A summer holiday is not complete without a bike ride – and what a bike ride we did. 40km round trip from Visby to Tofta Beach. We hired bicycles from the town – three single bikes and one tandem bike – and off we went. I don’t own a bike at home in Sydney (I need to fix that) so the only time I ride is when I’m on holidays, which means the idea of hopping on a bike makes me feel like a giddy 5 year old – it’s all I can do not to squeal as I go along, weeeee!
Another symptom of not riding often is that I start out a bit wobbly – especially when trying to take a photo of a sign at the same time as steering round a turn…
But no worries, turn around and ride back again – snap! Yep, we’re heading in the right direction.
Excited + Wobbly + Slow. This was probably the only time I was in front, specially for photographic purposes.
And I listened to music and sang as I went along, ah the simple joys! AND I took a turn on the back of the tandem bike – it was a bit fun and a lot freaky (the back person pretty much puts their life in the hands of the front person – you better steer me right!!!)
And then we were there, at Tofta Beach! Where I witnessed a strange phenomenon – why is everyone facing away from the water?!? Apparently in Sweden an even tan trumps a stunning water-view; beach goers rotate around to follow the sun – so weird!!
After awhile we went to the ‘The After Beach’ which is the party after the beach (following the same concept, in Sweden after work drinks are called ‘The After Work’.) There was a really cool Swedish cover band playing a wide range of summer hits, past and present, such a fun vibe!!
The drink lines were long but the bonus was that we could buy them in a bucket at a time, yeah!
Then we drunk-rode back to Visby. No, not really, I’m sure we were perfectly under the limit by then.
A selfie in transit – obviously getting less wobbly and more confident, it’s like riding a bike (um, literally.)
This guy raised my eyebrows! But apparently it’s not too unusual – it’s how the winter sport fans stay in shape during the summer.
It was such a pretty ride – I had to keep stopping to take photos! But then that got me into a little trouble because then I was even slower and the super fit, super speedy Swedes I was with we’re zooming ahead of me. So Sverige kept urging me to ride a little faster until I started wailing ‘but whyyyyy? What’s the hurry? I thought this was supposed to be fun!’ A little lovers tiff on the bike path because I’m a slow, dreamy cyclist. Then we laughed and made up and she rode super slow next to me all they back to Visby, such a good friend :-)
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