lot of you will be at Raghbrite and I will be there. We are also gonna be releasing some special Team Deuzer Raghbrite t-shirts. I don't have the links or information about that yet but stay tuned in the next few days. I will put out a link and you can buy your hot pink. They're gonna be hot pink, Raghbrite Team Deuzer t-shirts. And some of you may have missed this but I'm wearing my fueled by Free Holy shirt right now. You can also buy that. All of the proceeds from this shirt goes to the Dream Team in Iowa. I'm gonna put the link right here. Boom into the chat. Hey Renee, thanks for the three bucks. You're awesome. Renee is my friend who I met at Raghbrite last year. Really good guy from Puerto Rico and I gave him my priority 600 at the end of the ride. And I think he will be back there this summer riding that priority 600. Somebody has asked how will you be managing electricity? Well, you know, I always carry a big power bank. Maybe it's around here somewhere. I don't know, all my stuff is packed on my floor. A big power bank that can charge a phone like eight times. I will use that to charge my phone and some of my other cameras. I always have a GoPro. I always have here, I'll show you actually. So these are the cameras that I always have. This is my Sony camera that I use. This is how I get all the beauty shots out there, all the interviews. This camera has better sound than the GoPro. When I'm filming flowers and getting those beautiful depth of field shots, this is the camera that I use. And then all of the on bike shots, when I'm on my bike, when I'm talking to myself or I'm holding the camera in the air with my hand, it's the GoPro. This is the brand new GoPro 11. I just got it for Sweden. I'm excited to use it. And then of course, your favorite camera everybody. Here we go. Here is my drone. This is the DJI Mini 3 Pro. And this is the one that gets all those awesome aerial shots. And as you can see, it's really small. It's about as big as my head when it's all extended out there. So those are my three cameras. And I also bring five extra batteries for every camera so that I always have a backup. And then at nighttime in my tent, I charge up some batteries so that I always have plenty, essentially. Steve retired, what? Steve just gave me 20 bucks. Thanks, Steve, you're the best. I appreciate it. Steve, you're number one. Thank you so much, Steve. Somebody just said, don't get caught up in any midsummer shenanigans. And what they're referring to is midsummer is a huge holiday in Sweden. It's the longest day of the year. Everybody's outside. People dance around what's called the Maypole. They sing songs, they put flowers in their hairs. There's lots of drinking and merry making. I love midsummer in Sweden because the sun is out so late. And if it's good weather and not rainy and cloudy, it's just an epic time to be in Sweden. And I will be landing on midsummer's Eve, which is so cool. Hey, Lori, no way. She just gave me 20 bucks. And she said, don't selfie with the bears. I promise I won't, I'll be safe, Lori. I will come back and so I can get a selfie with you someday. How's that? Thank you so much for the 20 bucks. You're so sweet. I appreciate it. Rion from South Africa is asking, are you using your priority bike in Sweden? Hope it's already shipped and not delayed as your Rwanda trip. So a lot of you remember who were watching the Rwanda series. I shipped out my priority 600X, but it didn't quite work out the way I was hoping. It got stuck in customs, bureaucracy. I don't really know why. And I didn't get it till the end of my trip. So I never got to use that bike, but the beautiful part of the story is I gave that bike away to my guide, Callie, and it was really cool. So I did ship my bike again through DHL. I've been told today that it just left Germany and it's heading north to Sweden. So it should get there before I get to Sweden. My priority 600X should be there. So we will see. Oh, thank you so much for the 20 bucks. I appreciate it. I'm gonna use all this money in Sweden to buy vegetarian Swedish meatballs. No, I don't know what I'm gonna buy in Sweden because they don't have a lot of Mexican food. It's harder to find beans in Sweden. So I'm just gonna be eating Swedish food. Not my typical Mexican beans and tortillas. So QueenLogic says, "'What would be your best advice for somebody who was bikepacking for the very first time?' I get this question a lot, and my advice is to have an open mind, be ready for the unexpected. You never know what's gonna happen out there and it's all part of the adventure. Things will go wrong. Things won't happen the way you hoped they would. And that's what makes an adventure kind of fun. In the moment, it might be uncomfortable and weird and scary and how am I gonna get through this moment? But you will, I promise. Just rely on yourself and make the next right decision. And so I always tell people, bring an open mind. If you want more practical stuff, of course, be on a bike that's comfortable for you. I love having nice puncture resistant tires so you're not dealing with flat tires all the time. You wanna have a comfortable sleeping mat so you're getting good sleep at night. That's also very important. You don't wanna be uncomfortable in your tent and not getting sleep and waking up the day after day and just being a little groggy. So that's some quick advice there for your first time bikepacking. I'm glad to hear you're gonna do it. Have fun out there and it's all about fun. You don't wanna torture yourself. You're not out there to prove how tough you are to people. Just go out there and just have fun, of course. And it's gonna be a challenge. That's part of the idea is that it's challenging physically and mentally. But remember, you're out there on your bike pedaling all day. You get to do this. You've chosen to do this. You get to sleep under the stars. You eat good junk food that you usually don't eat maybe, at least in my case. When I ride my bike on bikepacking trips, I eat Snickers and candy bars, things that I never eat in real life. But they're just so good and that's pretty much all there is at the gas stations along the way. Bike touring, Mike says, don't worry, Ryan. You won't have any problem finding Mexican food here. Every supermarket has a Mexican selection. Well, that's good to know because when I lived in Sweden as an exchange student 20 years ago, there wasn't a lot of Mexican food. But I'm glad to hear that even in the way north, there's gonna be some Mexican food. So my buddy, my bike touring, Mike, you've probably seen some of his videos. He's over here in the comment section. Check out his channel. Subscribe to his channel. He makes wonderful videos. And I am hopefully gonna meet up with him out there. He lives somewhere out there in the Northlands of Sweden and I will find him. Oh, hey, thanks, Alex just gave me 27 Swedish crowns by Ikea Veggie Balls with this. Thank you, that's so awesome. Thank you, Alex. So anyway, I'm gonna meet up with bike touring, Mike. We're gonna have a great time. And I am just so excited. You know, this is a long time in the making. For those of you who don't know, I was an exchange student in Sweden back when I was 18 years old. I had graduated from high school here in Boulder and then I went off to Sweden. It was my first time leaving my family, my brothers, my sister. It was scary, it was spooky. I was young, I didn't know how it was gonna go and it turned out to be amazing. I was matched up with a wonderful host family. I'm still very close with them, with the parents and my brothers and my sister. And I will be meeting them when I finish my ride at the bottom of Sweden. I lived in a small village called Svedala, which is outside of Malmö. And Malmö is where I went to high school. I was a exchange student. I was the weird American living in Sweden. And I am so excited to go back and just reconnect with a country that I love. Sweden really kicked off my lust for travel and exploring the world. And I had never really traveled anywhere before Sweden when I was 18 years old and it opened my eyes to what is out there. Different countries, different cultures, different languages, different foods. And after Sweden, I made a conscious decision to continue traveling and trying to see as much of the world as possible. And here we go again. Wow, looks like I'm missing some people. We've got Entropic Forest. Thank you for the five euros. That's a euros sign, right? Sweet. The euros and Swedish crowns will come in handy. Looks like Emma Henrikson says I'm inspired by you. I'm going on my first bikepacking ride this summer around Lake Venden, 397 miles, 640 kilometers. So Emma is obviously Swedish, has a very Swedish name. And she's going to ride her bike around one of the big lakes in Sweden, kind of the middle part of Sweden. So good luck, I'm so happy for you. You're gonna love it. And who knows, maybe if I get lost on my route, I will find you, but my route as of now does not go anywhere near Lake Venden. All right, it is Sunday morning. I'm so glad that you're all here. Looks like Peppermint just asked, why doesn't Amelia come with me? Well, Amelia has one of those pesky nine to five jobs and she couldn't take off three weeks. So we will do other fun stuff this summer like Raghbri in July. All right, there's so many Swedes in here. I'm so happy. And also, I'm excited to practice my Swedish. I do speak Swedish when I lived in Sweden. I lived with a host family. I went to school. I had a Swedish girlfriend. So I got pretty good at Swedish. Obviously here in Boulder, I don't practice it all that often. And this is gonna be my chance to head back to Sweden and do my thing and Prothalita Svenska. That's just, I just said, speak a little Swedish. All right. Loren says, my nine year old son, Elias does not understand English, but loves your videos. Dad, can we go there? Maybe we will see you in Sweden. Right on. Well, tell your son Elias that he's awesome and high five. Gordon says, remember to prepare for the aggressive mosquitoes. Yes, I've heard about this. I've heard about these pesky mosquitoes, but it's just another part of the adventure. You know, I get a lot of comments or questions from people in Europe, especially England asking questions about what it's like to camp in the United States. And it's, is it scary? Cause there's mountain lions and there's grizzly bears. And, you know, I always tell them that animals are pretty afraid of humans and they stay far away. What you really should be afraid of are mosquitoes. So yes, I think I'm gonna take some of my own advice here and be prepared for the mosquitoes. Oh, it looks like Andy from Silverthorne. Mindy and Andy from Silverthorne are in the chat. Hello, Silverthorne is just a town right up the way. Oh, and I want to give you a little tip. There is a big race happening right now and it's called the Tour Divide. The Tour Divide is happening right now. And guess who's in this race, John and Mira. They are out there racing right now, the Tour Divide. And I'm gonna put their, you can follow their dot, their live dot. I'm gonna put this in the chat right here right now. So the Tour Divide is the same route as the Great Divide that goes from Canada to Mexico. It's what John and I did back in 2020. We weren't racing it, we were just touring it. So there's that big race happening right now and it's been really fun to watch. Lael Wilcox, you've all heard of her. She's way up near the front. Chris Burkhard is another incredible athlete and photographer, he's up there near the front. And John and Mira, our favorite John and Mira are also out there. This is the first ever dog packing duo in the Tour Divide race and they're having a great time. I just put the link to what's called track leaders over here in the comment section and you can see exactly where they are. There's a little dot that follows them the whole way down and you can give them some support. So give John and Mira some love. They are out there rocking it. Lars says, let us know when you're in the Stockholm area. So I won't be anywhere near Stockholm unfortunately. Here is my roots and it's a lot of the European Divide roots so I will actually be going through Gothenburg which is the second biggest city in Sweden but no Stockholm on this adventure. Can you all see that? So I'm gonna start right up here at A and go down to B to visit my village at the very end and have a little party with my host family and friends but no Stockholm on this ride unfortunately. Stockholm is one of my favorite cities on the entire planet and I really, I just can't wait to go back to Sweden. I have not been in Europe in a long time. I've never really actually done a bike tour in Europe which sounds crazy but yeah, I've never gone on a bike adventure in Europe. And yeah, it's gonna be exciting. You know, the northern part of Sweden there's like not a whole lot of people up there. A lot of reindeer but not a whole lot of humans up there. So I'm gonna be out there in the woods by myself for a long time and I'm excited for the alone time. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be really fun. Let's see, Kamrat Dennis says, what if I take the ferry to Stockholm and go to the train to Gothenburg? Maybe I can say hello. Maybe, you know, I will do my best to stay in touch with people but it's really hard to match. People's like, oh, where are you gonna be in three days? And I'm like, I don't know where I'll be in three days. I can give you an idea but things happen. Sometimes you don't go as far as you want but I will try my best to meet as many of you Swedes out there as possible. Obviously I love Sweden. Yes, you can share my itinerary Lars. You know what I'll do is I'll put a link to my route in the chat over here. I'm gonna pull it up here really quickly on Kumut, Kumut. Kumut is a German company, by the way. Okay, I'm gonna getting the link here. I've got the link and I'm gonna put it over here. That was the detailed version of my tour is now over there in the chat. Fredrik says, welcome in. Reinhardt says, Ryan, love your videos. You're such a positive guy. Have an awesome ride in Sweden. Thank you. Oh, and here's some of the bad news about going to Sweden. I will not have videos uploaded for the next month. I don't have anything scheduled for you. I'm sorry, I've been super busy the past couple months and I wasn't able to get videos done before leaving for Sweden to be able to be uploaded. So I'm going on a bit of a break, a YouTube break. There will be no videos for the next month but just wait when I get back. There's gonna be a ton of new content from Sweden and then very shortly after that, Ragbride. We all know what Ragbride is. That awesome ride in Iowa. Ebike Outdoor says, hit the like button, guys. He's a great guy. Thank you. Hit that like button. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And tell all your friends to subscribe. Yes. What else here? I'm gonna look at some of the comments. Daniel says, there is no YouTube series about the EDT so far, the European divide. So yes, I will have some videos about the European divide for sure. I actually don't have a Wahoo anymore. I think you followed my adventure in the SoCal Ramble. I broke mine and I just got this and I've never used it. It's the new Garmin solar powered computer. It's called, I think it's the 1040 solar and this is my new bike computer and it's gonna show me where to go. I, you know, a lot of people like these bike computers for all the analytics and the stats and everything that you get. All I care about is the directions. Just tell me where to go so I don't get lost. So I always have the route on here and then I'll have the route on my cell phone as a backup. And if I get really lost out there, I'm just gonna call up bike touring Mike and say, hey man, where am I? Molly says, hope to see you on Raghbri. She's not riding but hoping to visit an overnight town. Hope to see you too. Hey Craig, thanks for the 20 bucks, man. You're awesome sending you high five, boing, boing. Great news, you're finally getting to go to Sweden. Yes, got to rescue you washing from a thunderstorm. Not sure what that means, washing. All right, yeah, so I'm finally going to Sweden. And if you have any questions about the Rwanda trip or anything or Sweden or Raghbri, you can put them over here and I'll try to answer as many questions as possible. So the Sweden ride will be about 1600 miles which is further than I thought it was gonna be. When I originally dreamed up this adventure, I was just gonna use Google Maps and go, I am starting way up north and I'm finishing way down south or commutes and just say, I'm gonna make a route, like make my own route from A to B. And then I was reminded that the European Divide Trail goes through a lot of Sweden. So I was like, okay, I'll just connect to the European Divide Trail and do a lot of that. So that, I will be able to get on the European Divide within a day, the actual trail and then take that all the way to Gothenburg. Then the European Divide Trail goes off into Norway. I will not go that way, but then I will take my own route from Gothenburg, Sweden down to the very bottom. Stayed all out where I was an exchange student. Hey, James, thanks for the 11 bucks. He says, I'll be hitting the Rachel Carson Trail Challenge next weekend, a year after heart surgery. Thanks again for your encouragement. My wife and I will be in Boulder in a few weeks. Oh, it looks like I'll miss you if you're here in a few weeks, but congratulations on your big challenge and so cool that you recovered from heart surgery. That's a big deal. You are awesome, James. High fives going over to you. Have a wonderful adventure. I just got a question about will it be off-road? Will I be riding the 600X? So the idea of the European Divide Trail is it's kind of like the Great Divide here in the United States. It is a lot of off-road. So yes, I am bringing my 600X. It might be a little bit of overkill because I don't think I'm gonna be running into a lot of technical mountain biking per se, but I'm gonna be trying to hit as many dirt roads as possible because I like dirt and dirt usually means less cars and less traffic, which is safer. So yes, I'll be riding my 600X on these lonely Swedish forest roads in the middle of nowhere. Greetings from Poland, says Philippe. Sweden is a great place, good choice. It sure is, I love Sweden. Peppermint says, are you really gonna do 130 kilometers a day? That's a lot, especially with all the ups and downs. Yes, I hope to do 130 kilometers or more a day and I'm ready for it. I'm ready for a challenge. It's been a long time since I've been on an extended tour. As you all know, the last one really was like the great divide. The Colorado Trail was very difficult, but I was done with it in 11 days. This route, I don't know exactly how long it's gonna take me, but I'd say about 20 days to do the whole thing and it's gonna be a lot of riding. It's not gonna be nearly as technically difficult as say the Colorado Trail, it's not mountain biking. It's gonna be a lot of like gravel roads. Then we'll see how I do out there. Let's see, any other questions? A lot of asphalt it seems on the route. Yeah, there is gonna be a lot of asphalt. So that's when I said the 600X will be a little bit of overkill. I'll be riding pavement, but that's all right. I love my 600X, it's super comfortable. Alex says, I'll buy your 600X when you are done, save on shipping it back to the US. Oh, maybe so, man. Will you be taking rest days? When I go on adventures, I have an open mind of how it's all gonna play out. I have a plane ticket home in mid July that I have to be at, so I definitely have to stay on my itinerary, but if I meet some amazing people or run into a beautiful situation, I will take a rest day and hang out and have fun. So yes, I'm always open to magic as I call it out there, trail magic and what might or might not happen. Renee says, any different equipment that you will take. Not really, it'll be pretty much what I always take on my rides. As you know, I do a lot of rides in hot areas like the desert. So I'm gonna be bringing a little bit more warm clothing because I'm gonna be in the northern part of Sweden. I think it's been pretty mild there right now, but things can change, they can get a lot of rain. So I'm definitely bringing rain gear, waterproof gloves, or warmer clothing for camping at nighttime. I'm also bringing lots of mosquito repellent. When I do my adventures in the desert, there's barely any mosquitoes. So I almost never carry mosquito repellent with me, but I'm bringing some powerful mosquito repellent and like a head net thing that will go over my head. Maybe I'll show it to you. You guys wanna see my head net? Oh, it's gonna be so exciting. I'll be right back in a second. Here we go. Okay, I'm back. So I just went to the store yesterday to buy this thing. And it comes in a little bag. And here we go. This will keep me safe from the mosquitoes. Maybe I'll wear it over my helmet or under my helmet, depending how bad the mosquitoes are, but I've heard that they're really bad. Is this freaking you out that I'm wearing this net, my friends? Should I take it off? Yeah, so this is definitely gonna be an important thing to have over there because I've heard the mosquitoes are horrible. Okay, let's see. I suggest Telia as a service provider for the phone. They have the best coverage. Okay, good. I do need to like look into that information and getting my cell phone to work. Andy Smith says, can we track you? I might be able to do some sort of a tracking thing for this adventure. It's the first adventure where I am going to bring one of those garment in reach things so I can send messages to my mom and let her know that I'm okay because I will probably be out of cell service for a lot of this adventure way up north. I'm in the middle of nowhere. So I am gonna bring one of those garment in reach things and I might be able to create some sort of a link so people can see where I'm at. So we will see. All this technology stuff is overwhelming for me. Like I can deal with cameras and all that, but the GPS stuff, even these bike computers are very complicated and they freak me out. And I'd rather just ride my bike and not worry about all that, but I'm gonna have to figure it out. Frederick just said, and he lives in Sweden, the mosquitoes are so bad, I don't ever go to the North during summer. Uh-oh. Let's see, we've got Jacob from Denmark right on. And what else do we have? What mosquito repellent are you using? It's called jungle juice. So I think it's made for jungle situations. Looks like I just saw a question up here from Alma Ortiz. Have you ever considered the Camino de Santiago on a bike? They just did a portion of it last month. So the Camino de Santiago is something that I've wanted to do for a long time. It's an old pilgrimage trail from France all the way across the top of Spain and finishes in a town called Santiago de Compostela. And it's an ancient pilgrim route and people do it every year and they have a bike version of it. And so, yes, I would love to do that someday because I love Spain, I speak Spanish, and it will happen. Oh, we've got somebody from Norway, Norway here, you will regret it, joking, have a nice trip, thank you. Looks like cell service is fairly okay in Sweden even out in the middle of nowhere. Good to hear. Sweden is one of the most put together countries I've ever been to in my life in every way. So I know that I'm gonna feel very safe over there in Sweden. Looks like we got Chris from Arizona, how you doing? Ville Grandin says, I like to ride in the night in the summer, it is surreal. I bet it is. And I'm excited to have the opportunity to ride my bike to midnight or past midnight. Who knows? I mean, sleeping is definitely gonna be important. I can't just ride 24 hours a day for a couple weeks, but I'm gonna give it a shot. I think it's gonna be fun. I've never experienced anything like this, sun past 10 p.m. When I lived in Sweden, I lived in the very southern part of Sweden. And so it doesn't really have the midnight sun like the northern part of Sweden has. So this is gonna be new to me and I am just excited for an adventure. This is why I'm going, I wanna explore. I wanna figure out what life is like way up there in the northern part of the world. And as you all know, this has been an adventure, a long time in the making. I was supposed to do this last year and it was canceled at the last minute because Scandinavian Airlines went on strike. And here we are, one year later, putting it all back together. Laurie says, are you going to treat your clothing with pr-r-r, I don't even know how to say that word. I don't think so. Is that something to, you know, prevent mosquitoes? Maybe I should look into that. Rion says, will you keep us posted on Instagram? Yes, I will do my best as long as I have cell service or connection to wifi, I will definitely be posting on Instagram. And that's in general, the best way to follow my adventures in real time is on Instagram because I post a lot. If you're not following me on Instagram, it's just at dozer on Instagram, very easy to find. Let's see. Jacob says, I was on the bike, you were the reason I started when you made love cycles. Right on, love cycles was so fun. I actually just saw Allie recently, she was in town, she lives now in Oregon, but she was in Boulder, we're still good friends, she's awesome, and she's doing really well. Looks like Mike from Bend, Oregon here, so normally you don't bring cooking gear, are you going to bring a stove and pot for this trip? No, yeah, I don't really bring cooking gear, I just eat simple foods, usually, tortillas and beans and other snack type stuff, but I'm not gonna bring a stove. I don't drink coffee like most humans, so I don't need to wake up and get a nice hot cup of coffee. So no stove, I might just fill up my pockets full of Swedish vegetarian meatballs from IKEA. How does that sound? It's how little power balls, boom, boom, boom. Laurie says, oh dude, Purethrin will save your life. I'm gonna have to look that up. Thank you, Laurie, for the tip. I'm gonna remember that and I'm gonna Google that after this. All right, Peppermint says, how heavy will stuff be? I don't know, my bike usually weighs around 75 pounds when it's all packed down. I think there's gonna be a lot of access to water up there, so I don't need to carry tons of water, like I usually do when I'm in the desert. So I will bring my hydration pack and a water bottle on the bike and hopefully find lots of streams with water. Well, I use a click stand. I think they mean a kick stand. I will not bring a kick stand. Looks like Maria says she was in Russia in 92 during summer solstice and the sun never sets. It bounces along the horizon and comes back up. We went on a boat trip to the Moskva River at 3 a.m. Yeah, I'm so excited for all of this. And sleeping might be an ordeal because it's gonna be so bright out. I'm gonna have to like put some sort of a sleeping mask over my eyes in my tent. Marco says, any chance you'll get a Mira-like travel buddy? You know, maybe someday, although right now I just, I don't see it happening anytime soon, but I do love Mira and I hope to see John and Mira this summer. So they're racing the Great Divide right now. And he says when he gets down to the bottom at the border of Mexico, he's gonna turn back around up and go north. And he's gonna come through Boulder sometime in July. So hopefully I will get to see him before, after I get back from Sweden and before I leave from Ragnberg. So John and Mira are out there racing the Tour Divide. If you've been following it, it's a lot of fun right now. This is Sweden best says sleeping mask is definitely needed right now. We barely get any sleep. Yeah, there's not gonna be much darkness up there, which is gonna be fascinating. Ooh, it looks like we have somebody from Latvia. Good luck with the Sweden trip. Cool. I don't know if I've ever had a Latvian viewer on my live. So thank you for being here. Somebody just said temperatures usually don't go below 10 degrees Celsius during the night and it might get as hot as 30 degrees Celsius during the day. I hope so. I love hot weather. Bring on the heat. I'm used to warm weather. I don't really like cold weather. I don't like waking up in the cold. So the hotter, the better for me. Hampus Hockensson says can I meet you when you pass Kungdel and join you for a bit? Yes, if you find me, you can come say hi for sure. I would love to meet as many of you Swedes as possible out there. That's the whole point. I love bike touring because I like connecting with the humans of the world. And Sweden is a special place in my heart. I was an exchange student there and I just, I love Sweden. Jag älskas färja, I love Sweden and I hope to meet as many of you as possible. So be in touch with me through Instagram. That's probably the best way. If we wanna coordinate something, hopefully I'll have service and I will be able to meet as many of you as possible. Somebody said he missed the beginning. When are you planning to be in Sweden? I am going to Sweden on Tuesday. Today is Sunday. I will be leaving in two days. I will be landing on the 21st of June, which is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Midsommar in Sweden and I cannot wait and I will be there for about three weeks and I will go all the way down to the bottom of the country. Maybe I'll show my map again because so many of you just pop in and out that you don't see the beginning of these live chats but that is my route right there. Pretty sweet, huh? A is Kiruna up there and B is my village called Svejdala, way down at the bottom. 1,500 miles, 2,400 kilometers. Mattia says, let's throw a party. Yeah, let's have a Swedish party, my friend. I would love that. Do we have any questions about the Rwanda trip? I haven't had it done alive in a long time and Rwanda was a while ago and I know that was pretty exciting for some of you but I am just sitting here getting ready, getting all my cameras ready. Here's my Sony. Here's my GoPro. I just got the brand new GoPro 11 and of course here is my drone. This thing is so much fun. I should be able to get some beautiful, beautiful shots and I'm hopefully going to meet bike touring Mike along the way. He has a YouTube channel. A lot of you have probably seen his videos and he lives up there and he's gonna ride with me for a bit which is gonna be super cool. Kamarot Dennis says, what cameras did you bring to Rwanda? I brought the same two little cameras but I did not bring this obviously because the drones were not allowed in Rwanda. Do I keep in touch with my Rwandan guide, Callie? I do. He's on WhatsApp and I chat with him. He's been sending me photos of his bike rides on his 600X. He is so excited about that bike. As many of you know, you watch the video. I wasn't able to get the bike in time to use it because it got stuck in customs but we got it out the very last day. We put it together and I gave it to Callie and he was blown away. He'd never had his very own mountain bike. The bikes that he was riding in the videos he was borrowing from the tourism board. So now he has his own mountain bike and he is psyched. And yes, I do stay in touch with him and I hope to meet him another day. I would love to go back to Rwanda. Is Rwanda good for a beginner bike packer? I would say yes. It's an extremely safe country. The roads are safe. There's not a lot of vehicles on the roads and the vehicles that are on the roads travel at a pretty slow speed limit because they're very strict about driving cars quickly in Rwanda so everybody drives slow. They're all chill and you're just safe. And that to me is one of the main ways that I feel good about bike tours is when I feel safe about where I'm going. And it's also beautiful. It's a land of 1,000 hills. The people are incredibly friendly and generous. As you saw in my videos, kids were chasing me down the roads all the time just saying, hi, I'm a Kuru. And it was just, it's a fascinating place. And then, you know, you're over there. You can go on a safari. You can see the mountain gorillas. It's a little bit of everything. So yeah, I do recommend Rwanda as a place to ride a bike because it's just a safe place to be. And the roads, if you're because of due pavement or beautiful, they're all in such great shape. Looks like we got Darren Ole from Southern California. Ole, Darren, how you doing? Kamrat said, did you bring a DSLR? No, I did not bring a DSLR camera to Rwanda. DSLRs are like a bigger style camera, you know, kind of a traditional camera, not like a cell phone or a GoPro. And I only travel with DSLRs when I have a lot of room in my bike bags. And now that I do mostly bike packing, the bags are a lot smaller than panniers. And so I don't bring my big camera all that often. But this camera kind of looks, has a look like a DSLR. It takes incredible images. This is the SOTY RX100 Mark 7. I love this little guy. It does have its limitations because it is small. It's much harder to focus and do some of the other manual settings. But I really, really like this camera. And that's, that camera captures all of the interviews that you see and all the beauty shots of like flowers and detailed stuff. Looks like John says hi from Bingo Guelphan. Where is that? Stephen Cook says, missed the beginning, but welcome to us in Sweden. Welcome in from Gothenburg on the West Coast. Stephen, I will be going through Gothenburg. Maybe I will be able to find you and say hi. Who knows? But yes, this whole chat is about going to Sweden and I will say I will not have any videos, unfortunately, for the next month or so. So tell everybody else, because they're gonna start freaking out. Why didn't you upload a video today? Tell everybody else who's not in this live chat. I just didn't have time to get videos done and schedule them out before I left for Sweden. I've been very busy with some other projects. But when I come back from Sweden, you get ready. I'm gonna have tons of videos of beautiful Sweden and I really am so excited about all this. From your latest two videos, you got some audio problems. Was that from the Jack or has your Ceremonic mic seen? I don't, yeah, the San Rafael Swell videos that you saw me with Scott Jurick. I did have some audio problems and this is a brand new camera because I broke my other Sony in Rwanda. So I bought this brand new. The first ride was in the desert for the San Rafael Swell and I don't know exactly what was happening with the microphone. I put in a little, let's see if I had it right here. Where is that little microphone? Oh, here it is. I put in this little microphone into this camera and it just gives it much better audio. But for some reason, the connection was bad and there were many shots on that adventure where I just had zero audio and that's something that you don't see as viewers. I'm always wrestling with technology in cameras. They rarely always just work the way you want them to work, something malfunctions. And yeah, so I'm always problem solving issues with cameras but I hopefully have it all figured out for this time. Do you ride in the rain? Yeah, I mean, if I need to get somewhere I'll definitely ride in the rain. If it's a torrential downpour and everything is muddy then I might wait out the rain for a little bit but I do have rain gear and yeah, if it's not freezing cold I do ride in the rain. Yep, we got Orest Oskar from Ukraine. No way, watching you for a year, come to Europe. Well, I am coming to Europe, my friend. I'm going to Sweden though, a little bit north of you. I hope you're safe over there in Ukraine. Thanks for watching my videos. Barry says, any drone regulations to worry about like in Rwanda? I actually don't know, I haven't checked into that and I am not even gonna pay attention to it. I'm bringing my drone and I'm gonna fly it. I'm gonna be in the middle of nowhere for most of this adventure in Sweden and I'm just gonna do it. I'm one of those kind of guys. I asked for forgiveness, not permission but in this case of Rwanda, I knew they made it clear no drones. So I just, I didn't even try to bring it there. Ken, my buddy Ken from Michigan. I just got here, what did I miss? Ken, you missed everything, man. Oh, we've talked about so much stuff. Ken, we're mostly talking about my adventure in Sweden. I'll show the map again. Some of you who are at the beginning might be getting sick of this but this is my route. This is my adventure in Sweden, 1500 miles from the very top of Sweden to the bottom. The bottom of Sweden where I lived as an exchange student in 1998. There was a very informative time in my life. Informative, I meant formative time in my life. I had never really traveled anywhere. Sweden opened my eyes to the world outside of Boulder, Colorado. I'm still very close with my host family and my host sister and my brothers and I will be meeting them at the end of this adventure. Most of this route is called the European Divide Trail which goes all the way from Norway to Portugal. I will just be doing most of the Swedish section of it. And I can't wait. So Ken, that's pretty much what you missed. We're talking about Sweden, the land of the midnight sun. The sun will not be setting as I'm up there way up in the North and I'll be able to ride my bike to midnight every night. So we'll see what I do out there. I don't really know how my body is gonna react to sunshine all the time. I love sunshine. I live in Boulder, Colorado. It's almost always sunny. I love waking up to the sun but I've never had to deal with sun like all day and all night. So am I gonna feel tired? Am I not? Am I gonna have to force myself to sleep and put on a sleeping mask to keep things dark? I don't know, we're gonna see. It's all gonna be part of the adventure. Alex says, feel free to fly your drone except close to airports. Yeah, that's usually the case in the United States is you can't fly your drone near airports. Rami says, reading your book The Long Way Home and really enjoying it. Do you have plans to write another book? You know, I would love to write another book. I have so many ideas in my head. I have so many adventures that I've been on. I thought about making a compilation book about lots of different adventures and essentially my life philosophy of life on two wheels, life at 15 miles an hour, why I love connecting with humans all around me, why I think bike traveling is some of the best ways to travel because you go so slow and get to experience everything and meet people that you otherwise wouldn't meet in small villages all around the planet. So yes, I would like to write another book about a lot of my adventures smushed together so you get a little taste of everything. Caleb Wilson just said, always sunny, LOL except this spring, Boulder is basically Portland right now. That is true. We've been getting a ton of rain in the front range of Colorado this summer. I guess it's not technically summer yet until June 21st but usually it's always hot and sunny but it really hasn't been in Boulder this spring. We've been getting a lot of rain, which is good because as you know, we've had a lot of problems with forest fires over the past five years and just getting inundated with smoke, not just our own fires but fires from far away and Canada and Oregon and all sorts of other places. So we welcome the rain but it is getting a little old but today is gonna be sunny and beautiful. John says, can we track your ride? I think I will have the ability to track. I'm gonna bring a Garmin inReach on this adventure and I will post maybe in the YouTube community tab what that link will be. I don't have the device yet. I just bought it and had it overnighted. This was the last minute purchase. I mainly got this Garmin inReach because I'm gonna be really in the middle of nowhere for a lot of this adventure and I wanna be able to send text messages to my mom that says, hey mom, I'm okay. Don't worry about me because as you all know that's part of the deal. I gotta keep my mom happy. Keep her from worrying her little gray hairs off. She already has tons of gray. As you know, you've seen photos of her. She's all gray. She's silver as she calls it. So yes, I will hopefully have some sort of tracking abilities. Ken says, Strava please. I will definitely have my rides on commute. I don't know if I have it connected to my Strava yet but I think so. All this technology stuff blows my mind up. I already have so many other things to deal with when I'm on an adventure. The adventure is hard enough and navigating and getting food and getting water and finding a place to camp, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I also have to deal with all of my three cameras and make sure I'm getting footage and make sure the audio is working well and make sure the drone's not crashing into a tree. So there's a lot of stuff on my mind and now I'm adding into these Garmin inReach devices and satellite, blah, blah, blah. So there's a lot going on and I'm gonna try my best to keep it all together for you but the most important thing I always tell people is to, for me, to have a wonderful adventure. I'm going there because I really personally want to go there. There's no tourism board sending me to Sweden. I just, I really wanna experience this. And number two is sharing the experience with you and showing you a piece of the world that you probably have not seen. I have never even seen the northern part of Sweden. So it's gonna be new for all of us when I'm able to share these videos. Hopefully I'll make some friends out there in the middle of nowhere. I'm gonna be practicing my Swedish. I do speak Swedish pretty well. I lived there as an exchange student 20 years ago and I still try to keep up with my Swedish by listening to music, by writing emails to my friends and families and I follow some Swedish accounts on Instagram. So it's gonna be awesome. Martine asks, how much cycling does Amelia do on a regular basis locally? She rides her bike a few times a week. Running is really her thing. That's what she does. She's out running right now. So that's what she focuses on but she's definitely getting more into cycling. She loves bikes for sure. We always do the Thursday night cruiser ride here in Boulder. If you've probably seen those videos on my channel or on my Instagram, it's just a casual fun ride. We've got another comment here. Sweden encourages people to explore the outdoors. Such a great social ethic. That is so true and is a really cool law called Allemansrätten, which means kind of like, what does that mean in English? I can't even translate. It's like everyone's right to camp wherever they want. And so there's really, you're allowed to camp anywhere from what I've been told. I've never really camped in Sweden other than at like specific campsites. And so this will be new to me where I can take advantage of Allemansrätten and camp wherever and not have anybody be angry about it. In the United States, there's lots of private property and places you can't go and fenced off areas. And I think it's gonna be a different situation over there in Sweden. Vladi says, everywhere unless stated. Yeah, that's so cool. Oh, what Swedish music do I listen to? A lot of you have never heard of these bands because they're Swedish bands, but I love Kent. Kent is a really fun, like Swedish, like rock type music band. They sing in Swedish. I love Lisa Ekdal. She's like a Swedish folk singer with a little bit of jazz. I love the Swedish classics by Yelena Tider. You know, soma Tider, hey, hey, soma Tider. Jämmer in hunger, jämmer in hand. Oh, jämmer all du vil, oh all du kan. I'm such a bad singer, but that is the song. It's like a Swedish summer anthem. What other music do I listen to? Magnus Uggla. I love all like the classics. Peppermint said, all Swedes speak perfect English. That is so true. Swedes are incredibly good at English. So even if I'm unable to communicate in Swedish, they will be able to be like, hey buddy, we can speak English now. You don't need to fumble through your Swedish. Yeah, Ken just said, stick to your day job. What, you don't want me to sing anymore, buddy? Afiya says, Scald is my favorite band. I'll have to check that one out. Patrick says, do you always follow already existing roots or do you also plan your own roots? So I, for most of my bike touring life, I planned my own roots. There was no bikepacking.com back then with tons of predetermined roots. So most of my rides I just figure out as I go, when I was on Love Cycles in 2018 with Ali, we just, we had an idea of where we wanted to go from A to B across the United States. But every day we'd wake up and get out Google Maps. This is before I had Camut ride with GPS and just use Google Maps in a way where you're like, I'm gonna go from A to B. And here's the bike tab to make it bike safe. And then just make the route as we go. More recently, I have been doing the roots that are predetermined. This Sweden route, a lot of it is the European Divide Trail, but I am gonna be going from Gothenburg all the way down south to my town called Svedala, which is like, I don't know, 300 or so miles. And I'll just be figuring it out as I go. And luckily there's lots of like great cycle ways in Sweden and bike paths and bike infrastructure. So I'm gonna feel pretty safe out there as I navigate Sweden. But as far as how do you come up with your own route? You know, I love the app called Camut. That's a really great way to like just put together your own adventure where you can say, I'm going from point A and I wanna go to point B. Please give me the best gravel route between these two ways. And so it's, it works. I mean, it's almost always a slam dunk and you get to where you need to go and it gives you the lesser traveled ways without cars. Martin says, what is the longest route that you would like to do? I don't know. You know, the Great Divide, I've been watching the race recently and I'm thinking, maybe I wanna jump in the Great Divide race next year from Canada to Mexico. So I'm thinking about that. That's 2,700 miles. And that's pretty long, but I don't wanna like be out on the road for, you know, more than two or three months. You know, I know a lot of people are just constantly traveling, but I love my community. I love Boulder. I love my friends here. I love my mom and my brothers and Amelia. So I don't wanna be on the road constantly. So I'm more into the shorter adventures right now. So I can go out and have fun, recharge my soul and then come back to Boulder and be part of my community here. And also a big part of this time to edit all the videos. If I was constantly on bike tours, it would be a lot more difficult to create content. I would have to, you know, definitely stop for a week at a time and get out of laptop and edit. I don't like traveling with a laptop. It's very heavy. Matt says, do you think you'll ever go back to drop bar bikes? I just don't feel as comfortable on a drop bar bike. I've ridden some drop bar bikes. I rode the Trek checkpoint all the way across the country in 2018. They're definitely, you know, nice in some ways because there's different hand positions, but I like mountain bikes. I like mountain bike geometry. And most of the routes I do call for mountain bikes because the terrain is pretty technical. So I'll use drop bar bikes when it's appropriate, I should say. Looks like, hello, Ryan. Rose from Kansas. So no, Raghbri. Of course, Raghbri. If you're just joining, I've been talking about it. I will definitely be at Raghbri. I will see you all there. It is gonna be awesome. I will be filming. I will be creating content. Raghbri is definitely going to happen. Kamrat Dennis says, I have the songs I made for you last year's trip. I could put a drive up for you. Yeah, Dennis, send me those songs. I need some new Swedish songs. Elevation every weekend. The area around the Matterhorn has become an amazing bike destination and is on my bucket list. Yeah, the Matterhorn is stunning. The town down there called Zermatt is car free. There are no cars in that village. So I'm all about that. Looks like Mike says, my wife and I enjoy your videos. You've inspired us to get back on bikes and relearn the joy of being outside and riding. Yes, that is the point. That's the whole point of my channel. I love sharing my adventures so that you can watch them and get excited and go on your own adventures and get off your couch, as I say. And so that really is the whole point of my channel is to inspire you to get out there. That's my slogan. And I love when I get messages like this from people saying that they are getting out there. It's so awesome. Ken says, how about a ride around Lake Michigan? Someday, man, I promise you I'll go to Michigan someday. This is my buddy Ken and he's always bugging me about going to Michigan and I'm gonna make it happen. I actually met Ken when I was on Love Cycles in 2018. Peppermint says, do not shave on your tour this time. Get beardy. Oh, you're funny, man. You know, I'm not a beardy kind of guy. I like the clean, smooth face and I'll be bringing my shaver to Sweden. John Mason Hill says, what would you change on the 600X? I helped design that bike and it's pretty much exactly the way I want it to be. So we're probably gonna make a version two in the next year with some slight, I don't even wanna say upgrades but just some slight changes to the geometry of the bike but all the core is staying the same, the pinion and the gates. It will have front suspension. It'll have a million different places to mount things. And so the 600X is in really good shape and I'm loving it. Hey, Sarah's here. Sarah, I have a wonderful trip, Ryan. Sarah is one of our friends up in Montana. You know, I do the bike raffle every January in conjunction with Dana. You all know Dana and love Dana. We raffle off the 600X to raise tons of money to then give away to different nonprofits and organizations around the United States who are getting kids on bikes. And my friend Sarah here that just chimed in administers the program up in Montana working with the Blackfoot Nation up there and getting a lot of those indigenous kids on bicycles. So, so good to see you. And I just want you to know when you support these raffles that we do, you are helping getting kids on bikes all around the country. Kids who would not normally be able to afford a bicycle. And so the last, in the last three years we've raised over $150,000 that we've given to all sorts of organizations around the United States. So thank you again so much for your support there. And I will be doing another one. Come January, we'll be raffling off another 600X and raising money. Let's see, Martin says, can the priority 600X be ordered with opinion 18? No, it cannot be. It comes the way that it comes. I am sorry. I have never tried the opinion 18. I have the opinion 12 speed. It's more than enough for me. Of the opinion 18 does have a little bit, a larger gear ratio, but I've never needed more than what I have with the 12. So yeah, there you go. Mick Wilson says, grow a mullet. I should grow a mullet. That's how a lot of the Swedish hockey players roll. They call it a hockey frilla. I would like to show you, show us Canadian C2C. I don't know what that means, but yes, I would like to ride in Canada some more. Where are you broadcasting from? Your mom's house, Amelia's? No, I'm broadcasting from my house. It's a different room in my house than I've used before. What do you love about cycling? Says Matt H. And this is a question that I ask a lot of people when I'm on my tours, what inspires you about riding? You know, I love the freedom of it. I've always loved the freedom of riding a bike and that goes all the way back to when I was a little kid and I took the training wheels off my bike and I felt the wind in my hair and I was zooming on my own. So I love the freedom, I love where bikes can take me. You know, I like the physical challenge of riding my bike. I like doing hard things from time to time, but I also like biking just to get around town. You know, I don't have a car, I've never had a car. So my bike is my car in a sense. That's how I go grocery shopping. So I love the utility of bicycles and I just love the fun of bikes. Bikes are so much fun. We all know that we're all, that's why we're here today. We love bicycles and traveling by bike and riding our bikes. So I'd say that's why I love riding my bike. Thank you for that fun question. Oh, Martin says sea to sea, it means coast to coast, Canada coast to coast. Maybe someday, you know, I would love to visit Canada a little bit more our neighbors to the north. Would you ever use a trailer on your touring? Says Mick. So at the beginning of my bike touring career, I always had a trailer. I had the Bob trailers. When I went home from Honduras to Boulder, when I went across the country down both the east and the west coast in the United States, I had a bike that pulled a trailer. But now I don't think I ever will use a trailer again not because I don't like trailers. I think they're great. They have a lot of utility, but I don't need to bring as much stuff as I used to bring. When I first started bike touring, I brought too much stuff. And now I just don't. And trailers are great for bringing a lot of stuff. But I like the simplicity of the bike packing bags. But if you want to use a trailer, go for it. They're great. Let's see, any more questions over here? Will I be taking an extra belt? Yes, I always have extra belts now, always. After my mishap, you know, a couple of years ago now, 2021, when I was in New Mexico, I snapped my belt. And yes, I will always have an extra belt with me. And I was joking with Dave from priority yesterday. I was telling him that I was bringing a belt. And he's like, you know what? Now that you always have a belt, you will never break another belt. Because when you're prepared, the things just don't happen, right? It's when you're unprepared, that's when things happen. And that's what happened to me in New Mexico in 2021. I broke my belt. I did not have an extra belt. And that was the end of my ride. What are the items you stopped taking with you when you dropped the trailer? What's dispensable? So I just bring a lot fewer clothes. Like back in the day, I'm like, oh, I should bring like five shirts and four pairs of shorts and, you know, three pairs of this and that. So I just don't bring as much clothes. I bring like two pairs of shirts, two shirts with me, one pair of shorts, a couple pairs of padded shorts, short liners. So I just, I don't bring as much clothing. A, I don't bring as much stuff. I used to carry a laptop computer with me because I did edit while I was on the road. I don't bring my laptop, you know, just the adapter, power adapter for the laptop was huge. So I don't bring a laptop. I used to travel with really big cameras, like big, full-size camcorders. I don't do that anymore. My cameras are obviously way smaller these days. So I just a little bit of, I just bring fewer of everything. Fewer clothes, like no computer gear, like smaller cameras. And yeah, I just don't need to bring much. And also I do a lot of tours in hot areas. So that helps with not having to bring a whole lot of stuff. Looks like David from Perth, Australia. Maybe you'll get down under one day. Yes, I definitely want to go to Australia. I would love to visit your country. I've never been there. It looks like a great place. So much fun. We've got Jens from Bornholm, Denmark right on. Bornholm is that cool island that's between Denmark and Sweden. Lots of Swedes go to Bornholm to ride bikes. I would love to visit that someday. Matt H says, when did I get into cycling? I got into cycling when I was a kid, like a lot of you. I got a BMX bike for Christmas when I was like six years old. And my dad put some training wheels on it for me. And that's when I fell in love with the freedom of riding a bike. So I've been into bikes forever. And then as a lot of you also know, I've never had a car. So I just rode my bike to school every day. I rode my bike to high school. Then I lived in Sweden when I was 18 and I really saw how beautiful a fully functioning, cycle-centric country can be. I lived in this small town outside of Malmö, Sweden and everybody rides their bikes everywhere. And also the transportation options there are incredible. You can ride your bike to the train station and put your bike on the train and take the train to the next town and then take your bike out. And so I would bring my bike to school in Malmö on the train. And I remember my Swedish mom would wake up in the mornings and ride her little bike to the bakery and get fresh bread and come back home for breakfast. And so everything is done on a bicycle whereas in the United States, it's not like that. I mean, it's getting better, especially in places like Boulder but bikes aren't... Bikes are seen as like a recreation vehicle in the United States. It's just for like, riding your bike and getting exercise whereas in Europe, it's like a tool. It's like a car. It's like it's how people get around. And I really loved that. And it was influential for me to see that when I was 18 years old in Sweden where everybody just rides bikes. Even like my high school friends, we would ride bikes to our friends' houses for parties which is obviously safer too if people are drinking alcohol. Let's see, therapy says, you have a pretty good geographical knowledge to know Bornholm as a gringo. Yeah, man, I love maps. And I lived in Sweden for a long time. So I know a lot of the surrounding areas but yes, Bornholm is a beautiful little Danish island. How many people am I bringing to Raghbri? Hopefully Dana will be able to go. We will see and a couple of other local friends but there will be 50,000 of my friends at Raghbri. Let's see here. Do I cycle with padded shorts? Yes, I do. Not when I'm around town in Boulder. I don't need to. I think I've toughened up my butt enough that I don't need it for short rides. But when I'm on a long extended bike adventure, I definitely bring padded shorts because once you get a saddle sore, it's some of the worst pain in the world. And if I can prevent that, that'd be great. Cause when you're on an adventure, you're already hard enough. You don't need to make it harder for yourself. Let's see. Caleb says apparently the iPad Pro is super capable as a video editing tool now. Yeah, maybe someday I'll travel with an iPad and try editing from the road. But I just, I really like my setup here at home. I can focus more. And I've done the whole editing thing from inside my tent or at a picnic table at a campsite. And I just can't get into the zone as much because when I'm on my bike adventures, I want to be present in the moment. I want to be enjoying what's going on. And if I'm focused all the time on editing, I'm not enjoying the moment because I'm staring at my computer and stressed about exporting a new video every week or something. So when I go on my rides now, I try to be as present as possible. And it's hard even keeping things simplified. Just, you know, I'm always dealing with cameras and batteries and drones and stuff. So I've taken out the editing on the road. Let's see. What will be the weight of your bike with all of your bike packing gear? I think about 70-ish pounds. I don't know what that is in kilograms, but it's pretty heavy. My bike is pretty heavy when it's all packed up with camping gear and food and water. Looks like Jerry greetings from Finland. Currently cycling all around the Baltic Sea. Next country is Sweden. Right on, Jerry. I want to do that Baltic cycling route someday. Okay, I'm looking at more questions here. Have I ever had a case of saddle sores on a long ride? Yes. The first time I did the Baja divide in 2017, I had horrible saddle sores. And it essentially ruined the enjoyment of my experience completely and really brought down my mood because I could not sit on my bike. It was so painful. Dennis says 75 pounds is 30 to 35 kilograms. Thank you for translating that for us. Will you come to the Alps in the future? Yes, I would love to come to the Alps. I want to do more bike touring in Europe. Sweden will be my first bike tour in Europe, which is crazy to say. It seems like I have, but I haven't. I've been to Europe tons and tons of times, but I've never been on a bike adventure in Europe. So I want to do the Alps. I want to ride the Camino de Santiago. I want to do some, I want to ride the length of Great Britain from Lance N to John Grotes, all sorts of fun stuff. Somebody says there is a crazy route around the Annapurna circuit in Nepal as an idea. Yes, I've actually looked at that route in Nepal and I would love to do that someday because I love Nepal. I've been there three times. I love that country. Front range Python says I live in North Boulder. I always keep an eye out for you on the trails. One day I will run into you. Yeah, I'm always out on the trails, mostly running around Wonderland Lake. So yeah, bring out one of your pythons. So I know it's you. Do the North Sea cycle route. Yes, I want to do that someday. Will you update live somewhere so we can catch you? Yes, I will hopefully have some sort of tracking device with me in Sweden so you know where I'm at and I will post that on the community tab of my YouTube channel here pretty soon. I'd leave in two days for Sweden so I don't have a whole lot of time. I got everything together and I will hopefully get all that organized so you can follow me in Sweden. Let's see. Somebody says they have a couch in Germany right on. I don't think I'm gonna hit Germany on this trip but you never know if I go the wrong way. Maybe I'll end up in Germany. Ken says he's going to Nepal with me. Let's do it, buddy. And yeah. So again, if you're just tuning in, I am going to Sweden in two days. I'm gonna be riding from the north of Sweden all the way down to the bottom of Sweden. There is my route over here on Komoot and it's gonna be about 1,500 miles. I'm super excited. Maybe I'll put it over here. It seems to be less glare on it there. And is it better focus here or what there? I don't know. Anyway, so that's my route. I'm super excited. I've been planning it for a long, long time. Also, I'm wearing my fueled by Freehole's T-shirts. If you haven't learned about these awesome shirts, we are selling them right now. It's a fundraiser. We're giving all of the money to the dream team in Iowa to get kids on bikes at Radbrie. And I will put in the link to the T-shirts right now into the chat. So if you wanna buy it, you can do that. Unfortunately, shipping to Europe is very expensive like it always is. And this shirt is also made in the USA. It's the most eco-friendly a shirt can be. I'm also gonna put a link to my book. If you haven't bought my book yet, people are digging it. Ryan, let's see, dozerbook.com is the link. Let's see, dozerbook.com. Bum, ba-da-bum, bum, bum, bum. And here's the link to my book. If you wanna get the book, let's see. What else do we have? Any more questions? I think we'll probably end this in about 10 minutes. So get your questions in. We've already been online for an hour and 20 minutes. Let's see, I don't know if somebody brought it up, but there is a live streamer cycling up to the North Cap Norway and streaming it with a solar trailer called Hitch on Twitch. All right, go look him up. Any chance you'll do women's tees at any point? That's a good question. We need to do that. And I don't have full control over all of it. I'm doing this in conjunction with priority. I don't wanna give them too much work to do, but I do think it would be nice to have t-shirts that are specifically catered towards women, right? That would be cool. And even kids and stuff. Is my wahoo working well? I just got a question. Nope, I just got the Garmin Solar. So this is solar powered and this will hopefully stay alive for a long, long time because I'm going to the land of the midnight sun. And this is my new bike computer. I've never used it. I've been practicing with it. It's very complicated, way more complicated than the wahoo that I had. But I wanted to give this one a shot because of the battery life. It does supposedly last a very, very long time. So that is my new bike computer. Brass Crown says, how has touring changed you as you've gotten older? You know, when I first started bike touring, I would go on very long trips that were like three months long. My first one from Honduras to Boulder was long, you know, across the United States is long, the East West Coast. I was more okay with being away from home for long, long periods of time. But now I really like being home. I love my community. I love being part of Boulder. And so I don't like going on as long of bike tours anymore. So like two to three weeks is about max. You know, this Sweden trip will be my first long trip in quite a while since the Great Divide in 2020. And it's 1500 miles and it'll be a 21 days or so. So that's about, that's probably one of the biggest changes. But other than that, you know, I'm out there just to enjoy it, to have fun. I'm not hammering as big of miles as I used to. And, you know, now bike touring is essentially my job. I create these videos and I share them with you. And so I stop a lot more than I used to when I stopped to interview people and I stopped to get all the beautiful shots and I stopped to get out the drone. And even in the old days, when I was documenting my rides, I really just didn't film all that much. I filmed little bits every day and then make one long video at the end of an experience. But now I really try to film a ton so that I can make a video for pretty much every single day that I'm out on an adventure. Yeah, hometown is Colorado. I'm confused. Yeah, hometown is Boulder. Boulder is a town in Colorado. Colorado is the state. Thanks for taking the time to chat. Have a great trip. Says John Mason Hill. Do you prefer water bottles or hydration pack? Great question. It really depends. I have a new hydration pack that I've been using since the Colorado Trail in 2021. And I love it. It's comfortable. It fits tons of water. It's also a safer place to keep my cameras. I had been keeping my cameras and bags on my handlebars and they just rattle and bounce and they just get beat up. And so now I keep my cameras on my backpack. So that hydration pack acts as a way to carry my cameras safely. But I also like water bottles as well. So one is not better than the other. It's just whatever works best for you. If we can support you, name your donation page again. Yes, I don't have a donation page going right now. If you wanna support my channel, Patreon is really the best way to do that. I'll put a link to it right now. Patreon.com slash Ryan Van Dooser. And that helps keep the channel alive for sure. But you don't have to do that if you don't want to. You don't have to financially help me. Just watching my videos and being a subscriber and sharing my content with your friends is incredibly helpful. And I want my videos to be available for everybody. FrankBike says, dude, I leave next weekend for Norway for a bikepacking trip through the Lafoten Islands all because I started watching your videos back in 2020. Right on, Frank. Have a great time out there. E-Bike Outdoor says, just in case I don't get a chance to say this before the live end wanna say good luck on your trip. Your energy has really helped with my mental health state, right on. I am very happy to hear that. Happy to help you on your daily life and your journeys. Are you in contact with John and Mira during the Great Divide? Yes, so John and Mira are racing the Great Divide right now. I have talked to him many times on the phone. He's doing well. And I will put their live tracking link into the chat right now if you wanna look at John and Mira's live location. They have a little beacon with them and it'll show you exactly where they are. And so I just posted that down there. It's on track leaders. Well, I see John and Mira on their tour divide trek. I will not, unfortunately, I leave Tuesday. They will be coming through Colorado after that. So I'm going to miss them. But John says he's gonna finish the tour divide down at the bottom of New Mexico, turn around and head back up. And he's gonna come through Boulder sometime in July. Hopefully I will get to see him when I get back from Sweden. And before I leave for Raghbri, we will see. Biking NS Mark 75. Cheers from Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia in the house, right on. All right, I'm gonna do this for about five more minutes and then say goodbye to all of you wonderful humans. Thank you so much for being here as always. Thanks for watching my videos. I did just release today a long episode or a long version of the Oaxaca adventure that John and I did in January. I've been doing this. I make the episodic videos day by day after I get home from an adventure. And then when I have the time, I edit together a long format piece and I take out all of the music. I leave in all the natural sounds. I take out a lot of the dialogue. So it's mostly just riding shots. And so these videos I've heard are really good to watch when you're on your trainer and you just want something beautiful to look at. So for all of my adventures now, I do a long version and I just released today the long version of Oaxaca and there's tons of cute footage of Mira. Mira's everybody's favorite as we all know. Tim says, Ryan for president. President of what? President of a bean company? President of United States? I don't know. I don't think I'm gonna get into politics but I appreciate the love. Chris says, love the videos from Oaxaca. Carl says, good luck, have fun. Also I will not be having videos for the next month. There will be nothing on my channel for the next month, I'm sorry. But I'm gonna be busy in Sweden. And when I get back, I'll have tons of new content for you. So stay tuned. Chris says, just wanted to say I've thoroughly enjoyed your videos and your book. You have been a big inspiration. Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate it. You're awesome. You know, I say thank you to you all the time. And I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I would not be able to do what I do without all of you watching my videos. And it means the world to me that you enjoy my content. It's so cool. And it's so cool that I'm going to Sweden now and I'm gonna be able to connect with a lot of my Swedish viewers in real life. E-Bike Outdoor says, just started the Rwanda tour. It really has blown me away. Yes, the Rwanda videos are awesome. If you haven't seen them, go check them out. I had never been to Africa before with my first time. And it was just stunning in so many different ways. Samuel says, you got a trademark on no crashes, no whammies. I don't have a trademark but I doubt anybody's gonna be trying to steal that anytime soon because it's just interesting and weird, right? I know I love saying no flaties, no crashes, no whammies. It's my good luck mantra that I put out into the world that I've been doing for 20 years now. But it's definitely dorky. I know it's dorky, but I love it. You know, I'm a dorky kind of guy. Martin says, John and Mira are foreseen to win the divide in the human canine category. That's right. They are definitely gonna win for that category. No doubt. Emma says, thank you for spreading so much joy and good luck on your rights. Thank you so much Emma, taxa yet to meet get. Ryan, you are the cause of and the person that inspired me to cross the USA. I saw your episode about crossing America many times in all the episodes of love cycles. Your fault, man. Well, I'm glad that that's my fault. I will take full blame for inspiring you to ride your bike across the country because that is a good thing. And I hope you're having a wonderful time. Many Olay's in Sweden. I hope so, hope I go under a lot of tunnels so I can Olay all across Sweden. If you are Swedish, if you're watching this in Sweden, I will be out there, be on the lookout for me. I will post my roots in the community tab of my YouTube channel. Ian says, hello from England. What's up Ian? How are you doing? Karissa says, thanks for taking us along and all your adventure. Thank you Karissa, you're awesome. Oh, it's so fun to be here with all of you. I enjoyed your book. I read from cover to cover. It was awesome. Thank you, Sherrys, Trikes and Tractors. I really appreciate it. You are awesome. My book is available now. If you wanna buy it, I'm gonna put the link in the chat right now. Boom, I just put it in there. As you know, the book is about my first adventure and how it led to a life and a very unique and different life of chasing adventure and sharing stories with the world. And I'm really proud of it. I really think it's a good book and I'm not just saying it because it's mine and I wrote it, but I really do think it's a good book. Peppermint says, be safe my friend, have an awesome trip. When is your book out in e-book format? It should be soon. I keep on saying that, but I just need to get my stuff together and make it e-format friendly. I know a lot of you around the world are waiting for that because the shipping is incredibly expensive to Europe or around the world. Jared and Jamil says, Ryan, before you get off, wanted to say have an enjoyable and safe trip. Have fun, love your channel. Thank you, Jared and Jamil. I appreciate it. Rian says, thank you, Ryan. You're a great inspiration to us all. Got the world of respect for you. Thank you so much. Nice to be able to connect like this. Hopefully we can meet someday. Yes, I would love to meet every single one of you someday, that is the goal. Anonymous Onyx says, have you ever been in Texas? I've been in Texas many times. I've actually ridden my bike all across Texas back in 2011, rode my bike all the way across Texas. Thunderbird says, had five flaties in the last month. So I decided it's finally to go tubeless. It is finally time to go tubeless for sure. That's a great way to go. You have just an ability to not get flats when you have a tubeless setup. Skip says, hi, a new subscriber from the Netherlands. Hello. Thank you for subscribing. Have a great time in Sweden. First started watching your channel in lockdown and it saved me from some real mental health struggles. Well, thank you so much. I'm glad that I was able to put a smile on your face. The goal with my videos really is just to make people happy. That's the goal, to share what I'm seeing with you and the wonderful humans that I meet and showing that the world is really quite a beautiful place. If you pay attention to the nightly news, it's depressing. It's scary. They focus on all the bad stuff. And I'm not saying that that's necessarily a bad thing, but they don't need to talk about it constantly. The 24-hour news cycle is just so depressing. So I try to create content that will put a smile on your face and make you feel better about being a human here on planet Earth. John says, greetings from New Jersey. Sweden is coming. Let's see, my first bikepacking tour for almost 15 years next week in Sweden, right on Tour Selden. Maybe I'll see you out there. Let's see, Ian says I should do a cycle trip around the world. Yeah, maybe someday, but that would take a long time. All right, it is 1030 Colorado time I've been on for an hour and a half. Thank you all so much. Thank you all for the super chat, bonus money. Your guys are great. I really appreciate it. I will put that to good use in Sweden. I will be buying some vegetarian meatballs from Ikea. You are awesome. Thank you so much for watching my channel always. You are amazing. All of you have a wonderful summer if you're in the Northern Hemisphere. If you're in the Southern Hemisphere, I guess you're getting ready for winter. And yeah, here we go, Sweden. I can't wait. It's a dream many, many years in the making. And I will be sharing the Swedish videos with you when I get back in mid July. So stay tuned for that. And then I will be going to Raghbri. If you're going to Raghbri, I will see you there. It is going to be awesome. You guys are all wonderful humans. And I will see you down the road. And don't forget to get off your couch, get out there. Woo!