| Summary | Matthew and Eric Gilbertson |
| Owner | Matthew Gilbertson |
| Creation Date | 2010-08-24 13:48:21 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Matthew and Eric Gilbertson
June 21 – August 14, 2010 3300 miles bicycled 47 days of cycling 16 days above the Arctic Circle 58.1N average latitude from May 14-Aug 14 (=northern tip of Newfoundland) 13 countries visited: Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland 10 country high points summitted 12 flat tires 5 nights paid to sleep 9.4 days per shower (average) 0 dry & sunny days in Lapland (out of 20) Through our bike ride from Alaska to Montana in 2008 we discovered that cycling is a good way to see the country. It’s four times faster than walking and it’s much stealthier than driving a car. You feel the sense of accomplishment of seeing the world by your own power instead of the power of gasoline. You don’t just see the scenery, you feel it. You sweat every uphill and roar down every downhill; you curse every rainstorm and cherish every tailwind. When you want to camp it’s easy: you find a flat spot and plunge into the bushes. If you’re good at “stealth camping” the only thing you actually need to pay for is food and the occasional bike part. After the summer of 2008 we were looking for the next spectacular place to go for a long ride… The summer after we finished our Master’s Degree but before we started our PhD was the perfect time for a ride. We persuaded our advisors to let us off the hook from May 15th to September 7th. We decided to pick northern Europe for the ride because of its plentiful summer daylight and big potential bang for your buck in terms of countries per mile. Plus, we could visit Norway, the land of some of our ancestors. Since we had already climbed Mt McKinley in May (trip report here), we wanted to add some more country high points to our list, so we would swing by as many country high points as we had time for. It sounded like a big adventure. We packed our bikes and glacier gear and our parents brought us to the Cincinnati airport. The first country on our list was Iceland… LINKS: Our Country High Points Page Our Adventures Page --Our dad put together an excellent interactive multimedia blog from our text messages and phone conversations: [color=#F37676][url = http://www.menorway10.blogspot.com/][color=#F37676]http://www.menorway10.blogspot.com/[/color][/url][/color]-- |