My wife and I just got back from Scandinavia and Holland and I thought that I'd share some cycling pics even though it wasn't a cycling vacation.

We spent most of the time in the larger cities so there wasn't a lot of chances to take pics of road bikes. It was mainly boring commuter bikes.

Here's a pic from the middle of Norway along the Norway in a Nutshell route. (I strongly recommend doing this if you like gorgeous scenery) It was really desolate at this elevation, but at one of the train stops there were a lot of rental bikes.


Here's a little climb out of Flam up to Myrdal. You can rent bikes in Flam, ride up the valley and try this.


Okay, this has nothing to do with cycling, but this is the Naeroyfjord. Absolutely gorgeous.


Typical commuter bikes in Copenhagen. I think that I've got my saddle to bar drop all wrong.


Folding bike from the Danish Design Center in Copenhagen. Note the cable-based downtube.


This might be rough in a cross wind.


We rented some bikes on the island of Aero, off the coast of Denmark. A bit heavy, but the bikes were indeed aero, along with the aero downtubes. We were waiting out a downpour.



Bike parking lot above a metro stop in Copenhagen


Mother of All Bike Parking Lots at Central Station Amsterdam. Good luck if you forgot where you parked your bike since the bikes all looked the same.

Here's some bike porn. A tour happened to finish in downtown Amsterdam at Dam Square. They must have hit some muddy roads since most folks were pretty wet and a lot of bikes had fenders.










My dream bike

I was determined to buy something after watching my wife spend like there's no tomorrow, so I bought a jersey at a LBS in Haalem, Netherlands.

If you really want the last Made in the USA CAAD9, here's your chance


After I bought my jersey, I talked to the guy a bit and he was great; he even threw in a couple of water bottles. Then I told him I needed to take some pics of his bikes. He said that I needed to do it right and proceeded to bring this Isaac Proton down from the rack and take it outside for me. Very, very sweet bike. A few seconds after my wife took this pic, he adjusted the cranks to the 3-9 position. I was laughing so hard that I forgot to ask where there was a white garage door.


Here's the Isaac Meson.




And lastly, here's how you get your bike to the upper level of the parking lot.

Cool pics, those Isaac bikes are hot stuff!

nice. looks like you had a good time.

We spent two days in Copenhagen back in July - the mass of bikes piled all around the train station was just nuts. I went looking for jerseys as well, but struck out both there and in Stockholm. The actual road bike shops were too far from our hotels.

Both Copenhagen and Stockholm were simply gorgeous cities. I'd love to go back and see the countryside.




Nearly 20 hours of daylight really did take some getting used to, though.

History repeats itself...

Cool, thanks for sharing them!

Wow, a literal bike parking garage.

Geez, it's like you're stalking me...

You can ride the old road they used when the built the railroad all the way to Myrdal (you have to take the train to get under the mountain towards Bergen).



A little closer look. ;-)



Not quite the right bike, though (that's the same water fall in your picture):


Ærø is a fantastic place for a light tour, but hard to get to unless you know what you're doing (and expensive, even if you do). My take:

https://o-slashy.blogspot.com/2010/06/r-rundt.html

(and the two entries that follow)

very nice. I agree that those Isaac bikes look great!

Thanks for the pics

Looked like a great trip.

We were in Norway last year for some hiking, not biking. We took that train from Flam up to Myrdal and then hiked all the way back down. On the way down I took a picture of this sign. Thought it was fitting to add here.


P1050641 by Derek and Corina, on Flickr

Sounds like a great trip. Thanks for posting the pics.

Great pics Cliff. Does this mean that the ISAAC has now supplanted the Pinarello in your dream-bike standings?

The Isaac Proton did speak to me. Beautiful Black/grey/white combination, and oh so light. And the wheels were gorgeous. I also like the fact it would be so rare around here.

In the end, though it would be too embarrassing to ride such a fast-looking bike as slow as I ride.

Nice photos. FYI, my brother in law and sister in law live in Aarhus, Denmark. I can't wait to visit.

That's looks good on you

A triple decker bike parking garage. I think the average bikes per person in the Netherlands is like 1.5. Like a country of BF members, although a lot of those bikes are crappy.