Norwegian Summer 2026 – Day 5: Skei to Dalseter

A much simpler day, finally! We did the usual morning things (breakfast in the hotel – another banger buffet, packing up, all that) and were on the road shortly before 10:00, not feeling rushed.

The first order of business was finishing the climb up onto the plateau that the Peer Gynt Vegen (road) traverses. It was a pretty intense way to start the day (about 600ft, a good incline), but with fresh legs and a light tailwind we were in fine spirits. We got passed by a lot of other cyclists, mostly e-bikers but a handful of acoustic MTB rigs too, all of them out day-tripping. Plenty of cars too, but all slowed by the gravel and extremely deferential to us on the roads. Norway is a great place to ride bikes!

The landscape up there was vast and wide open. Gone were the trees that had hidden the mountain views down near Lillehammer. Instead we could see for miles in every direction.

No more trees to get in the way

The middle part of the ride was nice and easy. Rolling terrain, but we mostly stayed high and enjoyed brief splashes of sun warming our backs from behind. Some ripping descents too. It was a good time!

Liz up on the high, easy stuff

We stopped for a lunchtime snack at a pull-out with a picnic table and failed to escape the attention of a Swedish grandfather, who was out visiting with his daughter, son-in-law, and their young son. We chatted idly about nothing in particular for 10-15 minutes, then extricated ourselves by making the usual motions to indicate we’d be moving on shortly. He did assume we were German because he thought Liz was wearing German colors. I don’t see it. Thoughts from the cheap seats?

The day’s plan had two options: a short day to Gålå (30km) or a longer one to Dalseter (66km). We stopped again about 5km from Gålå to take stock, and since it was only 12:30 and we were still feeling fresh, we decided to push on to Dalseter. In Gålå we loaded up on groceries and phoned ahead to make sure there was room at the inn, then pressed on knowing we had a place to hang up our jerseys at the end of the day.

Still fresh at 12:30, gambling on Dalseter

A few miles down the road, we came to our first intersection of the day: Peer Gynt meets the Mjølkevegen. The Mjølkevegen was the first route we read about several years ago, the one that really inspired us to take this trip. Some YouTube video or other, the place Liz and I go to when we want to dream about where to travel next. It connects Vinstra and Gol over a 155-mile route. Turn right at this intersection and we’d drop off our plateau and be in Vinstra within thirty minutes. To the left lay 140 miles of unknown, but vetted, terrain, a good bet for us. Left we would go!

Of course, left meant more climbing, so we settled into the first of two pretty good climbs that would loom over the second half of our day. We successfully warded off an impending rainstorm by putting on our raincoats, and once we were sure the rain had passed, we took them off and attracted attention, not from more Swedes this time, but from some sweet sheeps.

The sheeps approve of Liz

On the far end of that climb was another toll road section, keeping the riffraff out. Beautiful rolling terrain, back into woods and lake country, some of the nicest stretches we’ve been on. Feeling good!

We came to a small village crossing the valley and scared the bejeezus out of a couple of kids on an electric scooter. This was where we started our last climb of the day, and let’s just say Liz was ready for it to be over before we even began. It was 45 minutes of not-fun (very steep grade, peaking at 12%, chonky gravel reminiscent of some of the garbage in Colorado, and mosquitoes at least three times larger than the ones we see in WI), but we got through it together, and at the top we found ourselves about four miles from the hotel with mostly downhill to go and much improved road surface. Another fun section; Liz is really starting to get her groove on descending these nice gravel roads. Once again we saw rain on the way and pulled our raincoats out, thereby guaranteeing it wouldn’t actually rain until the precise moment we rolled up to the hotel.

Speaking of the hotel, it turned out to be a classic fjellhotell (our first), a mountain hotel catering mostly to the snow sports, with a ski lift sitting dormant and forlorn, plus facilities for ski rental and storage, all adapted to summer uses like bicycle and wool storage.

There were a lot of other bicycles spending the night, many of them refueling from the wall socket at 220V.

First fjellhotell, not a bad view

It had its share of kitsch, too. Remodeled for the 1994 Olympics and then left to age in place gracefully, except for the addition of WiFi.

Overall, a good day, over 40 miles and another 3000 ft of climbing! Tomorrow we’ll have a bit less flexibility, with quite similar mileage and climbing and no services along the way.