Going on a guided gravel ride might be anathema to some of you, but if you can get over your mental image of a tour guide waving a clipboard, you will find their local knowledge and ‘fixer’ skills are invaluable. Emmie Collinge heads to the centre of Sweden to test out whether guided gravel riding is the way forward or a step too far.
Northern Sweden in the summer offers some unique challenges to gravel riders. Aside from the unpredictable weather – here’s where the cliché of ‘all seasons in one day’ was penned, after all – you’ve also got vast routes of pine tree-flanked nothingness for tens of kilometres where you’re ‘all-in’ during the ride and a distinct lack of internet-findable-accommodation to take into account. Added together, it means you need to take a different approach to riding gravel here. One way to overcome this involves relying on insider knowledge from a local guide.
Something that, up until now, I’ve always avoided.
Guided gravel. You might raise an eyebrow at this one but stick with me here. Throw away the umbrella-holding image of tour guides in cities, where you’re stuck with a random group of unselected ‘holiday partners’ and think about something different. Picture experienced mountain guides who offer you a tailor-made trip that takes in secret locations, jaw-dropping views, pre-heated saunas and delicious mountain hut dining – indoors and out. That’s why I took up the invitation from Åre-based Summit Guides to join them on a gravel riding tour that frankly blew me away.
To anyone wondering where Åre, Sweden is, then draw a cross through the centre of this long country and you’ll be fairly close. Not far from the Norwegian border, this ski resort is surrounded by mountains, vast lakes and endless forests. While best known for its MTB downhill bike park, it is also an untapped hotspot for gravel riding where loops stretching upwards of 200 km can be found without seeing any sign of civilisation. But it is exactly this expanse of nothingness that poses the biggest challenge to those who don’t know the area. Unlike the rest of the gravel riding world, where komoot, google and booking.com can do so much of the hard work for you, this Swedish region does not make things easy.
Either the maps are not clear or they’re not even up to date. Or the best places to stay, eat or visit don’t have English translations, so don’t show up on the Google algorithm. But worst of all is that the mountain stations, the must-stay locations, which are perfectly located for overnight stops on a multiday trip, won’t be found on a standard hotel booking website. That is where a guide, such as Jonte Sandström from Summit Guides comes in. A local and passionate gravel rider, he was on hand to prove to us the worth of a guide in this region.
We roll out of the centre of Åre and I’m more than happy to leave behind the tourists and slightly over-branded buzz of this mountain resort. The summer holidays here mean a lot of Stockholmers head north to get some fresh mountain air, making this otherwise intimate village feel almost overcrowded. Our first stop for the night is a lakeside mountain station in the remote village of Kolåsen. This meant climbing over the side of Åre’s House Mountain, famous for its skiing, before skirting along the side of Kallsjön, one of the many lakes that dot this area on a predominately gravel route.
From the first pedal stroke, Jonte comes into his own. Tall and endlessly positive, his energy is contagious. Prior to this ride, we’d been in close contact to plan the route, check the equipment and go through options, so now I was feeling more than set for this adventure. Summers this far north are a bit of a lottery when it comes to weather, so you need to have the right gear with you and the right apps to keep track of the heavy rain showers that were forecast during our ride.
Jonte’s pre-ride advice meant that I was all set when it came to apparel, but it was his acute awareness of the weather that really eased my worries. He tracked the weather using a range of apps, something that obviously becomes second nature to those spending time outside here year-round and we took a well-timed coffee break, finding the shelter of a windbreak, as the heaviest shower of the day hit. Whipping up a fire in no time, this was an experience of service in the wild that I’ve never had before.
Our route took in amazing views of the mountains along rolling kilometres through lakeside forests and occasional detours off other main routes to get a local’s flavour of riding here. Stories of local demons and trolls in lakes were followed by a breakdown of the region’s history and also an insight into how this area was formed over time.
In Kolåsen we were met with a bike wash (including cleaner and chain lube), a sauna already up to temperature, and dinner ordered to meet specific dietary requirements. To be honest, I’m not sure how Jonte pulled this all off, but what I do know is that the culture of getting things sorted in Sweden is all done on the telephone. The issue with this is that Swedes tend not to pick up a call when they see foreign numbers due to a fear of scam calls, so having a local to sort that, a fixer on the ground if you will, made the transition from bike to hotel refuel to relaxing seamless and very rapid.
Over dinner, we go through our ride options for the next day. Open and transparent, he doesn’t glamourise the notion of hike-a-bike through bogs, but instead gives us three options. Short, long, or middle distance with more adventure. We go for the medium option including the hike-a-bike section to join up two appealing-looking gravel tracks which look so achingly close to each other on the map.
It’s completely worth the gamble. Jonte already has the landowners’ contact details on speed dial so that he can make this stretch more gravel bike-friendly for future riders. It gives us a never-ending downhill to the lakeside again, where we find gorgeous accommodation for the second night, Hotel Kallgården, where sauna, bike wash and dinner are waiting once again. My bike, which was getting battered given the conditions and my now-weary body, could definitely get used to this level of luxury.
For day three we skirt the lakeside for 40 km before Jonte points us down some singletrack and onto a wide, sandy beach, where a DIY lunch is being generously laid on courtesy of Primus, the Swedish outdoor equipment brand. It’s a far cry from a restaurant setting, but the flavours are extraordinary and the views are unbeatable. One thing that you’ll soon find out when you come here is that eating outdoors over a fire is as Swedish as Ikea itself, so experiencing this as a way to close out our trip was more than a special moment.
I’m unwilling to get back on my bike after lunch, knowing that there’s only one small mountain separating me from real life, so I try to delay the inevitable by throwing questions at Jonte. In reply to the question of why going guided is worth it for gravel, Jonte’s answer is short and sweet: “You get that bit extra.”
If by extra, he means getting the ride of your life with the advice and support of a local, where the saunas are already hot, the food unrivalled and the companionship so much more than a forced ‘holiday friendship’, then I’m down for more trips like this in the future.