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We just published this video we have been making over the last couple of months and I'm proud of it so i'd like to share it here. Here's a little bit of context first.
I'm from Northumberland and grew up riding Tweed Valley a lot but I've been living in Norway for the last 6 years and have a guiding company up here. I live in a place called Nesbyen now and the valley feels very similar to Tweed Valley to me only that we're about 10 years behind in mountain bike development compared to the UK. Which might feel or look like a negative but what is exciting is there's lots of opportunities to shape the development of this place and contribute to the mountain bike scene. I've been living in this place 4 years now and it is quite cool to see the long term changes slowly happen - more people move here, each summer sees more riders visit, new trails get built and we even managed to open a bakery/cafe/pizzeria last year!
I've seen many mountain bike videos about the story of mountain biking in a certain place, most notably this Patagonia one about Downieville -
and always felt very inspired by these, normally with some urge to move to the place and be part of it. But now, a little unexpectedly, as this wasn't the original video plan, we've made something similar of our own that tells part of the story of what we're up to in Nesbyen. In 2022 Manon Carpenter and Pete Scullion paid us a visit, you might have even seen an article in Singletrack mag from that trip, and while they were here we filmed a lot of video about the trails, people and trailbuilding. Almost 1.5 years later and we finally managed to edit it together!
Manon, Nora and Myself looking down to Nesbyen. (photo - Pete Scullion)
Great Stuff 🙌
Now I need to go Norway.
Excellent , looks fantastic!
Norway, yep, should be there next summer.
We've discovered a company in Aberdeen who ship camper vans. We can ship ours and then the Ryanair flights are 20mins from the docks/customs by taxi...
We’ve discovered a company in Aberdeen who ship camper vans
Got a name or link for the shippers?
Nesbeyn was like this 2 days before we were due to spend a week there last Summer hope it's dried up for this Summer?
*waves to Nora*
Looking great, and the move from Kvanndal looks to have have paid off nicely. Happy if my very limited skills played a part in that.
Looks a fantastic place...added to my list of places that I'll go holiday when the family have had enough of me and I don't feel guilty going away myself...it looks seriously nice.
Thanks for the heads up.
Saved to my list of MTB destinations on Google maps.
Norway looks amazing..... in summer.
When does the season start?
Definitely going on the “to do” list, cheers
Saved to my list of MTB destinations on Google maps.
Good idea. Might try that.
Give us a shout if you pass by Matt! If you want some riding in the Fjords a lot of it is blimmin steep and techy like I said in the video but you should stop by Sogndal/Kaupanger, fantastic scenic trails by the fjords.
Oldfart, I guess you were booked on with Cycle Active? Sorry you missed out, it was a bit of a shit show with the floods! My house is far enough away from the river we were all good but there are still plenty people out of their houses. Trails survived though!
Gecko you'll have to give me a clue to your real life identity? But yes, moving from Kvanndal to here has made such a huge difference, it is like life got put into fast forward compared to the fjord life. Great experience living there but I'm glad we moved.
Alpin - You can ride here from May - start of Octover. If you want to do some mountain top riding then waiting until June is best.
Alpin – You can ride here from May – start of Octover. If you want to do some mountain top riding then waiting until June is best.
Currently travelling looking for somewhere to potentially settle, but that's my problem with Norway. What do you do the rest of the year?
Planning on driving up to Scandinavia next year or the year after for a look.
Do you speak Norwegian?
July 2018, I stayed at your place for a couple of nights with my mum (trip of a lifetime for her). Any day in the hills is a good day. You very kindly loaned me a bike and guided me up the mountain on the other side of the fjord, and then watched me carry it most of the way back down lol. You and Nora were properly quick.
I travelled and lived in quite a few places before settling here. Scotland, London, Grenoble, Slovenia, Sweden then here.
There's been big back and forth in my head between - let's go live in a place like Liguria or Tweed Valley where biking is already really developed and you can just fix in to a place with loads of trails, nice cafes, a great community and everything ready Vs. Living in a place where there's much less developed but there's loads of opportunity to create something.
Lately I've settled much more on it being exciting to develop things and see a place grow and take inspiration from those places that are already really well developed with mountain biking.
I could write a lot about moving to and living in Norway but I suspect a lot of people are not interested in that part haha. But you are right, there is a big section of the year where you can not ride, this year in Nesbyen it was from November and I think it will be until mid April this year. The first years we lived in Norway we took our campervan down to somewhere warm for a couple months. in 2021/22 we were in Liguria for almost 3 months for example. But in 22/23 and 23/24 we stayed here because we took on some projects, building the bakery and now buying a house and renovating the guest accommodation, this year I took up xc skiing and did Vasaloppet to keep me entertained in the winter as well . For 24/25 we'll hopefully go abroad again because we're not as keen on cold and dark, no direct sunlight for several weeks and regular -20 days! But the snow here is magic, everything covered in white, not like the dirty snow you get in the UK, and the light is amazing.
Best thing to do is as you say, just come visit for a longer period of time and see how you find it. You're also welcome to message or email me directly and I can tell you the pros and cons of living in Norway if you want.
I do speak Norwegian but to a fairly basic level. It took me several years though as everyone, even you're rural farmer type OAPs speak good English!
Enjoyed watching that, lovely story
Thanks... Interesting.
Was also in Liguria often and just spent another three months there.... I don't fancy it. Written off on the basis that despite the great riding you're still very dependent on a car to get around for your day to day. And it's either up, or down nothing is flat!
Have a friend from Norway and the language is very similar to German, which I can speak like a local.
Have a friend from Norway and the language is very similar to German, which I can speak like a local.
Should make it easier to learn, but my biggest problem with Norwegian is that every town has it's own dialect and people refuse to speak 'bokmål' because they just can't, apparently.
When I point out that every town in Italy also has it's own dialect but people switch to regular Italian (and make an effort to speak a bit slower) when talking to foreigners it's met with a shrug. It's also soul destroying when you say something and everyone bursts out laughing but they just won't tell you what you said that was so wrong it was apparently hilarious.
Also, the facilities for learning Norwegian can be pretty atrocious if you are used to learning Spanish, French, etc in the country in question. The Norwegian courses are often taught by inexperienced teachers (or teachers who just can't be arsed) and they cost a fortune.
I really think language is a huge blind spot for most Norwegians when it comes to helping people integrate into the country. The attitude is always it's up to the foreigner to make every effort and they simply have to suck it up if someone is unintelligible (even to other native Norwegian speakers) or if there are no decent courses available (or self learning resources).