Steve: Day 273-288: Helsinki to Nordkapp to Tromso

July 2, 2025 to July 17, 2025

I’m still not sure exactly why I headed off on this race to Nordkapp. Someone I met on the side of the road asked me this (a day after another soaking rain and while there was a ferocious headwind) and I was at a loss for an answer. I guess I’d just wanted to see Nordkapp once. Now I have. It could be a case of ‘one and done’.

When I was at Nordkapp, there was a Danish guy who rode in and was very disappointed that it’s basically a tourist trap. I didn’t really expect anything else. I’ve had this a few times on long bicycle trips – the whole point is the journey rather than the destination. This is a classic (as was Ushuaia). It was the end of the road, and it would have been irresponsible of the Norwegians not to capitalise and charge the hordes of tourists in busses / motorhomes / motorbikes (but of course, not cyclists or walkers) an outrageous parking fee and equally outrageous entry fee to the museum / coffee shop. I was pretty happy to have got there – and was extremely lucky with the weather at the cape. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Finland is quite long. It looks huge on the map – partly because the map projection accentuates the distances closer to the poles, partly because it is huge. One thing that was pretty fun was watching the sunset and sunrise times approach each other as I went north, and then the GPS suddenly could no longer calculate the sunset time north of the arctic circle. Even now, almost a month after the summer solstice the sun doesn’t set in the north. It does get colder as the sun approaches the horizon but doesn’t get dark. The land of the midnight sun.

I’m skirting around describing Finland. Basically there are trees. And lakes. Trees and lakes. And mosquitos. Trees, lakes and mosquitos. And freezing cold rain and wind some of the time.

When there are no trees, likely there's a lake

More trees. We can do this all day. For many days.

The best way to avoid the mosquitoes when not in the tent is to keep riding. Part of the reason for some of the long days.

At least its not going to rain under here

I must admit I almost gave up a couple of times in Finland. First time I was woken by rain, packed up in the rain, and was loading the bike when I noticed a flat tyre. That wasn’t fun. Next time was when I was being seriously mauled by mozzies and every other biting insect joined in. And then again after 100km of rain. But this time I was rescued by a café who let me sit in front of their fire for an hour and they fed me reindeer and salmon sandwiches. That last one turned out pretty well and was a good reminder of why I like to do this.

Never fun having a flat tyre - worse when it's raining and cold

I had a target to get to Nordkapp before Cath was done touring in Italy with her family. I thought I’d need to average 140 km/day. On a good day (no rain) I worked out I could ride a bit further than this: 160-200 km. As the distance per day increased, I (stupidly) wondered if I was too old, or could repeat my longest ever day (and put it on Strava, so now it ‘happened’). And with the help of the midnight sun (and hindered by the sudden appearance of rolling hills just when I thought it would be totally flat forever) I rode for 16 hours one day to get 300km in a day (does it count as one day if you finish at 4am – well into the next day?). And then collapsed into the tent. It was actually a nice experience riding for hours and hours with the road to myself and the sun not setting. I ended up with Helsinki to Nordkapp in ten days, averaging 162 km/day. With my heavily loaded touring bike (I don’t think I could have gone much faster!)

So that was Finland in a nutshell. Trees, lakes and mozzies.

Norway is completely different in the far north (that’s all I’ve seen). Rugged (low) mountains forming fjords. Some trees, but nothing like Finland. Far fewer bugs (although the horse flies are a significant hazard) – again, just don’t stop and they can’t get a hold.

Yeah, it's alright up here with the midnight sun. Makes you want to ride at night!

I arrived at Nordkapp two days after the really long day. And the weather was ridiculous. Sunshine at Nordkapp. I don’t know how often that happens, but I feel it was pretty good luck. The road doesn’t go to the most northern point (if you even count the island as part of the mainland), just the most dramatic place on top of the cliffs. To hit the northern point there is an 18 km walk (9 km each way). I don’t expect to come back here, so I did the walk as well. I haven’t walked that far in some time, so suffered the next few days – exhausted by the ride north, then with bad DOMS from the walk.

After some miserable days, jagged a ripper at the Kapp

I honestly hadn’t properly considered how to get back to Germany until the day before getting to Nordkapp. I had vague ideas of hitchhiking, riding (another 2500 km at break-neck pace?), or a combination of trains/ferries/busses. I was slightly disappointed to learn that the cheapest, fastest and the way that would give me the most time in Norway would be to fly. What a shame that taking the train is so much more expensive. I rode south from Nordkapp to Tromso (a bit slower, on wobbly legs) and flew to Amsterdam. The real annoying thing about flying with a bike is finding an airline that takes bikes and getting a bike box and packing all the panniers into a box to fly. I almost ran out of time at the airport trying to squeeze my heavy bike and panniers into a large bike box (that was too heavy) and a small (too small!) box for everything else. There are so many cyclists in the north of Norway in summer. One day heading south, I was told (by some German cyclists I kept bumping in to) that we’d passed 40 cyclists heading north. Popular place!

Today's ride: 2 km (1 miles)
Total: 14,973 km (9,298 miles)

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