Norwegian Summer 2026 – Day 4: Sjusjøen to Skei

A drizzly start. A parking lot repair. Lots of beautiful gravel. Even more climbing. These are the things to come!

We slept in a bit, cleaned up the condo, and packed for a moist departure. We even delayed a bit to avoid leaving in the rain. In fact, it wasn’t actually raining when we left, but within a few minutes we felt the first drops and stopped to pull on the rain gear. The plan was a fifteen-minute drop down a pretty fast hill, then a gravel route back toward Lillehammer rather than retracing yesterday’s climb. The rain wasn’t too bad, honestly.

Liz keeping the rain face on, more or less

We were quickly left all alone on gated gravel trails. A lot of these were clearly ski trails in the winter, kept up for bikes once the snow melts.

Empty ski trails on summer duty

Climbing out, lakes everywhere

Much of it was gorgeous, smooth, and trending downhill but not too fast. Overall very pleasant! An hour or so and we were rolling back into Lillehammer, pulling into a Kiwi Minipris to grab supplies for the day. And it was at this exact moment that we suffered our first major mechanical issue of the trip.

Surgery in the Kiwi parking lot

Can you guess what was wrong?

It dates back to shortly before the trip, when I slid Liz’s rear wheel back in its dropouts to give her a more stable feel. Fast forward to today: she’s in the big ring as we descend, shifting down, down, down into the parking lot, and all of a sudden she can’t pedal. The pedals just wouldn’t turn. Thankfully she had the composure to stop trying instead of forcing it, and I pulled the bike aside to have a look. Her chain was taut, wedged between the big ring and the largest cassette sprocket, with the derailleur stretched almost flat to its limit. Nothing would budge. The chain was simply too short, because I had moved her wheel back in the dropouts (for the bike nerds: a longer chainstay needs more chain, and I hadn’t given it any). Nothing was going to free that up, so I broke the chain with my chain tool and reconnected it with a quick link. Luckily there doesn’t seem to be any damage to the chain or derailleur, and the bike is running fine. She just needs a better mechanic!

Liz was in the store grabbing groceries while I repacked the bikes, then we both headed over to a local bike shop to replace my stock of quick links. Nice chat with the owner, Anders, and then we were off to cross the big bike bridge from yesterday. Phew!

Back across yesterday’s big bridge

After our exciting morning, we were glad to get over to the other side of the lake. We quickly started climbing up and out of the valley and found ourselves back on gravel, mostly alone. Lots of climbing again, and unfortunately I hadn’t planned quite enough; we weren’t sure where we’d actually be stopping. So we just kept riding for a while.

Sun, finally, and a couple of optimists to enjoy it

Eventually we put a plan together: try to reach Skei, the start of the Peer Gynt Rd, a toll gravel road for cars and our next major goal. That was probably a mistake. We didn’t check the elevation profile carefully enough, and with about 10 miles to go we realized we’d be climbing for the next several hours to get there, with no great alternative.

Rolling toward Skei, blissfully unaware

It ended up being quite the slog, to say the least. The only saving grace was that it was absolutely gorgeous.

We finally pulled in around 6:30, ducked into the grocery store that closed at 7 and grabbed some food, then checked in at our hotel.

Finally time to eat! After showers and laundry, that is.

I can’t say enough about Liz’s determination today. She rolled with the punches! I’m the luckiest guy around, for sure.

Overall, 5.5 hrs of ride time and 41.4 miles with about 3740 ft of climbing. A day that tested us a little but we came out smiling at the end. Tomorrow we point the wheels up the Peer Gynt Rd and hope for a shorter day!