Two Surly Midnight Specials ready to roll for the @brightmidnight.cc Blue skies welcomed us for the train ride up from Oslo to Tolga for the start after a Norwegian cheese breakfast at the airport hotel on Saturday. Building bikes and final fettling performed in the blazing sunshine before briefing for the 130-ish riders and the pasta party the night before the start. Bright and early-ish the next day.
At 299 kilometres we were sheltering from the heavy heavy rain on a community centre veranda. Awesome start the day before in great weather deteriorated for most of the late afternoon and evening. Everyone got a good cold soaking and that was after the hike a bike and river crossings, sounds like Wales doesn’t it? Cracking on into the evening to make up some miles while the weather was good 😂 The Surly Midnight Specials proved perfect for this event, loads of different surfaces and they lapped it up.
So we got to Monday night and a 4k tunnel ( dry when we went in & lashing it down when we emerged! ), a super Audax hotel, that’s a bus shelter to you, down by the fjord and a full day of climbs & tribulations – woods, rainy open moorland and climbs onto high plateaus followed by pizza. Who knew about 24hr honesty supermarkets with no staff! Don’t leave your payment card outside though, you’ll need it to pay and get out. Lessons learnt. Dry most of the day too, not today tho 😂 feel right at home.
The landscapes are pretty special in Norway. None more so than our last 36 hours on the trail.
We left the middle part of the figure of eight shaped route on our final push, no stopping for the last section into the night. Earlier that day we’d left Beitostolen ski town at 800k, on the route for snacks at the food services at the top, dropping into some busier roads and more tourist areas later.
Once we’d filled up on cheese sandwiches we we’re good to go to for the next 18 or so hours. We’d estimated a little less but the terrain was still in charge.
We ended high up on the plateau at midnight and the first time this week that the skies were clear and it really felt light and we had the place to ourselves. Quite cold though at 4 degrees. So. Much. Humid.
The bikes were the absolute stars, took us to 2nd placed pair! We did a bit of swapping around and moving things on to build these – y’know Midnight Specials to the Bright Midnight right? They may be billed as Surly’s Road bike but they flew over everything and lapped it up. There was a section quite late on that was downhill over baby head rocks for a while that was tricky but hey, there’s always going to be something. This is a 50 / 50 road / off road event so a do everything well bike is always going to work. Love these for gravel, tarmac, dirty single track, woods, Audax, light touring, everything really..
We had all the weathers, lots of rain, plenty of sun, headwind, tailwinds, some really cold stuff up high too. Saying that this is a great first ‘big’ ride experience for anyone. In and out of towns all the time and you’ll be criss crossing with other riders a lot. Super party experience before and after too. Entries have now opened for no.3 so get your party pants on.
Key items of kit:
Hope Pro 5 hubs laced to Halo Vapour rims (Rich)
i9 i25 Trail ( Shona )
SRAM AXS 1×12 speed.
Salsa Waxwing fork
Schwalbe G OneR 700×45/40 tyres
Exposure Race front and TraceR rear
Tailfin seatpack
Wizard Works Framebagcadabra in Ultrafabric
Salsa Anything Cradle for Nordisk Telemark tent ( Rich, we didn’t use this ).
PhD designs sleeping bag and Thermarest Uberlight mat.
Ricoh GRiii-x / Insta360 / iPhone mini
Garmin 1040 solar
2x 10000ah Anker power bank & various cables
1x spare shorts
1x spare socks
2 pin usb wall charger
Berghaus synthetic down mid layer
Arc’teryx Shakedry jacket
OMM Kamelika glove covers & Halo over pants
Basic first aid kit, Ibuprofen, antihistamines and Rennies for indigestion from so much junk food.
2 pairs of gloves!
Small packable rucksack
Spare chain links, 2 x Revoloop tubes, 2 spare axs batteries each, both gave out at 850k within metres of each other. Charger for those. Topeak Mini Morph pump and Alien multitool.
No flats with Stans no Tubes sealant. No mechanicals.
Here’s the movie, check it out and then go enter!!
