The Road To Valhalla: Cycling Scandinavia

Over the years many of our alumni have cycled most, if not all, of our European trips – Orient Express, Pub Ride, Viva Italia, Trans-Europa, The Odyssey and in 2025, the Olive Route. These routes cover most of the continent but there was always one glaring exception, one that our alumni were only to happy to point out – None of the tours ventured into Scandinavia!

No longer! We are pleased to announce the Road to Valhalla, a 6 week, 3100 km journey through Finland, Sweden & Norway in July and August of 2026. Our European Project manager, Gergo Szanyi, who has led many of our continental cycling adventures, spent the month of August last year checking out the route. We sat down with him and asked about his Scandinavian adventure.

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Gergo & his scouting team

How was the scouting trip?

It’s been great! I spent a full month traveling in Finland, Sweden and Norway to explore routes for our upcoming European trip: Road to Valhalla – the 7th TDA tour on the old continent. Scandinavia and Finland are not unfamiliar to me as we finish the Pub Ride in Copenhagen and in 2018 we started the Trans Europa in Helsinki, where we started the tour with a full day city-sightseeing bicycle ride. I personally have had other work projects in Finland beforehand and I was glad to be able to return to this great country. I drove the van to Helsinki and started my research by myself.

I wasn’t traveling alone for long. My family joined me in Sweden to complete the task: the scouting, a road trip and some camping fun along the way. We had the chance to enjoy cooler weather there while a heatwave hit the rest of Europe. Summer showers are not uncommon but nothing unusual or something that would stop us from doing our thing, whether it’s sightseeing, exploring, hiking in the woods, or riding a bike. We set a rhythm for the healthy and sustainable work/rest balance. Two days of scouting, followed by one full rest day – two nights in the same place where the kids could play and relax, while Eszter could visit hotels and I could prepare maps and tracks for the next stretch. It worked quite well this way.

Åland Islands

Did anything surprise you along the way?

Haha, the south-western tip of Finland looks like solid land on some maps but it is actually thousands of little islands at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea. It falls along our route and there are interestingly looking towns and areas, so we decided to take the tour there. In fact, it is 6500 islands, called Ahvenanmaa or the Åland Islands. Well, it’s all good if you like taking ferries! Island hopping is not uncommon in TDA’s history. Overall, it was surprising just how many lakes, rivers, lakes and fjords there were! Fun fact: The length of the Norwegian coastline is a whopping 100,000 km. Actually it is even a little bit longer: It spans 100,915 kilometres including 1,190 fjords and 50,000 islands. Norway’s coastline is the second longest in the world after Canada. Wow! That’s enough to wrap around Earth by the Equator 2.5 times.

Gothenburg

Can you describe the route?

The tour starts in Helsinki, capital city of Finland before heading out west to Turku. Then – after the afore-mentioned Åland Islands – we take a ferry to Sweden. After a rest day in Stockholm the tour goes south-west between lakes to Gothenburg and from there it basically follows the coastline north to Oslo. There we turn south again towards Kristiansand, then up again all the way to Stavanger, where we take a ferry to Bergen. The logistically difficult part of the tour starts here, because of the fjords and the fragmented coastline. We visit the magnificent Geiranger Fjord,and ride the (in)famous Trollstigen road, which will reopen after renovations in July 2025. The tour ends in Trondheim.

What can the riders expect from this tour and how is it different from our other European Tours?

The riders can expect stunning scenery, good climbs (but not too long!), considerate drivers, great food and lots of water all around. They can also look forward to clean air, lots of nature, exciting ferries and an endless system of bicycle paths and routes. For those cyclists who have ridden on TDA’s other European Tours, it is less densely populated and much greener, with cooler weather.

Trondheim

Do you have any words of advice for interested cyclists?

Practice your hills and bring a waterproof layer! 😉

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