The Bike Ramble Blog

Winter Wonderworld

You know how people do the most ridiculous things?

Like spending a lifetime halfway to a heart attack – sprinting a self-constructed soul-imploding rat race with the end purpose of ‘affording’ the time and space to stand still and breathe?

Electing Donald Trump for president.

Or why not giving 1042 days riding a bicycle around the world, aiming to explore the most beautiful, exotic and least accessible corners of the planet – only to come home and realize you were already there?

Not really. But yeah.

What I want to say is that the Swedish winter wonderland I’ve come home to is literally out of the world I thought I knew.

I imagined arriving here would mean I’d have all the mental time and space in the world for self therapeutic writing sessions on here. Reality is turning out to be quite the opposite.

I’m so(ooo!) looking forward to actually sitting down to tap out those true thoughts and feelings on here. And I’m quite convinced I will once things slow down up here.

Just at at this moment though I won’t. At this moment in life I’m busy. Busy journeying my home turf. Busy spending every waken hour with the people I love most in life. And OH so busy playing in the snow.

Never would I have guessed this would be the time for me to say this, but I can’t not. I’m falling head over heels with this world – perhaps now more than ever. And I’d lie to you if I tried denying that I quite enjoy doing so with other than SPD’s on my feet.

Wish you a great week. Let’s do ourselves a favor and spend it outside.

Until next time,

Fredrika

By |January 28th, 2018|Europe, Travel Logs|

Our Names Are Fredrika

Those 1000 days around the world – & what they where really all about.

The fundraiser is still up. And will be – until we reach that million.

Human injustice didn’t go away when I crossed that imaginary finish line. Little Fredrika is Guinea is just one girl. Soon to be 6 months old. About to grow up to become a young girl in a country where she and her friends run a 97% risk of female genital mutilation.

Let’s do this because it’s right. Or if nothing else – let’s do it for her.

Leave your donation here.

All love.

Fredrika

By |January 25th, 2018|Uncategorized|

CPR of the Soul

Hey!

One week. A little more even. Whatever you imagine coming home after 3 years of solo riding a bike around the world to be like – you’re right. It’s everything, in mass.

My head is stuffed with just as much cotton today as it was when I checked in with you last week. That’s alright though as I don’t have much hurry in figuring everything out. More than a lot of things have happened this past week. Though rather than giving you an objective log on what – I thought I’d briefly share with you, just one of those unfinished thoughts I’ve carried through it.

Every other week our local newspaper Sundsvalls Tidning publishes a brief chronicle of mine. This is a quick translation of the one from the other day:

‘I have all I own hanging from my racks, and wherever I pitch my tent for the night I have my home.’

I don’t know how many times, or even in how many languages, I’ve listened to myself trying to explain this simple truth. The one of how home isn’t defined by address registrations or too-much-stuff in cupboards, but by something deep inside one’s gut. And how thanks to the overwhelming warmth and acts of humanity I’ve had the privilege to meet wherever my front wheel has taken me these past years – that small flame has always been kept alive inside me. I’m not even saying this metaphorically. During 1042 days and nights I peddled my steel bicycle to some of the most forgotten corners of our planet, and over and over again – I got to arrive at home.

Then came last Saturday. And it sure is a funny one, this thing with definitions. Because while every syllable of the past sentences have been my truth, they’ve never really been true. It wasn’t until then and there – turning that last corner onto my hometown square Stora Torget, welcomed by what seemed like every familiar face I’ve ever met – that unrestrained punch in the diaphragm told me I was fully and truly Home.

Home to me – still isn’t about framed pictures on the walls or perfectly sat down armchairs. It really is about that stroke of light living in one’s chest. The light that through the kindness of a never-ending line of people from all over the world, not once had to fade in mine. The same light that at that magical moment last Saturday, instantly ignited into a full blown and completely uncontrollable forrest fire.

I rode around the world. Now at last – I am Home. And I so want to take this opportunity to thank every single one of you for heading out the door to welcome me here. We were given -15°C that day, still life had never seemed warmer. I’m in Sundsvall, Sweden. Inside my chest the wildfire dances freely with the beat of my heart – and I’m once again blessed to feel like the happiest girl on Earth. Because I’m Home.

At the very same moment so many of us sharing this – and every other – town aren’t. For 3 years time I’ve made way up, down, through and around the world and have always been given a warm embrace in which to land safely. I’ve been given unconditional friendship from people who’se language I don’t understand. I’ve received bowls of rice from people who’d rather welcome a stranger than go to bed without hunger. I’ve been taken in for the night, regardless of whether or not that calls for someone’s grandmother to sleep top and tail with me to give room for us all.

I’ve never needed any of this.

Still people with a bare minimum have given me everything. More than anything, they’ve given essential oxygen to that little flame in my chest – all the way home. Which currently happens to be a place where people are arriving in desperate and vital need of help. And however we wish to put it, fact remains – we have it all. Never has an equation seemed more obvious.

None of us has the power to do everything, but I say we all have a damn responsibility to do something. If nothing else because when we’re furthest from Home, a few single molecules of oxygen given to that little flame in one’s chest is the CPR of the soul.

And we’re not fckn people leaving breathless friends on the ground.

Until next time,

Fredrika

PS.

Sorry. I’ll try to be on time next Sunday :-)

By |January 23rd, 2018|Europe, Travel Logs|

From the Finish Line

I finished.

I’M HOME.

I rode that bicycle around the world.


First hug: Mom

I’m overwhelmed beyond words and today is not one for writing blogs. I just wanted to stop in to say Hi and THANK YOU to each and every one of you made yesterday the most magical thing a girl could ever dream of. Actually I want to thank every single one of you for the years of love and never-ending support through all this. None of this would have happened without you.

Though let’s save all that for later. Today (too) is for celebrating.

The finish line is crossed but this ride is far from over. Those +1000 days ago this privileged Swedish girl’s dream was to ride her bicycle around the world. Today, it is to give that same ride true and eternal meaning. The first part is handled. With the second – I still need your help.

Please celebrate with me today. Please help me make this thing count. Please – consider leaving a donation to the ActionAid fundraiser. Because this is saving lives. And because less fortunate girls & women have dreams too – and every single one of us deserve a safe and just life in which we’re given a fighting chance to live them.

Yesterday we raised bizarre +50 000 SEK on the spot. The biggest thank you today is to all of you who made that happen. To reach that million we still have miles to go. For fckn sure though – is that we’ll do it.

Because we’re the lucky few who can. And because we still share a world where that means we absolutely must. I say let’s start this Sunday by pulling our weight.

Leave your donation here.

Thank you. Thank you all.

And then thank you again.

My head is spinning. And now I’m off for another hug from my Mom.

I’ll see you back here in a week.

Fredrika

P.S.

To everyone with photos / videos from yesterday: please send them! To fredrika@thebikeramble.com. I want also the crappy stuff :-) WeTransfer.com is an easy way to share files.

(all finish line photos from this post: Jenny Toresson @ St.nu)

By |January 14th, 2018|Europe, Travel Logs|

Opposite Side of Eternity

Around the world in 1000 days. That was the oh so bizarre dream that I – soon to be 3 years ago – peddled out of my hometown to realise. The round-the-world part really wasn’t all that important. Neither were the 1000 days. The fantasy I turned real was the one about absolute and endless freedom.

The idea of carrying everything I own on a pair of steel racks and pedal my way through life in whatever speed I fancy. Experience the wonders of nature and the very core of of people in a pace so slow that I – fully and truly – got to become part of them. Wake up only when soft morning light through the tent canvas tells me it’s time. Eat because I’m hungry, not because a man-made clock tells me it’s time. Pedal until my legs don’t have another stroke left in them.

Or stop long before that, simply because the clearing I’m rolling pass is too beautiful to not become my home for the night. To gain the power of putting life on pause at its very prettiest, and have it continue playing only when my gut tells me it’s time.

It was never about the round-the-world. Neither the 1000 days. Still the fact that the ride I headed out for got framed into such an endless oasis of time and space was my one key to that never-ending and boundless freedom I was after. I pushed those pedals out of Sweden, straight into eternity – without a single notion of land in sight. And boy – did the dream come true.

Up until now. Dazed I look around me in the Stockholm café in which I just woke up from this thousand-year beauty sleep. Surrounded by stern faces, each lit up by the laptop screen to which their unnaturally bent necks are invisibly chained to. Push notifications are playing on beat with the café doors that are letting the endless stream of stressed and well dressed pair of feet in and out on their way between meetings and deadlines.

For a barely noticeable moment I close my eyes and wake back up in the vacuum-like silence of the Tibetan plateau. With deep breaths I take in the calm of eternity. Squint my eyes to try and distinguinsh heaven from Earth behind the never-ending and yurt dotted grasslands. Only to snap up and whiplash back to reality a micro second later, as the calendar app I’ve just downloaded to my phone is screaming from my pocket. Seemingly to remind me of that radio interview I’m told I can’t be late to if so my life depended on it. But more than anything as if to tell me that life suddenly has shrunken into something to short to live.

To throw myself into this adventure was the most intimidating thing I’ve ever done. Once. To try and land on my feet here on the opposite side of forever, is more terrifying than anything I could ever imagine.

In less than a week’s time – on Saturday the 13th of January at 13.00 this journey’s last pedal strokes will be taken as I’m crossing the finish line on Stora Torget in Sundsvall. What will be waiting on the other side I still don’t know, and honestly I don’t yet care. For now all I want is to celebrate.

The dream of freedom that became this eternal bike ride, have now ended up being the longest bicycle expedition in Swedish history. You’re more than welcome to join the celebrations at the finish line – it’d honestly mean the world to me to have you there with me. Take a friend by the hand – and please come.

Stora Torget – Sundsvall, Sweden. Saturday the 13th of January at 13.00.

Now let’s make this a party. Event info is found on This link.

I’ll see you there!

Fredrika

By |January 7th, 2018|Europe, Travel Logs|

Where Dreams Come True

Last day of the year. Hunched over my laptop somewhere in Norrköping, Sweden I look outside on streets that are only just awakening – only to realise that the day is about to end once again. Swedish winter darkness is quite something. Anyone who’s ever set foot here during these dark months knows it. I’ve spent a lifetime in this country getting to know it.

Yet I feel like it’s only now – after these past years of being fully dependent on natural light – that I actually see it for what it is. Perhaps more than anything for what it isn’t. And I’m not even far north yet.

This short clip is from 6 pm last evening and can probably let you in a little on what I’m talking about.

Current evening routine (sound on!) 🤷🏼‍♀️❄️😅 #lastnight #vardeljus

Ett inlägg delat av Fredrika Ek (@thebikeramble)

I’m about to hit the road – Stockholm bound. I just wanted to check in to wish you all the happiest of new years. 2017 taught me plenty – and I’m looking back at a year after which I can’t see how life could ever be the same again. Never have my smile been broader, nor my gratitude bigger.

I literally can’t wait to find out what adventures this next one has in store.

I’ll leave you with only a few of my emotional highlights from the year that’s been. We’ll have all the time in the world to be nostalglic about 2017 later. For now all I want is to head out to fully live the very last little bit of it. I hope you’ll let me suggest for you to do the same – and we’ll catch each other somewhere on the other side.

First things first though. Remember to scroll like you mean it :-)

HAPPY 2018 FRIENDS!

Until next time,

Fredrika

By |December 31st, 2017|Uncategorized|

All I Want for Christmas

Steep climbs up oxygen poor mountain passes. Adrenalin pumping escapes from packs of cyclist feeding dogs out for the kill. The water buffalo that only just missed my right shoulder when stomping onto my tent that bisarre night on the Lao countryside. Or when I was caught rambling around in the military area along the border of Vietnam and Cambodia a few weeks later.

My pulse has been beating fast before. During this trip more times than I could ever even begin to count. This particular morning though – the heart beating out of my chest was taking on its task with more commitment that should even be realistically possible.

Why?

Because I was going home.

I was about to reunite with what and who I left behind those years and million pedal strokes ago. With the home that with time had become more like a fairytale fantasy made up to make difficult times seem better – than a physical place with actual flesh-and-bone people who love me. The home that was now no longer more than a few kilometer wide batch of water away.


Strandvejen. Copenhagen – Helsingör. Denmark.

This is a blog post of photos. Some likely to tell those thousand words – others not. Flick the empathy running lobe of your brain on full reception mode and let’s run through them all at once.

If it felt good to step off the ferry and back onto Swedish soil?

To find my best brother in the world and Mom patiently waiting to welcome me with wide smiles and open arms when doing so? To bury my face in the brother’s chest and cry the overload of emotion into his jacket even beginning to take in this final dream-fulfilled-euphoria around me?

YES.

This was a welcome back to remember. Even happier than to receive it though – was I about knowing that nothing was really over just yet. I was back on home turf – but I wasn’t Home. My finish line is what it’s always been – Sundsvall. And I still have a winter crossing of Sweden to reach it.

This past week has been the nostalgia trip of a lifetime. Family. Long lost friends. Kexchoklad and Kalles Kaviar (though not necessarily combined..). My own language. And to crown it all – Swedish x-mas spirit.

To each and everyone who’ve made this experience one I’ll bring with me to my last day – THANK YOU.


Swedish tourist photo. Of the house? No. Of that good old orange stick! lol

And then. Now. Came x-mas for real.

Mr. Bike is left behind in a garage in Gothenburg and yesterday morning I caught a train into the woods of Västmanland. And in the small next-to-nothing town of my grandmother I found them all.

ALL.

It’s x-mas and I’m with my family. In a few days I’ll be back on the bike but for now I intend to squeeze every single drop of love out of this holiday-from-the-holiday with the people than mean the most to me.

I truly wish you all the bliss of getting to do the same.

Merry Christmas!

Untl next time,

Fredrika

By |December 24th, 2017|Uncategorized|

Time Travels & Closing Circles

I’ll let you make this one yours.

Just the way I was able to make my ride north through Europe mine. It could’ve been a quite-long-but-not-really, only so interesting, half ass experience that would fall just short of OK. More than anything else – due to the epicness it followed. With a little effort – it became one of the most emotional and heartwarming experiences of my life.

Nostalgia overload. And the closing of a circle way beyond my wildest dreams.

Obviously you only have that much emotion invested in this to you digital girl’s realisation of her dream. There are however a few of you reading this that have been with me since the early days of this journey – and that have spent a fair chunk of time during these last years, pouring over the lines and photos I’ve managed to spit onto the pages of this blog.

The only heart exploding here will be mine.

And just like my ride through Europe this blog post has all the potential to be a quite-long-but-not-really, only so interesting, half ass experience that falls just short of OK. More than anything else – due to the epicness it follows.

Then of course comes that part of a little effort.

I think that if you’ll let it – your heart might have the time for one extra beat with this one.

To make a long story short would be the wrong expression here. This homebound ride through Europe was a string of short chapters of this ride – made endless. I won’t bother trying to explain it, but rather just tell you what happened.

… and this is where the rest is up to you.

This time capsule of a journey started in Bern. From where I shared this story with you. What I didn’t tell you was that this was also the time and place where I got to fly back in time and space to relive some of the most intense weeks of my life – with the people who were there doing the very same thing with me.

In Bern there was also Patrick, that lovely man who – just like most people I’ve crossed paths with these last years – have never made it onto the pages of this blog. There was my failed attempt to leave, only to instead end up yet another night the couch of Marianne & Thomas.

There was nostalgia, home brew beer and tears of laughter around the Zurich dinner table of my first true cycling companions Iris & Reto.

There was the next failed attempt of leaving. Ending up with a belly full of fondue and heart full of love after that long evening with also blog anonymous Kathrin. The girl who brightened my day over and over again during my first year, both on our way to Singapore. After crossing my path in everything from Turkish Kurdistan to Kyrgyz shit town Sary-Tash to Thailand & Malaysia. And then now, each warming our hands on a cuppa glüewein in a winter-cold Switzerland.

I have no words to explain how I feel about the fact that there were also those best hugs in the world of black belt life livers Karin & Fritz. Like I already told you in the last post this European time travel throwback wasn’t even limited to this journey. There was even my childhood and life-before-this, in form of my god mother Kristina.

And then.

Then there was Nicolai. Outside whose front door I got to close the circle. The circle around the world. That circle I started, I don’t even know how many lifetimes ago.

Like with most things – leaving your life behind to ride a bicycle around the planet is easier said than done. And the gratitude I still feel for getting to do so cheered on by this Dane is way beyond my English vocabulary. Courage is a peculiar thing. And so is the magical trait that oh so few people possess – the undefinable ability to infuse it in others.

Starting this thing was a challenge. To finish it off is and will be the biggest cliff I’ve ever jumped. Thank you Nicolai – for once again giving me the I-can’t-fckn-wait urge to do it.

It’ll be great. For helvede.

Now all that’s left of this thing is to ride home.

I can’t wait to catch you next Sunday.

Until next time,

Fredrika

By |December 17th, 2017|Europe, Travel Logs|

Warm Hugs & Hot Hamburg Showers

Hey!

Let’s run through all the excuses at once. This post is late. Will be short. And probably 100% not related to any of the reasons you may or may not have to be following this blog.

It will however also bring the explanation to all of the above, so I guess in a way we come full circle anyhow.

For weeks now I’ve had a post in mind that I literally can’t wait to tap down and finally get to share with you. Let’s decide this coming Sunday is the one where that actually happens. After all.. there aren’t that many of these blog time Sundays left of this whole thing.

How weird is that?

I’m sorry for keeping you waiting with this one. I promise though – I’ll try to make it a treat for all of us.

This weekend I haven’t been much of a cyclist nor pretend-to-be-blog-person. This weekend I’ve been spoiled! After 10 or so straight days of cycling like it was going out of style I arrived to Hamburg. I’ll be the first to admit that the seemingly never ending German 1 degree Celsius rains had gotten the best of me – and I couldn’t get out of the saddle and into that longed after hot (as hell) shower fast enough.

I hadn’t been rushing to Hamburg for showers though. The true reason behind my swift run through Germany was nothing less than my wonderful godmother Kristina! Waiting in Hamburg. With a it’s-been-three-freaking-years hug. And a pull-out-all-the-stops-all-inclusive-bulls-eye big city weekend to remember.

If you knew half the stuff we’ve been eating and had the slightest idea of how comfy our hotel bed really was you’d know how much of an understatement – or even insult – it’d be to say that I left Hamburg with newfound energy. But since this isn’t meant to turn into a full blog post I’ll go ahead and do it anyways.

This morning I left Hamburg with newfound energy.

Headed northeast.

Meaning that that coming blog post might actually be written on Swedish soil. I can’t even think about it without my head and heart exploding. Which is why I won’t. Not just yet. Instead – I’ll just be another girl randomly cycling German roads.

With newfound energy.

Until next time,

Fredrika

By |December 11th, 2017|Europe, Travel Logs|

The Best Ideas Are The Stupid Ones

‘Are you sure Switzerland is such a good idea at this time of the year..?’

I don’t think I can recall a single place or a single time from this journey, where not a single (well meaning) person have told me what a bad idea this particular combination of time and space was. Be it from Turkmen desert heat or Tibetan mountain cold. ‘Crazy men’ waiting for me in Kurdistan, or – even worse – no men at all(!) to fight those human sized spiders for me in the Oz outback.

If I didn’t perish from salt poisoning in Salar de Uyuni I surely would do so from malaria in West Africa. In the Sahara I’d even do best in hoping to be taken away by a sand storm, simply to have Al-Qaida come second. Not to mention France..! Where – lo and behold – supermarkets are apparently closed on Sundays.

Anyways. To answer the question:

‘No.’

I wasn’t sure if Switzerland was such a good idea at this time of the year. But then again that’s not the point. I was rather convinced that no matter what, Switzerland in November would be a better idea than Sweden will be in January. Confident in that the chocolate would make whatever worth it. And as always – 100% into the idea of ‘not sure’ being more than enough reason to go and find out.

… I don’t need to tell you, do I?

Switzerland. Oh Switzerland. Of course you were a gem – just like at any given time of the year. I was just extra lucky to catch you in fondue season!

Now. I had to climb quite a few vertical meters for these.

So…

Scroll slowly – will you?

Mountain views & glüwein. What in the world could make that better?

The people who know what I’ve been up to also know that the true answer is long lost reunions. But that story I’ll simply save for the next one.

For now – the answer is WINTER!

It’s true what they say. Winter IS indeed coming. And never has it been more welcome.

I wish you the best of weeks!

Until next time,

Fredrika

By |December 3rd, 2017|Uncategorized|