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#007 Nykvarn

Nykvarn Loop Tour
Distance: 80km
Height: 760m
Direction: Anti-clockwise
Percentage: 73% gravel and single track. 27% road
Style: Nice distance with the second half being excellent gravel and single track.
Route Designers: Christerj.74 and Carbonbreaker on Instagram.

 

Just back from his summer of Paris – Brest – Paris and the 700km long bikepacking adventure of the
Turino-Nice Rally we catch up with Stockholm based British gravel-er Neil, aka Carbonbreaker on
Instagram, to ask him about a recent gravel ride of his in Sweden. Here’s what has had to say:

GRVL: What was the terrain like?
Carbonbreaker:The route was a mix between sportgrus and heavier gravel with some sections of forestry road.
The tour is quite flat but with some hill climbs which flows through forest and open farmland typical
for eastern Sweden.

GRVL: Which was your favourite part of the route?
Carbonbreaker: The whole tour was excellent, but it definitely comes into its own from Åkerstykebruk back to
Nykvarn. There’s limited tarmac road through this section with amazing and varied gravel taking you
passed scenic views of lakes and beautiful forest. If you are here in the summer there’s even a
beach!

GRVL: From your Instagram tag name, you must have a story about what type bike you ride? What
do you ride?
Carbonbreaker: Yes, I have an unfortunate history with carbon bikes, so some time ago I switched back to metal
bikes. My CX/Gravel bike is titanium. I ride a Ti Enigma Ecroix with Shimano 105 group set and 650b
Hunt Wheels with road plus tubeless tyres. For carrying my kit, tools and spares I have a variety of
bikepacking bags, but I for day rides I mostly use my Restrap frame bag.

 

GRVL: How do you design you routes and track your ride:
Carbonbreaker: For designing my routes I usually switch between Komoot, RWGPS ( Ride with GPS )
and Strava. And of course, I can cross reference and check accessibility using www.lantmateriet.se.
Although we have allemansrätt ( the right to roam and camp in Sweden ) we still need to be careful
how we direct people through the countryside. It’s not always possible to cycle wherever we want
and there can be some sensitive areas. It’s important to respect private residences and maintain a
good relationship with any landowners.
For my bike computer I recently switched from Garmin to the Wahoo Roam, I love it’s reliability.

GRVL: An important question for a long tour, where can you fika?
Carbonbreaker: Haha, yes, well there is the famous Taxinge Slott and their great selection of cakes to
choose from. We actually stopped a little later in the ride in a nice but simple café in Åkerstykebruk
and there are also good pizza options in the town if you want a bigger feed.

GRVL: You obviously love travelling so do you have any up-coming trips planned?
Carbonbreaker: For Christmas and new year I’m planning a tour in Morocco from Marrakesh to
Agadir through the Atlas Mountains and along the edge of the Sahara Desert, doing some of the
Atlas Mountain Race route with some friends.
GRVL: Wow, that sounds amazing. Looking forward to following your adventure on Instagram and
we hope to meet you again on the gravel roads of Sweden.

This Post Has 8 Comments

  1. Sjukt trevlig runda och svårt att tänka mig att det blir mycket bättre runt Stockholm än denna runda..

    1. Thanks for that Jesper. We have 2 more routes in that area which we’ll be publishing between now and the summer.
      Happy riding.

  2. Trevlig runda, dock blev vi utskällda av både hund och husägare (som var väldigt upprörd över folk som “bara följer sin jävla gps”) när vi vek av från laxnevägen mot klämmingen. Otydligt vad som var tomt eller väg. Vi tog inte konflikten utan vände och cyklade över hammarbosäter istället vilket kortade asfaltsunderlaget med ett par hundra meter så den vägen är kanske bättre för alla?

    1. Hej Ulf,

      Thank you for the feed back. I’m going to look into it and send you a direct email just so I can clarify the location.
      I’ll change the route.
      Regards
      Michael

    2. Same happened to us yesterday.
      Think the route should be changed so no more conflicts will occur.
      The re-routing is quite easy, just a few more meters on Laxnevägen and then turn left.

      But what a great tour! We combined route #006 and #007 and had a lot of fun!

      1. Hi,

        I did this weekend, together with a friend, the route #006 and #007 as well. We started the loop at Sundsvik strand (right on the border between route #006 and #007) and did it clock-wise. Because we wanted to spend the night in a “vindskydd” close to Laxne we rode the first day close to 70k and the day after the remaining 45k. Today I would start it the other way around because we where heavy and the accumulated altimetry came close to 1000m comparing with 300m of the second day. But the route was amazing, specially the second day (Laxne-Sundsvik Strand). Thanks for the route Carbon breaker and Mathias. 🙂

        1. Thanks for the feed back. I love riding in North Sörmland too. So much to see.
          At GRVL.se we are currently writing a Gravel Guide Book for the Stockholm region.
          You will be able to connect several of the routes together to create more bikepacking routes.
          It will be published in Spring 2023.

          Michael

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