Day 14: Härnösand to Sundsvall | 60km

I awoke to the now familiar sound of rain pattering against the outer tent. Almost by instinct and more efficiently than before, I packed up my gear inside the tent to keep everything dry. My anxiety about bears had faded, so I kept my food inside as well, allowing me to eat breakfast in the shelter before facing the weather outside. Bread, peanut butter and a handful of walnuts would give me enough energy for the final 60 km to Sundsvall, where two nights in a hotel awaited.

The pattering rain soon turned into a violent thunderstorm, but I felt surprisingly cheerful and didn’t mind it much. Something had shifted in my attitude toward rain. I still prefer dry conditions, but since it wasn’t cold, there was something oddly satisfying about feeling the rain against my face while riding. It stirred a kind of childlike joy in being outside on a bike.

I took a snack break in a town whose name I didn’t even catch, but outside the local supermarket I met another cyclist. He turned out to be another German heading toward North Cape. We were both just passing through, but we chatted for a few minutes and something he said lingered with me for the rest of the day. He was the third person I’d met on this trip who stressed, ”I’m not actually a cyclist.” It’s funny because I don’t think of myself as a cyclist either, yet here we all are, traveling thousands of kilometers by bike.

So, what is a cyclist? It seems many of us are simply using a bike as a way to travel or to explore something within ourselves and the world. What’s interesting, though, is how many of us feel the need to clarify that we’re not “cyclists” perhaps to distance ourselves from the stereotypes of how cyclists are supposed to look or behave. I don’t have the answers, but I’ll keep exploring this with the other non cyclists I meet along the way.