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SNÖÅ BRUK

Enchanted forests and never-ending trails

By TheBikepack

August 11^th, 2019

7th of July - 2019

It is a cold and gray morning the 7th of July - 2019, the view outside our window reminds us nothing of the fair weather predicted in the weather apps off our phones. This is one of them perfect “do nothing days” when all you want to do is wrap your blanket a bit closer to ya and sleep in for like.. ever. But we are definitely doing something today!

By the time I manage to scare myself to life and get out off bed Dennis and Joanna already had got going, packed half off our stuff in the car, prepped breaky and got started on getting dressed for the day. We are at Snöå Bruk just outside of Vansbro where we did a 3k super fun swim-race yesterday. Today is however this weekends highlight if you ask me - we are talking about cycling!

SNÖÅ BRUK

Snöå Bruk is a majestically situated estate, slumbering right next to a beautiful mirror lake, a golf course and miles and miles of winding MTB trails. Guess what, we are here for the trails! So after figuring out all the logistics of getting started in the morning, held up mostly by me trying to find some warm stuff in my packing.. a mission proving impossible as I only brought super fast and light jeaourises cause it was going to be sunny yo! Buut i figured i'd just ride really hard and get some heat going from the cycling instead.

We meet up with our two trail guides for the day, Peter and Patrik who greeted us with big smiles and a great welcome, this was going to be an exciting day I could already feel it! We were all set and ready to go after some minor adjustments to our dirt eating, gravel thriving, celeste MTB beasts and the party of five rolled out from the driveway of Snöåbruk and left the neat gardens and civilized estate behind us.

TRAIL RIDING Rock'n Roll

We are use to fast, light, carbon fiber road-race machines… smooth tarmac and open roads. Trail Riding on the other hand is like comparing figure skating with ice hockey, they are both on ice and with skates but man it's a whole different cup of tea. We eased into the transition with some nice gravel road riding but took a sharp left after not too long and found ourselves looking down a winding path disappearing into the woods. Good thing we were riding with Peter and Patrik because we would have for sure missed that the path ever even existed if we had been here on our own!

Cycling to us is so much about going places, the ability to explore your surroundings and adventure into the unknown. Trail riding really took this to a new level in how you literally got the “first row”, up front, “where the action is” and “right where you want to be” experiencing riding in nature like we did. We do sometimes go on trails but after the day in Snöå Bruk we seriously had to re-define what a trail was. We are talking beautiful nature paths you could ride for days and weeks without ever having to see the civilisation, amazing if you ask me! All the more reason for why we were so glad to spend the day riding with Peter and Patrik our super friendly guides. They also gave lots of fun information about the surroundings during the day, gave all kinds of great tips and tricks about trail riding and brought “jägarmix” for when we stopped and caught our breath (mix of peanuts and raisins - the best bike snack ever).

The "pinch me" moment

As we road the weather also started changing and became just as good as the “weather people” had told us in the apps (sorry for ever doubting) and my super fast outfit turned out to be the perfect choice for the day after all.

Here we are, blazing through an enchanted forest that never seem to end and somehow kept becoming increasingly beautiful for every minute that passed. Perfect weather, friends and top notch guides, it was a total “pinch me, am I dreaming” moment. Our confidence on the bikes grew exponentially and with it our daringness on the trails. Here’s one learning tough, make sure to gear down when facing a steep steep incline cause if you don't, well then you will fall half ways up. This happened to both me and then right after Dennis when he came cruising up the hill and just like me had miss-calculated the incline and gear needed to conquer it. But it somehow feels great “nice-falling” (“nice falling” is when you fall without any injury) because when you do, you know that you are pushing the envelope of your capabilities and will walk away a better rider.

All good things come to and end

We arrived back at the Snöå Bruk estate some four hours later, utterly exhausted and battered from all the rading, falling, concentrating and most of all, all the fun! My face must have hurt the most off all from all the smiling though my body was sore in places I didn't knew existed. We finished of with a great lunch together by the lake eating a killer carrot cake and a refreshing caesar salad before we washed the bikes and put them to rest in the barn right next to the main building. We hugged our guides goodbye and decided that we should do this again sometime soon, and we definitely are!

We are in the car on our way home now and everyone is silent just like when you just have had a great meal. This has been a great day and I hope you get the opportunity to see and experience the wondrous trails of Snöå Bruk for yourself one day!