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One of my great joys when I lived in Finland was the ease and comfort with which one could ride from a home in the city to a forested area. Those of you who have arrived at this gemlog after following my phlog may remember that I had one particular forest in particular which I visited via bike when the weather permitted. Some visits I phlogged about are:
Correspondingly, one of my great fears in moving to Sweden was that I might lose this access. As it turns out, I needn't have worried. I have already discovered two quite large nature reserves within very easy rides of my house. The further one is considerably larger, and I've been there only once, but I've visited the nearer one probably a good half dozen times by now, and I'm loving it. Whereas my Finnish forest was something I biked *to* (and sometimes around), but walked *into*, the nearby reserve is something I can ride into, and even through, due to wide, relatively easy main trails. This has proven to be a source of great joy for me, and I hope I never tire of it.
There are less easy, non-main trails too. More on those in future entries.
None of the riding in either of these reserves, on the main trails or otherwise, would be exciting or even noteworthy to most mainstream modern mountainbike riders, I think. Giant tyres, suspension and wide-range gearing would make it pretty dull riding, I imagine, with no serious challenges. But underbiking it on a single-speed, mid-tier steel roadbike from the 80s seems to provide a magical balance between being noticably more interesting and challenging than riding pavement or gravel, but still being very achievable on even a casual basis. It's just an awful lot of fun. I'm still curious about trying some longer distance road riding in the warmer weather, but I'm honestly starting to think that riding through forests, on something closer to a cyclocross bike than a mountainbike, might be what I want to spend most of my saddle time doing.