Doubilet-Benson Scandinavia Bike Trip 2013: As Far North as Anchorage, Heading to Reykjavik

Yesterday (Thursday), neither rain nor two flat tires stopped us from completing the 41 mile ride to Hirtshalls, Denmark, in time to catch a 12:45 pm ferry to Larvik, Norway. We were feeling very comfortable in Denmark, with its fairly flat terrain and bike-friendly drivers, and now will have to deal with the much more mountainous Norwegian landscape and watch out for Norwegian drivers, who seem to be more aggressive towards cyclists. Then there's pickled herring, a Norwegian staple: Peter hates both pickles and herring, and fears that the combination may be life-threatening.

When we checked the map, we were surprised to see how far north our trip takes us. In fact, our starting point of Copenhagen (latitude 55.7 degrees) is as far north of Boston (42.4 degrees) as Boston is from Orlando, Florida. Oslo, where we'll be tomorrow, is at about the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska (both are at 60-61 degrees). The northernmost point of our trip -- Umea, Sweden, where we'll be on June 29 -- is as far north as Reykjavik, Iceland. All of that explains why the temperature has been in the 50's to low 60's during our trip, and why we never see darkness during the hours we're awake.

We met a delightful British cyclist on the three-hour ferry ride yesterday. Jim is a bike mechanic who goes on frequent long bike trips and travels extremely frugally, camping out (he carries a tent and sleeping bag) and cooking all of his meals (he carries a stove). We parted ways at the end of the ferry ride yesterday, but then fortuitously met him on our ride today just after Peter developed bicycle gear trouble. We entered into a barter arrangement with him: we bought him a hot lunch and he dealt with the gear problem.

Today's ride took us to Horten, Norway, where we had a pre-arranged afternoon visit to General Electric Vingmed Ultrasound, one of the major worldwide centers for GE Ultrasound development. We were hosted by the general manager, Dagfinn Saeter, who generously spent several hours with us and took us through various aspects of the center. Oded Peres, Manufacturing Leader, demonstrated how they approach quality assurance on all new ultrasound units prior to delivery to customers and allowed us to observe transducer assembly. Sevald Berg, Program Manager, demonstrated 2D, 3D, 4D, and Doppler capabilities of their latest echocardiography equipment. We were also fortunate to engage in a lengthy interchange with Kjell Kristoffersen, Chief Engineer of GE Global Ultrasound, who heard some of our requests for future innovations in ultrasound.