Doubilet-Benson Scandinavia Bike Trip 2013: Bicycles, Chairlift, Train, and Classic American Cars

Today was another fascinating and varied day for us in northern Sweden. We cycled 57 miles through Sweden's High Coast region. The scenery was beautiful, and to get a closer look and overview we stopped midway to take a chair lift up a mountain. This lift, which is a popular tourist attraction in the High Coast, ascends to a mountain peak that is 295 metres high, only slightly higher than the 286 metres of post-glacial uplift that the region has experienced since the end of the ice age. This means that the peak was only 9 meters (29 feet) above sea level 10,000 years ago, and all of the land we biked along today was underwater at that time.

We ended our bike ride in the town of Ornskoldsvik, and from there took a 65-mile train ride to Umea. We had modified our route a couple of months ago to take this train on our last of 12 days in Sweden, in order to add one day (from 7 to 8 days) in Finland. Umea is the northernmost location of our 5-week Scandinavian trip. It is a university town with a population of 80,000. Its latitude, 64 degrees north, is the same as Reykjavic, Iceland, and further north than Anchorage, Alaska (latitude 61 degrees). Since Umea is so far north and we are close to the summer solstice of June 21, the period of sunlight is very long here today: sunrise at 2:21 am and sunset at 11:03 pm (20 hours and 42 minutes of sunlight). In fact, since our whole trip has been quite far north and close to the summer solstice, we have not experienced darkness at all during our trip: it has always been light out when we go to bed at about 10 pm and when we rise at 6 am.

Ever since arriving in Sweden 12 days ago, we have been surprised by how many classic American cars from the 1950's and 60's we've seen on the roads, in perfect shape and occasionally blaring 50's American music. Today, when we arrived in Umea, there was a parade of hundreds of classic American cars driving down the main street, with thousands of people lining the streets to watch. A local radio station had loudspeakers along the parade route, entertaining the crowd with 50's American rock and roll music. After watching the event for a while, we returned to our hotel room and, looking online, discovered that our observations over the past 12 days were accurate: Sweden is crazy about classic American cars, and is estimated to have more of them than any other country, including the US. An estimated 5,000 classic American cars are shipped to Sweden each year. The Umea classic American car show, called Wheels, is an annual event that our visit happened to coincide with, and the world's largest classic American car show, called "Power Big Meet", is held annually in Vasteras, Sweden.