With over 400 kilometers of trails within an hour’s ride of the city center, Oslo has established itself as an adventure destination. Conor Courtney spent a long weekend riding with Fara Cycling, a local bicycle brand uniquely aligned with Norwegian geography and adventure culture. Continue reading below for a look inside Fara Cycling and the stunning location they call home…
“Are we ready to leave heaven?” asks Jørgen Helland.
The warmth of the early fall sun is hitting the cyclists and hikers snacking on warm waffles and cold beers at Kikutstua, a lodge in Oslo’s Nordmarka forest, about 11 miles from the Oslo city center.
Highways for cars, called ring one and ring two, encircle Oslo. But in the Nordmarka, cyclists call three concentric gravel routes the unofficial ring roads, delivering them to gravel glory in the forest.
Jørgen, the Head of Sales and Marketing at Fara Cycling, has guided us to Kikutstua as part of a quick overnighter in the forest. Only an hour’s ride directly from Oslo, our winding route has taken us from sublime pavement to pristine champagne gravel, slicing through the forest and curving along the shores of countless lakes.
“If Oslo is the capital of gravel in Scandinavia, this is the epicenter,” Jørgen jokes as we soak up the sun on the steps of the lodge. The scent of waffles with slices of sweet brown cheese and jam wafts past, fueling our fellow adventurers for long days in the wilderness.
Day Rides, Sauna Dives
On a Friday in mid-September, Chris Terry (Fara Cycling’s UK PR manager), Katherine Moore (a cycling journalist and route maker), and I found ourselves wandering around Oslo, seeing the summer green turning into autumn gold, snacking on pastries, and taking in the central sights of the architecturally stunning Oslo opera house and quiet Akershus Castle.
We’re in town to visit the Fara Cycling House, which is painted a soft yellow and tucked away in a courtyard off a street in the center of Oslo. A bust of Sofie Helene Wigert, a pioneering Norwegian editor, guards the entrance. The front room is decidedly stylish, utilizing mirrors, wood accents, and negative space to bring your attention to the bikes.
Taking inspiration from Scandinavian design and culture, Jeff Webb founded the brand in 2015, making adventure, simplicity, and durability core tenets of the brand. Matching that ethos, Fara Cycling only offers three lines of bikes, F/Road, F/All-Road, and F/Gravel which reflect the type of riding around Oslo. Colorways like Fjord Green, Morell Red, and Strand match the landscape. They blend into the environment but still catch your eye.
Starting off with open-source frames, Jeff and the team began designing their own frames in 2018, building connections with production in Taiwan and upping the brand’s reputation for capable adventure bikes. Despite managing the company and splitting his time between Taiwan and Norway, Jeff still finds the time for the adventure that Norwegians take to heart, competing in races like the Tour Divide and Badlands and testing Fara Cycling’s equipment along the way.
Moving to the back of the Fara Cycling House, the workshop comes into view. Customer bikes are tagged by handwritten notes dictating the customer’s name and the work needed. Pallets form the back stairs in the summer, as the feet of standing snow eliminates the need for steps in the winter. The notes and pallets give the company’s workshop a distinctly homey feel, despite the lack of full-time residents.
Jørgen delivers Chris, Katherine, and I F/All-Roads, complete with 35 mm tires and Fidlock-mounted seat, frame, and handlebar bags, and along with Fara’s resident creative, Arnaud Lumeras, we set off for an afternoon ride around Oslo.
A half-hour into our ride, I was telling myself I had to come back and swim at one of the countless swimming spots we see. After a few miles on a protected bike path bordering a highway, we’ve reached rolling, forested country lanes with a view of the fjord with remarkably little traffic. Half an hour later, we’re on spicy singletrack and gravel through farmers’ golden fields.
This place used to be full of hippies, Jørgen tells me as we climb up a quiet country lane on the Nesodden Peninsula. Before it was connected by ferry to Oslo, it would take drivers hours to reach the furthest parts of the peninsula from the city. Now it takes 20 minutes. After a few more hills on the road, we bomb the descent to the ferry taking us back to the Oslo city center.
Jørgen and Arnau describe this as a classic Oslo ride, containing a heaping helping of singletrack, gravel, and road to keep the cycling interesting, and gorgeous scenery to keep the morale high. A sunset sauna session on the Oslo fjord helps our legs recover for the next day’s ride.
Into the Nordmarka
On Saturday morning, Jeff, Jørgen, Arnau, Chris, Katherine, and I prep our bags with Norwegian essentials like aquavit as we learn from Jørgen about the Nordmarka wilderness area. Jeff’s ability to join us for our first two hours of riding, despite having a flight to catch that evening, illustrates the ease of access to the city from the Nordmarka. Gravel paths slice through 430 square kilometers of rolling hills, punctuated by forests and lakes. In the summer months, the over 400 km of trails provide thousands of unique routes on pristine gravel double track for cyclists, mostly contained within the Oslo Municipality.
We’re headed to a cabin named Smedmyrkøeia, or “the cabin in the swamp of the smith”. The cabin is one of hundreds across the country maintained by the DNT (Den Norske Turistforening, the Norway Trekking Association), ranging from a handful of beds to sleeping 30 or more people. The trekking association runs three types of cabins: fully-serviced, self-serviced, and unattended. At a bare minimum, cabins provide beds, duvets, linens, stoves, and firewood.
Our roundabout route takes about 85 km to reach it, but it’s only 25 km from the Oslo center. From central Oslo, we set off up the Aker River (Akerselva), passing families and runners on the riverside trail, as the Oslo architecture turns from sleek residential buildings to brick industrial areas, until we hit the woods. The Scandinavian sense of style is already visible. Business buildings along the river look like chic lofts. Summer homes are painted in a uniform romantic red with white trim, standing out from the landscape while managing to blend in.
I’m learning more about Fara, Oslo, and gravel cycling with each pedal stroke. Every ride out of Oslo starts with an hour of climbing, Jeff jokes. Jørgen tells us that we can drink from any water source in the Nordmarka. These smooth gravel roads are what Fara Cycling’s bikes are designed for, to be fast on the road and fast on the gravel, Arnau tells me.
Fara, “To Travel“
The ride contains all of my favorite bits – cool sunshine, ample nature, and a feeling of wonder that comes with exploring a new place. We’ve seen a handful of cars during the day, and only a handful of other cyclists. Jørgen tells me that he tries to take a new route every time he goes riding here, and with hundreds of miles of unique trails, it’d be easy to spend days exploring this zone just outside of a major metropolitan area. In Norse, Fara means “to travel”. At this point, I’m feeling awed by our journey.
Jeff takes off to catch his flight and the rest of us stop at the aforementioned Kikutstua (heaven). Beers, coffee, and waffles are in order as we admire the view over the picturesque Bjørnsjøen lake.
We set off again, plowing through perfect gravel. As a personal preference, I run the widest possible tires at all times, usually 45 mm tires on my gravel bike, but the 35 mm semi-slicks that Fara Cycling has provided me feels perfect for the terrain. The bike, despite carrying a handlebar, frame, and seat packs, is snappy and responsive on the asphalt and gravel, without compromising comfort on gravel. The long, swooping descents are the only point where I pull on the brakes harder than I normally would, but even unexpected bumps are surrounded by gravel that’s almost smoother than tarmac.
Until we hit a hike-a-bike. The easy, smooth gravel trails are occasionally punctuated by trails that are only meant to be used in the winter. After a spill over the handlebars onto the softest moss I’ve ever (unintentionally) landed on, I can hear the whoops and giggles from the group ahead. Every five minutes, we try to remount with limited success, until we reach the end of another sublime gravel road bathed in warm, evening light.
We’re 60 km into our ride and golden hour is getting to me. The sun has been setting for what feels like hours and combined with the mental fatigue after a long day in the saddle, my internal clock is askew in the best way. I feel giddy as we emerge from climbs into the sun that’s sitting just above the horizon.
Rolling hills take us past summer houses painted the same falu red. Norwegians have told me this is the idyllic countryside color and that in bygone eras, well-off owners would buck the style and paint their summer homes white as a visible marker of wealth.
Diving down one last steep, techy section, we reach Smedmyrkøeia. Jørgen makes a fire in the stove, we start boiling water for dinner, and we settle in for a surprisingly comfortable night.
Back to Oslo
I nearly left my spare socks drying over the wood-fired stove when we rolled out on Sunday morning. I had a quiet moment of reflection, alone in the cabin, as I reached for them. Light beamed through windows, the wooden floors creaked beneath my feet, and dishes sat neatly on shelves, used by countless adventurers before us and ready to be held by the next set of weary hands. The Nordic cabin fit into the landscape and our adventure as neatly as a cleat to a pedal.
Rolling past more lakes, streams, and long forest roads, we descended through scattered sun towards the sea. We leapt up short, steep ascents and tried to let the brakes go on the long, looping downhills. The gravel was some of the finest of the trip and in what felt like an instant, the road changed to smooth tarmac.
Luscious green fields and falu red farmhouses greet us on the road, giving off a distinct high alpine feel. More “commuter” miles, as Jørgen calls them, along bike paths and a suburban river and we’re back in Oslo, back to normal life. Jørgen is lamenting his Spurs losing to Arsenal. Arnau and Katherine are starting to think about the next day’s photoshoots.
I find that a successful overnighter needs to have three ingredients: a phenomenal crew, epic riding, and to leave you wanting to come back. This trip had all three. After spending my summer largely in London, where access to expansive nature is limited, I’m giddy from our weekend of forest riding in Norway.