The Bikepacking Route no one had dared to do before.

This is electricity. No sign saying, oh by the way, this is electricity. This is a story about, well let's just say, two not so wise men. Getting themselves into all sorts of trouble with two bikes, in one of Europe's most inhospitable environments. Their goal was simple. Cycle around Norway's glacier national park, Breheimen. Doesn't sound that difficult, right? Just one problem. There isn't actually roads that go all the way around the national park. Because... Glaciers in front of us. We've got glaciers behind us. Which means one thing. Don't break a leg. God, this is so tiring. There's the valley. But my family, trust me. I think we're at the highest point. What? This is not cool now. This is not cool. I'm out of water. If you're not Norwegian, then there's a very good chance you've never heard of Breheimen National Park. It's just another of Norway's fairytale worlds that much of the outside world knows bugger all about. At over half the size of Belgium, you'd think it would be able to push its weight about. However, when your brothers are Jotterheimen National Park, where Norway's highest mountains lie, and Jostedalsbryn National Park, where Norway's biggest glacier lies, you can understand why it gets forgotten about. But with a name that's directly translated to Home of the Glaciers, how does that not entice your interest? This area of Norway has the highest concentration of glaciers anywhere in mainland Europe. But there lies the problem. You can't build roads over glaciers, making it hard to access the park on a bike. There is, however, one road that takes you deep into the park boundaries, but it comes to a dead end when it reaches, you guessed it, a glacier. There is also another road on the other side of the park that also comes to a dead end. But these roads seem so close together. Just 12 kilometers separate them. This was too tempting, although no one on Strava had attempted it before. But let's be the first. 300 kilometers of cycling, 12 kilometers of walking, 5,000 meters of elevation gain over two days. What's the worst that could happen? Good morning, good morning. Joining me on this adventure is my friend Erik and the journey begins in Lomh, a small, pretty town that sits at the end of national scenic route Sognefjella. Day one should be pretty straightforward and uneventful, but cycling in the Norwegian mountains is not always that way. The road passes between Jotterheimen and Breheimen National Parks, so expect spectacular views on what many consider Norway's greatest scenic road. Everything is going great. The sun is shining and the wind is on our backs. But on Thursday, I got a message that Sognefjella was closed. But then, four hours later, it reopened again. It's now Saturday and with no prior warning, we see a road close sign ahead. 10 kilometers into the journey and we're told to turn around. This is not cool. Which means we've got a 372 kilometer detour around the mountains if we want to reach our hotel that evening. Yeah, that should be no problems. Well, the other option is we just need to figure out how to cross over the river. Apparently, there's some sort of old wooden bridge that might collapse, but we'll take our chances. And there's a hiking trail which goes through the forest and it's 5km. This is not what we wanted. So our 12 kilometers of hiking this weekend has now turned into 16. Well, because that would be a nightmare. But this is electricity. Is it? At least it's not raining. Look at that white horse. It's like Gandalf's horse. Who needs the road when you've got this? Hiking sucks. God, this is so tiring. The top five grass roads. Wow. It's a hidden gem. Let's get back on the main road. Let's get moving. The forest of death now turned into the road of paradise as we realized we had Norway's most scenic road all to ourselves. 1300 meters or just above it now. Nearly done with the tough part. It never ceases to amaze me, amaze me this road. I cycled it in June, I cycled it in July and now September. And every time it's different, every time it wows you and every time it's just as hard. Climbing. The bird. Is it a plane? No, it's my sign. 1300 meters, baby. There we go. 1428. Just as the sign says. A few months back, I had a small part in getting these road signs installed and I'm so proud of them. Yeah, I think the signs are great coming up. I mean, I just, the first time you're coming up and you're seeing the bits really, it's really motivating. And they're really big as well. And they are for cyclists because we drove up here a few weeks back and you're flying in the car, you see one and then you see the next and you see the next really quickly from the bike. You know, it's a good five, 10 minutes before you see the next one. So they don't really, it doesn't really work for the people in motor vehicles, it works for cyclists. Keep it clean, keep it clean. This, now there's some clumps in here. Cycling Northern Europe's highest mountain pass is a unique experience with glaciers all around you. And on a day like this, when the road is closed, it's as close to cycling paradise as you'll get. The first time I descended off this mountain, my GoPro battery died right at the start and I didn't realise until I was at the bottom, I was devastated. But this time I have a fresh battery because I can guarantee it, paradise continues all the way to the bottom. Well, we're down to sea level, we're down to sea level, we've reached the fjord and she's looking, she's looking okay, not bad. What do you reckon? Cycling the fjords is always special but when you've come from a world of rock, ice and stones and now you're in this Garden of Eden, that contrast... Filming you, you're filming me. What's going on? ...is something unexplainable. You have to experience it. Now in traditional bikepacking style, I would love to show you us putting up a tent and it raining all night and us getting up in the morning and just cracking on but one, we can't camp because we need the bikes to be as light as possible for the hike tomorrow and two, we got offered a free night's accommodation in a very, very fancy hotel with an evening meal and a lovely breakfast in the morning. This is thanks to Eric and his contacts, not me. So we ended up having to take that option. It was a nightmare, don't get me wrong. I wish I was in a tent but we survived. We don't know what it's going to be like through the mountains with the bike but I'm sure we'll find a way. Day two, here we come. The weather is on our side but we knew that before we set off. The remote and mountainous terrain we're about to hike a bike through is not worth contemplating in bad weather. Into the valley with the dead end we went knowing we would not be returning. Like most valleys in Western Norway the high mountains block the morning sun. It's a constant dance between light and shadow, warm and cold. It's freezing cold right now because one, we're in the shadow but two, we've got the wind which comes off the glacier down this valley so it's like ice cold wind. In Norway some people can't stop skiing and in summer they just add wheels to their skis. And bear in mind it's about two degrees right now and this guy's got shorts and a t-shirt on. Hardcore locals putting us to shame. Are you cold? No, are you? Yeah, really cold. So we've come from this valley here we're going to come up and then we're going to go through this valley to the Nygaardsbrin glacier which is supposed to be one of the most spectacular in Norway and then we're going to come back down and then we're going to head up this dreaded road which is going to turn into gravel up to a lake up to the top of here and then we're into no man's land. As you can see there's not even a map here. It's no man's land. So the river continues and it's just getting better and better to me, aren't you? I can just ride along against a river all day long. I'm not even looking at how many kilometers I've cycled right now you're just so in awe of the nature around you that you don't even think about your exercising you don't even think about your legs are turning you're just charmed by this beautiful glacier river basically. She has me. Where I grew up rivers looked nothing like this. You can't even put them into the same category. This river is alive, ever evolving and moving. It dominates the valley and you cannot tame it. The river rapidly expands and retracts through the seasons and weather conditions. Humans have no control here. The river is the force that governs the valley. First glimpses of the glacier and wow. This is probably the most spectacular glacier in Norway or glacier tongue in Norway. These glaciers that surround this area have been on the move for millennia. During the stone age they advanced in the age of the vikings they retreated. For centuries hunters, traders and farmers have crossed over these glaciers. Recent research suggests that the glaciers in this area melted completely around 8,000 years ago and then began to form again some 5,000 years ago. They reached their maximum in the little ice age which happened about 250 years ago at which time the glaciers were advancing around 70 meters a year. Farms were overwhelmed by the advancing glacier arms and had to be abandoned. Can you imagine living in a place where a vast block of ice is moving ever closer towards your house? As you know today the glacier arms are retreating at a record pace but this one is one of the most impressive still left and well worth cycling up to. So if you want you can hike the hiking trails there's three kilometers here or you can take a boat over to the glacier if you want. See some people have come here on bikes and they've just locked them up but to be honest here I think your bikes they're gonna be pretty safe. Now we would have loved to have hiked up to the glacier but we had a lot to do and we're behind schedule. This is mainly my fault due to the time I'm taking to film and document the ride. Eric is starting to get a bit irritated by this and rightly so. He's trying to keep us moving on as he knows we're going into the unknown. The road to the end is a steep climb up to 1,300 meters above sea level. No one uses this road apart from some workers who maintain the dam and hydro facilities at the end of it. The long tunnels have no lights and the road starts to deteriorate the further along we go. You really start to feel the remoteness of this area. Should we be here right now? Should we be doing this? That's what's going through your mind at this moment. The road my friends is coming to an end. The feeling of uncertainty, the feeling of doubt, the feeling of apprehension are all now bubbling up to the surface. The party is over. This is not just a hike, a bike trail. This is a wild and remote landscape and 12 kilometers now seems a lot longer than our minds led on to believe. We've done our research and have checked satellite images of this area. We're confident we can get over this terrain and reach the road on the other side but when you're actually there and you see the intimidating environment around you you realize that all the research in the world counts for nothing. This was going to be a long and difficult hike. This is not cool now. No idea where the hiking trail is or where I'm supposed to go. So I'm supposed to head to a mountain hut where I'm going to meet Eric. He's gone ahead because I was faffing around with the drone footage at the dam. The problem is I have no idea where this mountain hut is and I'm completely lost. Look at this. This is hard enough just walking up. Never mind with a bike. When I meet back up with Eric I know there's going to be some sort of tension and we need to clear the air quickly as this is not the time to start falling out. I had no idea where I was going. Yeah not me either but I pointed out that the mountain hut. Yeah. That one. We need to stick together because... When you say a quick drone shot then you stay up forever. I know I know but... The weather is coming in. We don't it's not the situation that we can... Sometimes just having a little confrontation like that it helps. It clears the air. You both get your points across and then you move on and at this point now we're in the national park so I can't do any more drone footage and I'm just going to keep it to the GoPro and let's just move on because we have a lot to do and Eric is right faffing is not part of the game now. Hope my family trust me. We're up to here. Amazing views but we've got that to do. I'm out of water. Down there? Yeah. I just knit back down. Quite normal. New feet ID. Take a leg. I think we're at the highest point. There's the valley. I think we can just cycle all the way down now actually. You see the next red marker anywhere? Well we got down that. The first water we've come across in a while and the boat's so dehydrated. We thought the tough mountain climb with the rocks, ice and boulders would be the hard part. We foolishly believed that there would be this like nice trail on the side of the lake where we would walk our bikes and there'd be rainbows and puppy dogs and unicorns. Just going from bad to worse now. It's like just a swamp. In reality, the trail kept up high through a dense overgrown area of bushes and small silver birch trees with this muddy and wet environment to navigate. We estimated from satellite images we'd do a slow but reasonable three kilometers an hour. In reality, we were lucky to get two kilometers an hour. Every hundred meters was a struggle through the mini forest. Eventually, we see the light at the end of the hiking tunnel. The time is nine o'clock in the evening. It has taken us six hours to do. We made it. We made it over the mountains through the jungle and the road is just somewhere on the other side of this bridge somewhere. Would you like to do that again, Eric? Yeah, yeah. One more round, I think, yeah? Sorry, one stupid idea. No, I agreed with it as well. Both were our stupid ideas. Oh my god, we made it. We're saved. A road! Never been so happy to see a gravel road. Oh my god, this is the most beautiful thing in the world. Look at it. All right, saddle up. Let's hope the bikes still work. All right, so we're at a mountain cabin which is here in the valley that we've reached and it's going to be dark in the next 30, 40 minutes. We've got a lot of cycling to do. I think it's about 70 kilometers so I'm just going to stop filming now because we've just got to plow on and get back to the car and we're really, really tired. So this is it. 70k's along there. I'll be at the car and I'll do some more filming. Hopefully, when we get to the car. But yeah, the hard work is not over. All right, we made it back to Lum. We made it back. It was a crazy journey but we got back in the darkness and one beautiful thing which I wish I picked up on camera is we had a full moon, like a massive super moon just shining on us all the way. It was really magical. And the road was pretty quiet. Not that many cars passed us. So yeah, it was a pretty incredible journey back. But we did it. First people ever to do this loop of what's the national park called again? I don't remember. It's called Breheimen. Breheimen. Breheimen National Park. First people ever to cycle around it. Any final words, Eric? I'm exhausted. We're done. Video over.