 Hey, Aljopa and welcome to my big Swedish adventure I'm riding the length of Sweden from north to south in the previous episode I got acquainted with dinosaur sized mosquitoes and a little bit of mud and some rain. Oh, man It was fun. So let's do it again. I was hoping to wake up to No sounds of rain it's been like this all night Boy, at least I slept well Thank you cozy tent They'll be able to stay here all day Good morning mosquitoes, I've missed you. I look puffy don't I? So I don't have a cell reception here But my Garmin will tell me the weather which is really cool The not cool part is it says 100% chance of rain at 7 90% at 11 90 at 1 90 at 3 You know, it'll make this situation a little bit better peanut butter Nutella for sure I'm just trying to Stay a little positive about the situation. This is not ideal at all It's gonna be wet and cold packing up it's not gonna be fun And then the roads gonna be super slow and muddy even last night. I was just You know getting stuck in the mud all the time I'm just sitting here kicking myself Laughing to myself that I should have just stayed in that town and gotten a hotel. I Would be warm and All my stuff would be dry and I could wait out the storm The 10 miles that I gained last night after dinner were not worth this Man but you know I look at situations like this as learning moments You know Some of the toughest times of my life when I was on that survival show in The jungles of Venezuela It was really hard it was really uncomfortable But I look back on that experience is one of the most valuable experiences of my life Because I really just had to dig deep to get through just impossible times and this is not an impossible time It's uncomfortable and it's a bummer, but You know sometimes life throws things at you that That you don't choose like I choose I chose this I chose to be here I chose this adventure but sometimes life gives you stuff that you don't choose and You just kind of be ready for all those moments and this is like practice. This is practice for the tough times in life And I'll get through this. It's just rain. I Have all the clothes. I have all the gear. I have all the technology to get me through this. Oh Boy gloomy morning I just tried to stop and pee and mosquitoes are all over me. I Can't do anything Help Can you see all the mosquitoes there? Can you see that? Check this out that looks like very fresh Reindeer poop it must have come by last night to bless my tent. Thank you Reindeer. Oh God mosquitoes are nuts. They're nuts. I thought don't they ever take a break. Oh I just heard something it's my alarm going off nothing like a little billy idle to get you going Yeah, oh God, I just keep thinking I should have stayed at a hotel Everywhere summer in Sweden so lovely Midnight, son. I love it Haven't even seen the midnight sun. Oh Almost there almost there The rain is actually not that bad right now. It's the mosquitoes God oh god. Here we go. Here we go Okay, thank you dry piece of land and mosquito infested area. Let us get out of here. Let's get out of here Thank you. Thank you not forgetting anything mornings like this where you're scrambling are always dangerous because you can easily forget something But I seem to be good The road looks real bad This might be possible. Oh, I should have stayed in a hotel. What am I doing? No crashes no flatties no whammies no mud no rain no mosquitoes Geez oh It does feel good to be moving though Oh What have I got myself into And with this European divide trail, there's really not a whole lot of towns or services It does look like there's a place up here called cove d'alice. I Can't tell if it has hotels. I can just see on my map that there's a small grid of streets and stuff So we will see and that's about 50 miles away It's not if it gets really bad again, then I will just put the tent up and Call it a day I don't know but I'm hoping that I find something need some trail magic today Come on trail magic. You know, it's ironic. It's been a really really wet rainy spring and boulder tons of rain and I guess here up until yesterday Was very hot and dry So this is one of those instances where I definitely brought the weather with with me And you know what it's gonna feel so good Once the Sun finally does come out That'll be an amazing feeling But yeah, it's a little spooky. There's no doubt This is not fun This is not fun anymore But it will be fun at some point just not right now Now a lot of you have heard me talk about wipe this lens a little bit that helped a lot of you have heard me talk about the gratitude March and I usually do that in races or Moments on bike tours that are really physically hard and everything aches and I'm in pain But now is a good time for the gratitude March And I just think about everybody I love and it warms my heart my mom and brothers and sister and dad and Nate nieces and nephews And again it just helps keep my mind off the discomfort of the moment I Really enjoy thinking about the good things in life And it's all family usually family and friends the simple things a nice sunny day in Boulder a Nice sunny day in Sweden someday Haven't really experienced a full-on sunny day yet here so yeah, I'm just Putting out a lot of love into the world And I love what love for you who are watching this right now. I Really appreciate it like this is my job. I get to do this. I'm choosing to do this and It's a dream situation. No doubt. It's a moose up there running across the Road It's raining it's pouring Okay, I'm about sick of this now Where'd you go moose I saw you you just ran right into these woods You know in moments like these it's really easy to focus on the bad Because it's uncomfortable and it just takes over all your thoughts and you get scared and you start being driven by fear But Most of this trip has been great the first day day was smooth besides traffic Yesterday was 85% good You know I met some wonderful people had some great moments The riding was pleasant It's just been since yesterday at about 6 p.m. Where? Things have gone south and are comfortable. Oh, it looks like I'm off-road here hold on I Did not see a place to go back here It did not look Like a place where I want to ride my bike damn anyway Yeah So I'm trying to focus on the good here And it wants me to go that way really really That way That doesn't look fun in there That looks like a bog Wonder if there's a way I can avoid this And the hard thing about navigating right now is these screens don't work well in the rain Fun time No, this is not what I wanted to deal with today. Here we go It's adventure time This road probably isn't too bad when it's dry But obviously right now it's not dry. I'm riding along making a ton of noise just to spook any bears or moose Garmin just got excited about something Mud mud mud come on buddy come on buddy rain and now Right when I get off The smooth road and turn into a bog The crazy thing is you'd think there wouldn't be mosquitoes. It's so rainy, but they're all over me every time I slow down No more please There's a double whammy happening right now rain and mosquitoes Today's turning out to be pretty interesting, isn't it? And it's only like I don't know 10 30 in the morning Okay, this is much better Tiny victories tiny victories Check it out. I'm on a smooth road. Oh, it's the little things right now that are making me happy The rain hasn't stopped, but at least this road is nice And smooth Nothing lasts forever the good doesn't last forever the bad the muddy roads the mosquitoes Everything has its time and its moment And that's why I keep moving forward Okay, now I'm getting cold Everything is soaked through Yeah, that's when things get Worry some you don't want to get too cold out here So I'm trying to pedal as fast as I can just to keep my body temperature up my core This rain is does not seem to be going anywhere So here I am riding by my favorite red and white summer stew guys Summer houses and I knock on the door at this place and I said hey is there any place to rent around here? And he says yes, you can have this one And my friend here on us it's from Denmark and he's also riding the European divide. How you doing buddy? I'm tired. Did you deal with rain yesterday? Yeah It was the first time I had real rain. Yeah Yeah, yeah And these people saved you as well I'm not sure if it's true Yeah, yeah And these people saved you as well? Yeah They did Oh my gosh, I'm so happy I'm so happy Thank you so much, you're so nice Is it normal weather right now? No, I've had really good weather all the time Really? Yeah It started raining yesterday I've had 28-29 degrees of heat Which tour? I have But it's going to be better tomorrow Okay, that's good Better weather tomorrow So how's the European divide been? Really hard But you having fun? Yeah Yeah, but it's been a lot harder than I expected Yeah, I would say so too, just the rain has made it really hard in the last couple of days When it's dry the gravel roads here are amazing Yeah But when it's wet, the sand just gets everywhere Yesterday I could hear the drivetrain Yeah You could hear the sand in it Just grinding away All the lube had been washed out I'm really glad we're not out there, right? So that all happened pretty quickly And I didn't capture it all that well on camera But I'm riding down this road Getting absolutely drenched And I just thought I'm going to stop and ask people here If they know of hotels or something in the town where I was headed Kobdali, which is like 20 miles from where I am now So I knocked on the door And the Swedes being Swedes are just like, come in I don't even know who it is So I opened the door and I'm like, hey You know, I'm riding You know, the European divide Are there places to rent down the road? They're like, we don't know about that But you can just stay here and then boom Everything just went into action He was like, yeah, you can stay here And then they're like, by chance We have this young Danish guy Who's also riding the great divide Or European divide And he's here too And here I am in my very own little Swedish soma stuga And they're just so generous and kind He kept bringing towels and stuff And he's like, come get lunch here pretty soon And I am so happy to be out of that rain Oh man And this morning when I got on my bike And I was like, why am I doing this? Why am I continuing into this mess? This is why For moments like this This makes everything worth it It makes everything so... Just so beautiful when you connect with awesome humans Who are just willing to help Immediately and knocked on the door They're like, yeah man, you can stay here Didn't think twice about it So cool These are the moments The opinion gearbox And the gate belt drive shine All that mud and gunk and sand Didn't stop me A traditional drivetrain would have Have a hard time In these type of conditions But I'm thankful for this technology I am hanging everything out to dry Pretty much everything Is just soaking wet See all those? Those are mosquitoes That is so gross They must have gotten in there When I was packing up my tent this morning That gives you an idea of how many mosquitoes Want to come in my tent And suck my blood every night Hey there Guess what? I might be pointing out the obvious But it's not raining There's nothing falling out of the sky right now And I am dry And I'm happy And I'm dry and I'm happy Man, this morning was rough I don't think I've ever had to pack up camp In those types of conditions And every day I'm here I feel more connected With my past in Sweden You know, and I hear people speaking Swedish And I'm picking up words again I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot about that word And I feel good and I feel happy And I feel dry Have I said that yet? Oh yes So there's my route That's what I've already ridden And I have to go all the way down To the bottom I have a really long way to go And it's a little overwhelming And I was hoping to be doing bigger days But this European divide is tough I have a tight timeline I have a plane to get home already So I might have to rethink my route In order to get down to the bottom of Sweden I'm only on day three But I'm already having some of those thoughts Like oh boy I'm far But at least I'm having a great time And I say that with total honesty Like even today and last night They were rough, they were scary They were uncomfortable but I'm loving it And like I've said many times I'm loving it because of the people Anders saved the day today And we just sat and had meals And chatted all evening And it's just so fun to connect with humans All over the world Especially here in Sweden A place that I love with all of my heart And tomorrow's a new day And I'm hoping for Sun Or at least no rain We shall see And I'm just going to keep on going And see how far I get This is an adventure This is my adventure I chose to be here There's no rules And I'm just out here To have a great experience And to share it with you And hopefully inspire you To come to northern Sweden And get eaten by mosquitoes You know what I mean Inspire you to get on your bike Or do something fun And I truly believe that tough times Make me a better person They really do I learn a lot about myself I build confidence And I get really soft And tender and vulnerable In those moments And I think about everybody Who I love And those are all good things Those are all good practices And next time I'm in a similar situation I'll be like, you know what? I got this I've been through this before And everything turned out okay As eerie as today was It was also magical and mystical I mean it looked beautiful out there With the rain and the drizzle And the green And I saw a couple moose That's neat That's cool That doesn't happen every day And so even when it's tough I like to appreciate The cool things that life throws at you And I'll look back on this day I promise With very fond memories This is one of those days in my life Where I will never forget it I will never forget today And you can't say that about every day Some days are just kind of like Routine and boring Today A lot of stuff happened There he is It's Mike How you doing buddy? Good to see you Hey I just wanted to jump in and say hi Hi If you enjoy my videos And they bring value to your life Please consider joining my Patreon Your support will keep my channel alive So that I can continue making content For you to enjoy And Not only will you be supporting my channel But you will get early release videos And videos with zero ads And from time to time I do these really fun live zoom chats With my Patrons Where you can ask me all sorts of questions About anything you want So consider supporting me I will link it down below Also I wrote a book About my very first adventure Called The Long Way Home And I think it's pretty good And my mom thinks it's pretty good So maybe you'll think it's good too I will link this down below If you would like to purchase it The national orders are tough The shipping is crazy So this is pretty much just for my United States friends Anyway, thank you so much for watching this video This is going to be an awesome series And stay tuned for the next one And the next one And the next one And the next one Hey doll