Ride report: The Dirty Halland gravel route – An epic cycling adventure in Sweden

We have been on long rides before, but a 160+ kilometre gravel route? That’s something new. Last Friday we rode the Dirty Halland, and we can highly recommend it to every gravel fanatic that is looking for a good challenge. With tired legs, but a camera roll filled with awesome shots we share with you our ride report.

The Dirty Halland 2021

The Dirty Halland was initially planned as an event, but we all know how small the chances are of those happening these days. Luckily organizer Team Cyklamera decided to change the setup and released the route for everyone to cycle it independently. The route consisted of an extremely well put together combination of hard packed gravel roads, a few punchy climbs and some single trails to keep the mind sharp.

Gravel, sandy single track and rocky climbs

We started the route at the train station in Halmstad and climbed our way out of the city. Cold muscles and steep gradient, a perfect way to start every ride. After about six kilometres we finally hit the gravel in Sperlingsholm, a nice little teaser as turned out. After another short stretch on asphalt, we wouldn’t see much of that for a while. From here on it was gravel, sandy single track and rocky climbs almost all the way.

Our long distance cycling technique

Our longest route to this date had been about 120 kilometres, so we knew we needed a bit of a strategy. Something that had worked really well for us in India, was breaking up the long rides in blocks. We decided on 25 kilometres and breaks timed at 5 minutes each. The first break happened to be at a beautiful little lake, the Bredaredssjön.

Refuelling in Torup

Up until this point we had been fuelling on nuts, energy and candy bars, so we were quite happy when we came to Torup the first town that had an actual supermarket. We always struggle a bit to find which foods are right on long rides like these, so we usually just pick whatever we crave for that moment. So not exactly your healthy well-balanced diet.

Sabina’s shopping list

• chicken teriyaki wrap
• banana (which she didn’t eat)
• donut
• protein chocolate milkshake
• triple shot espresso energy drink

Robin’s shopping list

• pulled pork wrap
• iced cappuccino
• Coca-Cola
• salami chips
• 2 kex chocolate bars (which he didn’t eat)
• candy
• bottle of water (which was unnecessary since there turned out to be a water tap next to us)

Gravel cycling in Biskopstorps Nature reserve

The part through Biskopstorps Nature reserve was yet another highlight of this route. After a long climb, with a short breather to pet the curious cows, we descended all the way to Kvibille. Here we bought a sugary drink, to get us through the last stretch. Blue hour had set in and Sabina was at the end of her rope. With just 20 more kilometres to push through, Robin somehow felt stronger now at the end than at the start of the ride.

Cycling in the dark

We had calculated that we would ride in the dark, but we didn’t have a lot of experience with that yet. So a technical descent in the nature area just east of Gullbrandstorp became a whole new challenge. Our torches were bright enough to light up all the tree roots, potholes and big rocks on the trail. But our tired minds were not sharp enough to catch all of them in time. So we carefully made our way down and bumped and hopped over the mud piles and rocks that we missed catching on time, but our chunky tires could easily handle for us.

Making our way down we could see the city lights of Halmstad in the distance. The finish line was now literally in sight. We crossed the farmlands on the last stretches of gravel, and before we knew it we recognized the road along the open air museum Hallandsgården which we had passed this morning at the start of the route.

Follow all our adventures on Instagram.