Monthly Archives: December 2017

Where Dreams Come True

Last day of the year. Hunched over my laptop somewhere in Norrköping, Sweden I look outside on streets that are only just awakening – only to realise that the day is about to end once again. Swedish winter darkness is quite something. Anyone who’s ever set foot here during these dark months knows it. I’ve spent a lifetime in this country getting to know it.

Yet I feel like it’s only now – after these past years of being fully dependent on natural light – that I actually see it for what it is. Perhaps more than anything for what it isn’t. And I’m not even far north yet.

This short clip is from 6 pm last evening and can probably let you in a little on what I’m talking about.

Current evening routine (sound on!) 🤷🏼‍♀️❄️😅 #lastnight #vardeljus

Ett inlägg delat av Fredrika Ek (@thebikeramble)

I’m about to hit the road – Stockholm bound. I just wanted to check in to wish you all the happiest of new years. 2017 taught me plenty – and I’m looking back at a year after which I can’t see how life could ever be the same again. Never have my smile been broader, nor my gratitude bigger.

I literally can’t wait to find out what adventures this next one has in store.

I’ll leave you with only a few of my emotional highlights from the year that’s been. We’ll have all the time in the world to be nostalglic about 2017 later. For now all I want is to head out to fully live the very last little bit of it. I hope you’ll let me suggest for you to do the same – and we’ll catch each other somewhere on the other side.

First things first though. Remember to scroll like you mean it :-)

HAPPY 2018 FRIENDS!

Until next time,

Fredrika

By |December 31st, 2017|Uncategorized|

All I Want for Christmas

Steep climbs up oxygen poor mountain passes. Adrenalin pumping escapes from packs of cyclist feeding dogs out for the kill. The water buffalo that only just missed my right shoulder when stomping onto my tent that bisarre night on the Lao countryside. Or when I was caught rambling around in the military area along the border of Vietnam and Cambodia a few weeks later.

My pulse has been beating fast before. During this trip more times than I could ever even begin to count. This particular morning though – the heart beating out of my chest was taking on its task with more commitment that should even be realistically possible.

Why?

Because I was going home.

I was about to reunite with what and who I left behind those years and million pedal strokes ago. With the home that with time had become more like a fairytale fantasy made up to make difficult times seem better – than a physical place with actual flesh-and-bone people who love me. The home that was now no longer more than a few kilometer wide batch of water away.


Strandvejen. Copenhagen – Helsingör. Denmark.

This is a blog post of photos. Some likely to tell those thousand words – others not. Flick the empathy running lobe of your brain on full reception mode and let’s run through them all at once.

If it felt good to step off the ferry and back onto Swedish soil?

To find my best brother in the world and Mom patiently waiting to welcome me with wide smiles and open arms when doing so? To bury my face in the brother’s chest and cry the overload of emotion into his jacket even beginning to take in this final dream-fulfilled-euphoria around me?

YES.

This was a welcome back to remember. Even happier than to receive it though – was I about knowing that nothing was really over just yet. I was back on home turf – but I wasn’t Home. My finish line is what it’s always been – Sundsvall. And I still have a winter crossing of Sweden to reach it.

This past week has been the nostalgia trip of a lifetime. Family. Long lost friends. Kexchoklad and Kalles Kaviar (though not necessarily combined..). My own language. And to crown it all – Swedish x-mas spirit.

To each and everyone who’ve made this experience one I’ll bring with me to my last day – THANK YOU.


Swedish tourist photo. Of the house? No. Of that good old orange stick! lol

And then. Now. Came x-mas for real.

Mr. Bike is left behind in a garage in Gothenburg and yesterday morning I caught a train into the woods of Västmanland. And in the small next-to-nothing town of my grandmother I found them all.

ALL.

It’s x-mas and I’m with my family. In a few days I’ll be back on the bike but for now I intend to squeeze every single drop of love out of this holiday-from-the-holiday with the people than mean the most to me.

I truly wish you all the bliss of getting to do the same.

Merry Christmas!

Untl next time,

Fredrika

By |December 24th, 2017|Uncategorized|

Time Travels & Closing Circles

I’ll let you make this one yours.

Just the way I was able to make my ride north through Europe mine. It could’ve been a quite-long-but-not-really, only so interesting, half ass experience that would fall just short of OK. More than anything else – due to the epicness it followed. With a little effort – it became one of the most emotional and heartwarming experiences of my life.

Nostalgia overload. And the closing of a circle way beyond my wildest dreams.

Obviously you only have that much emotion invested in this to you digital girl’s realisation of her dream. There are however a few of you reading this that have been with me since the early days of this journey – and that have spent a fair chunk of time during these last years, pouring over the lines and photos I’ve managed to spit onto the pages of this blog.

The only heart exploding here will be mine.

And just like my ride through Europe this blog post has all the potential to be a quite-long-but-not-really, only so interesting, half ass experience that falls just short of OK. More than anything else – due to the epicness it follows.

Then of course comes that part of a little effort.

I think that if you’ll let it – your heart might have the time for one extra beat with this one.

To make a long story short would be the wrong expression here. This homebound ride through Europe was a string of short chapters of this ride – made endless. I won’t bother trying to explain it, but rather just tell you what happened.

… and this is where the rest is up to you.

This time capsule of a journey started in Bern. From where I shared this story with you. What I didn’t tell you was that this was also the time and place where I got to fly back in time and space to relive some of the most intense weeks of my life – with the people who were there doing the very same thing with me.

In Bern there was also Patrick, that lovely man who – just like most people I’ve crossed paths with these last years – have never made it onto the pages of this blog. There was my failed attempt to leave, only to instead end up yet another night the couch of Marianne & Thomas.

There was nostalgia, home brew beer and tears of laughter around the Zurich dinner table of my first true cycling companions Iris & Reto.

There was the next failed attempt of leaving. Ending up with a belly full of fondue and heart full of love after that long evening with also blog anonymous Kathrin. The girl who brightened my day over and over again during my first year, both on our way to Singapore. After crossing my path in everything from Turkish Kurdistan to Kyrgyz shit town Sary-Tash to Thailand & Malaysia. And then now, each warming our hands on a cuppa glüewein in a winter-cold Switzerland.

I have no words to explain how I feel about the fact that there were also those best hugs in the world of black belt life livers Karin & Fritz. Like I already told you in the last post this European time travel throwback wasn’t even limited to this journey. There was even my childhood and life-before-this, in form of my god mother Kristina.

And then.

Then there was Nicolai. Outside whose front door I got to close the circle. The circle around the world. That circle I started, I don’t even know how many lifetimes ago.

Like with most things – leaving your life behind to ride a bicycle around the planet is easier said than done. And the gratitude I still feel for getting to do so cheered on by this Dane is way beyond my English vocabulary. Courage is a peculiar thing. And so is the magical trait that oh so few people possess – the undefinable ability to infuse it in others.

Starting this thing was a challenge. To finish it off is and will be the biggest cliff I’ve ever jumped. Thank you Nicolai – for once again giving me the I-can’t-fckn-wait urge to do it.

It’ll be great. For helvede.

Now all that’s left of this thing is to ride home.

I can’t wait to catch you next Sunday.

Until next time,

Fredrika

By |December 17th, 2017|Europe, Travel Logs|

Warm Hugs & Hot Hamburg Showers

Hey!

Let’s run through all the excuses at once. This post is late. Will be short. And probably 100% not related to any of the reasons you may or may not have to be following this blog.

It will however also bring the explanation to all of the above, so I guess in a way we come full circle anyhow.

For weeks now I’ve had a post in mind that I literally can’t wait to tap down and finally get to share with you. Let’s decide this coming Sunday is the one where that actually happens. After all.. there aren’t that many of these blog time Sundays left of this whole thing.

How weird is that?

I’m sorry for keeping you waiting with this one. I promise though – I’ll try to make it a treat for all of us.

This weekend I haven’t been much of a cyclist nor pretend-to-be-blog-person. This weekend I’ve been spoiled! After 10 or so straight days of cycling like it was going out of style I arrived to Hamburg. I’ll be the first to admit that the seemingly never ending German 1 degree Celsius rains had gotten the best of me – and I couldn’t get out of the saddle and into that longed after hot (as hell) shower fast enough.

I hadn’t been rushing to Hamburg for showers though. The true reason behind my swift run through Germany was nothing less than my wonderful godmother Kristina! Waiting in Hamburg. With a it’s-been-three-freaking-years hug. And a pull-out-all-the-stops-all-inclusive-bulls-eye big city weekend to remember.

If you knew half the stuff we’ve been eating and had the slightest idea of how comfy our hotel bed really was you’d know how much of an understatement – or even insult – it’d be to say that I left Hamburg with newfound energy. But since this isn’t meant to turn into a full blog post I’ll go ahead and do it anyways.

This morning I left Hamburg with newfound energy.

Headed northeast.

Meaning that that coming blog post might actually be written on Swedish soil. I can’t even think about it without my head and heart exploding. Which is why I won’t. Not just yet. Instead – I’ll just be another girl randomly cycling German roads.

With newfound energy.

Until next time,

Fredrika

By |December 11th, 2017|Europe, Travel Logs|

The Best Ideas Are The Stupid Ones

‘Are you sure Switzerland is such a good idea at this time of the year..?’

I don’t think I can recall a single place or a single time from this journey, where not a single (well meaning) person have told me what a bad idea this particular combination of time and space was. Be it from Turkmen desert heat or Tibetan mountain cold. ‘Crazy men’ waiting for me in Kurdistan, or – even worse – no men at all(!) to fight those human sized spiders for me in the Oz outback.

If I didn’t perish from salt poisoning in Salar de Uyuni I surely would do so from malaria in West Africa. In the Sahara I’d even do best in hoping to be taken away by a sand storm, simply to have Al-Qaida come second. Not to mention France..! Where – lo and behold – supermarkets are apparently closed on Sundays.

Anyways. To answer the question:

‘No.’

I wasn’t sure if Switzerland was such a good idea at this time of the year. But then again that’s not the point. I was rather convinced that no matter what, Switzerland in November would be a better idea than Sweden will be in January. Confident in that the chocolate would make whatever worth it. And as always – 100% into the idea of ‘not sure’ being more than enough reason to go and find out.

… I don’t need to tell you, do I?

Switzerland. Oh Switzerland. Of course you were a gem – just like at any given time of the year. I was just extra lucky to catch you in fondue season!

Now. I had to climb quite a few vertical meters for these.

So…

Scroll slowly – will you?

Mountain views & glüwein. What in the world could make that better?

The people who know what I’ve been up to also know that the true answer is long lost reunions. But that story I’ll simply save for the next one.

For now – the answer is WINTER!

It’s true what they say. Winter IS indeed coming. And never has it been more welcome.

I wish you the best of weeks!

Until next time,

Fredrika

By |December 3rd, 2017|Uncategorized|