 Hey, Aljopa and welcome to my big Swedish adventure I'm riding the length of Sweden from north to south in the previous episode. We got to herd some reindeer I ate my first Swedish black bean burrito. I slapped off a million horseflies But you know what the Sun is shining and I'm a happy boy. I love the sound of birds in the morning and also that Woohoo! The Sun is so bright, but I love it. I'll take bright Sun, hot Sun any day over storm clouds I'm sitting in here Trying to stretch my knee doing some flossing exercises to Hopefully make my knee hurt or hurt feel better. This is where it's hurt right around the inside right here It is time for a breakfast in bed peanut butter Nutella tortilla We are behind the scenes of a youtuber YouTubing okay news flash my friends. So I always knew that the Euro divide trail might be a little ambitious It just zigzags a lot. So there's a ton of extra mileage And I'm just not getting the miles in that I need to get down to the bottom I already have a plane ticket and I want to spend some time with my host family. So last night. I was sitting in my tent messing around with the commute app and what I have done is I've created a new route and From here all the way down to the bottom and the cool thing with commute is you can say hey I want to be on as many dirt roads as possible. So I used the mountain bike feature and It's cut off a few hundred miles from the my original route And it hopefully will put me in areas with more services fewer mosquitoes not as deep in the woods And we're gonna see if this works. I don't know. This is not an established route This is just what commute spit out. And so from here to the bottom is 880 miles still a lot of miles Sweden is a huge country and we'll see what happens, you know every day is an adventure and You just take them day by day. There he is the man the myth the legend bike touring Mike We're ready for today. Yeah, all right. What do you think about our new route? Think it it It's interesting. It's all part of the adventure when you make a new route. I know that area pretty well as well, but but There are a lot of sections where there might be highways that we have to go up on what we'll try to avoid them as much as we can and Yeah, highways are worse than mosquitoes. Yeah Are you ready to go? Okay, it's time for a morning That was a quick one, but it got us going here we go Head in south. Oh, we have another one right on head in south. No crash. He's no flat He's no whammy's no knee problem. He's it already hurts, but we'll see what happens Oh Lay Oh Lay, did you know that an Oley a day keeps the doctor away? I had to stop here on the way out of town check out this house So beautiful, I love it. It's like a little I Don't know what that is called some sort of troll house So far so good on the route we've only got a couple miles there have been times where commute has Messed me up and sent me down roads where you definitely can't go on So we'll see what happens every time you get to a spot where you think you can't get through you find a way around It always works out. Oh This is the big hill this is by far the biggest hill I've encountered on the ride so far When I chose mountain bike option on commute I chose that because I wanted the most dirt Possible and the gravel options didn't seem to give me much dirt And so yeah, it's giving it to us. What have I gotten us into look at this bench right here? I think we should sit down and enjoy this This bench in the middle of nowhere I don't know who put this bench here, but I am very grateful for it It's a nice place to rest my knee and you know the best thing about this situation No bugs. I'm sitting here and Just enjoying it like I Would in a typical forest that's not infested by mosquitoes and horse flies. Well, we made it to the top of that beautiful road Unfortunately, it just ends. It's done Come on We're gonna go down what we just came up. I'm sorry for Lord Okay, back down we go All you can do is smile in these situations by bench at least we got to sit on that awesome bench Okay, so it turns out it wasn't commutes fault There is a little road up here that we missed and Now we're gonna go that way. It might be a whole day of this Come on me Let's get it together Well, I guess it gave us kind of a mountain bike route didn't it? Now we're gonna go up an even steeper road That's all right. It's comedy of errors this morning. We'll figure it out Whoo, this is so steep It's helping me Forget about my knee pain This is pretty ironic the whole point of making this new route was so that it would be more direct and faster So far that is not the case Like the Red Cross is on the trees. We see all the long hair Means that this is a snowball mid-track during the winter time. Oh, okay. So humans do come here It's not just us dummies But they have powerful engines Taking them forward And so do we So Mickey was just telling me about a fun Swedish saying that I I did not know what is it? It's in Swedish. It's called genvägar är ofta senvägar And it kind of means that short cuts often turn out into detours in the end Yeah, and that's quite true today. Yeah, this is the long cut, but it's beautiful out here It's absolutely stunning. It's sunny and glorious and I will take this any day. I Don't know if we can do the mountain bike option the whole way down. This is pretty slow going but at least for this morning It's pretty fun It might be slow going But it is definitely beautiful And there's no bugs That makes me happy We just Popped out of the magical forest into someone's lawn somebody's lawn Yeah, I'm thankful that this is happening and Sweden running into somebody's yard because in the United States Could be a different story. They take their private property very seriously So we got to a paved road and we got out commute again and we remade a route And hopefully this will be faster. This road seems pretty chill and safe You feel good about this Yeah, we said that we just as we picked up the camera, of course two cars had to drive by We've basically seen just one or two cars in the last five minutes. So yeah, it seems pretty chill here Hurren läget mycket Be bra That's a good word bra means good B. R. A Here's another Swedish lesson for you says acta vora barn showers acta I'm guessing you can guess what that means watch out for our kids drive carefully Or bike carefully, right Mickey don't hit any kids on your bike Sweden really takes care of its people They get a lot of vacation if you have a kid you get like how many days off if you have a child Four hundred and eighty days off That's amazing in the United States. They're like, yeah, you get a couple months and you got to go back to work mom Sweden does it right. I love I love this country. Yeah, it's just fair here. What else does Sweden do right? Who Claude Bollard? Yeah So down here in southern Lapland It's opening up a bit. It's not just deep dense forest and I like to be able to See the forest are cool But they block all the views and now I'm starting to be able to see Some of the landscape and the rolling hills And I really enjoy it. I Am going to eat this yummy Lawful wrap so good and instead of getting a Fanta, which I do love I got this somewhat healthy probiotic drink with ginger I'm really trying to eat better on these bike tours It's so easy to eat junk food when you stop at places like this and you're starving and all you want It's candy and candy bars and ice cream. What about you? Do you find healthy food to eat on bike tours? No, I'm Unfortunately, it's pretty much the same. I just buy I have this this is the most typical Swedish candy You can get go to Blondott I have that when I enter a big climb as a sort of comfort Mikke just told me that that is the Sami flag and that one of course is the Swedish flag Hey, yes, Feria. All right. This is a very enjoyable lunch stop warm quiet tranquil We've got some goodies. All right. You ready? Yeah, let's do it Look at that view Beautiful. Yeah, it's pretty incredible Don't go too far you're gonna crash into the flowers Yeah, come take some shelter here, buddy. It's not perfect, but it's better We're definitely getting a lot more rain than I thought I thought it was gonna be a little sprinkle So what kind of Swedish rain is this? This is your like typical afternoon rain during June and July We get these showers at like three o'clock usually this will blow over in 15 minutes tops. All right Seems like the storm has ended Thank you barn on the side of the highway for Lettness take cover on paved roads now for maybe the last 60 kilometers or so All right So I just made another new commute track this morning We were on the mountain bike track, but it was a little bit too much So we jumped off under that road, which is a beautiful road But now I used the gravel option which will hopefully be a little bit more mild than the mountain bike stuff And we're getting off what on what looks to be a beautiful road into the woods heading south heading straight to Malmo and The Sun is out and it is beautiful. How you doing over here, buddy? Oh, he's filming me. He's a little ninja Having two youtubers on one ride is exciting. There's cameras all the time So here we go. You ready? Yeah, you're up school school So I'm thinking We camp next to a beautiful body of water Maybe there's even a shelter. What do you think? That's what I'm thinking in my head. That's what I'm Keeps me motivated going forward here. That's right. Let's put that energy out into the world so we were just riding by This summer house and look this thing is called the Maypole And this is what they build on mid summer afternoon and they decorate it with Flowers and leaves and this is where you dance So as a kid, I'm sure you dance around the Maypole so many times I spent my summers in Dalana, which Ryan might be going through later And that's like the epicenter of the Swedish mid-summer celebration So we used to drive our caravan down there with my family and dance around the Maypole Nowadays I might just need to have a couple of glasses of wine before I dance around but Ryan spreading so much positive energy that I'm making an exception for his You're the best Thank you for Doing a little dance with me. I haven't danced around the Maypole in Sweden for a long long time And it just it brings back Really vibrant memories of being an exchange student and how much I love This country small grudena small grudena elustiga et sei I guess I didn't tell you what that all means. It means small frogs are funny to see small frogs Are funny to see Goodbye Maypole That was fun It's always good to get off your bike and stretch your legs in a different way You ready to rock and roll? I would just like to add that we were not in somebody's backyard That maypole was at like the community house for this little village I'm not that bold just to walk into somebody's backyard without getting permission Singing small grudena. Yeah, they're like like what is that guy with a weird Swedish accent doing? Do you think it's weird how much I love lupin flowers? Yeah the weeds Ryan come on I mean, there's so many of them along the roads, but I always want to stop and Get shots of them. They're just so beautiful. I love them, but he says they're weeds in Sweden Not in Colorado. We love them Whoa, what did we just find? Did we find a cool shelter? Next to a river Oh, yeah This is a deluxe shelter. Look at that Man, this is a big one But what is the best part is this? Right next to a river And there's also a picnic table And I can't tell you how much I love picnic tables When I'm camping just to help spread out all my stuff From the other side of the river where the shelter is I could see A little beach and I've made my way down here and check it out. There is indeed A little sandy beach Even with chairs Look at that water makes everything better. It just does I sleep a lot better when I jump in water Mexican casserole meal, what? So I offered this to Ryan, but then I read the last part of this and realized it wouldn't be a good fit for him Man It's very kind of you to offer that So I got this for him instead. It's a vegan tikka masala. So I hope that will do for you Oh, you're so kind. Do it so soon. Let's see it. Wow. That looks pretty good Mexican casserole With beans as well. Of course. There's got to be beans. That's the only way you can go bikepacking. That's power So this is a rain map here, huh? Yeah Looks like we might have some in the next hour We have a slider down here so we can predict the future I can see the clouds right there. They look a little dark If all else fails We go in there Good knots. I mean ven. Thank you for another great day. That was awesome. Yeah That was really great one more in the books one more in the books And it was a fun one And I think we're gonna have an even better day tomorrow I think this area coming up here is really spectacular So I'm I'm glad to be able to show it to to ryan and to you guys. Yeah, right on my man We'll sleep well. Yep And uh, don't let the bed bugs and mosquitoes and gnats and other things bite The trick now like when you pitch their tent Is to get inside of your tent without taking too many mosquitoes with you Let's see you do it. Yeah, do the tent dive No, I'm a couple of minutes before I Okay, good night, man And I've said this many times but When you're on a bike tour It feels like you're living two days and one because so much happens like I'm sitting here thinking about this morning You know riding those rough trails out of town and I'm like wow that was today that seems like last week But it was fun and it was an adventure and You know what I like about My time here in this particular adventure is it kind of changes every day like I thought I was going to do the the divide trail and then I changed and I thought I was going to do something today and then change that and you know Whatever happens happens as long as I'm going south I'm good and it's been really fun to hang out with mike and get to know him better and learn from him about This area, you know, I didn't have many friends in sweden from way northern sweden So this is this is new Now it's time to sleep and listen to the sounds of the river Good night And thank you for making it to the very end of this video You get a high five I am here to say hey, thank you for watching my videos But also if my videos bring value to your life If you love them with all your heart and soul or even just a little bit of your heart and soul Please consider joining my patreon. You will help keep this channel alive But you will also get stuff you will get early release videos with no ads Which is very cool And I sometimes do zoom calls with my patrons You will have direct access to me through patreon to ask me any question you want and like I said You're keeping this channel alive and also hey, I wrote a book. It's called the long way home It's about my very first adventure from honduras to colorado and it talks a lot about how it's inspired me to live An interesting life to say the least my mom loves it. So maybe you'll love it too I will link all this down below But more than anything, thank you so much for watching my videos. You are awesome Now it's time for you to get off that couch And get out there