The Moments That Made The Road to Valhalla Special

Arjuna Boucher-Pertuisot was the Content Creator on the 2026 Road to Valhalla Cycling Tour.

Ask everyone on Road to Valhalla for their favourite moment and you’ll probably get a different answer. A fjord disappearing into the mountains. Riding through pouring rain and somehow loving it. A Swedish fishing village glowing in the evening sun. Achieving a huge personal goal with TDA. Or, apparently, watching the Content Creator get charged by sheep.

Over more than three thousand kilometres and six weeks travelling through Scandinavia, the landscape changed constantly. Finnish forests gave way to islands and Swedish coastlines, before Norway brought the mountains, fjords, waterfalls and weather. Some days were spectacular because everything went right. Others became unforgettable because absolutely nothing did. These are a few of the moments that stuck.

Åland Islands – The Perfect Transition

For many riders, the Åland Islands became one of the surprise highlights of the tour. Leaving mainland Finland and weaving through the archipelago brought a completely different rhythm: quiet island roads, ferries between stretches of land, red houses, forests and open Baltic water. Instead of simply crossing from Finland into Sweden, we travelled through the landscape in between, island by island, ferry by ferry. For several riders, that peaceful combination of cycling, water and constantly changing scenery made Åland one of the most memorable sections of the journey.

Fjällbacka – Sweden Showing Off

Not every highlight needed to be enormous. Fjällbacka was a small fishing village on Sweden’s west coast, surrounded by rocky islands, boats in the harbour and colourful houses glowing in warm evening light. After days of forests, farmland and quiet country roads, Sweden seemed to be showing off a little. The bikes stopped. The pace slowed. Cameras came out. Nothing dramatic needed to happen. It was simply one of those places where everyone looked around and thought: Okay. This is pretty good.

Peggy Morsch & Kathy Herson – The Day The Rain Won

Norway doesn’t always give you the postcard version. For Peggy and Kathy, one of the most memorable days was also one of the hardest. Cold rain. Soaked roads. Mountains wrapped in cloud. But underneath the rough weather was incredible scenery, deep valleys, waterfalls and dark peaks disappearing into the mist. They pushed through the day together, and what could have been remembered simply as miserable weather became one of the defining memories of their trip. Sometimes the hardest days make the best stories.

Bruce Huddleson & The Norwegian Sheep Situation

Norway has mountains. Norway has fjords. Norway also has an impressive number of sheep. Bruce will probably remember plenty of spectacular cycling, but unfortunately one of his lasting memories will be watching around twenty sheep charge directly toward me in the middle of the road. For reasons nobody understood, they then decided I was responsible for them. They followed. I walked. They kept following. Somewhere in Norway, the TDA content creator briefly changed careers. For the next week, I became known as the shepherd. Bruce found the situation considerably funnier than I did.

Chris Wille – Kilometre 100,000

For Chris Wille, Norway marked something much bigger. On August 5, Chris reached 100,000 kilometres ridden with TDA, becoming the first rider ever to hit that milestone. Behind that number are different continents, countless climbs and descents, borders, camps, friendships and very long days in the saddle. And kilometre 100,000 happened here, surrounded by Norwegian mountains and fjords on the inaugural Road to Valhalla. Pretty fitting.

Anne Thompson – Arriving In Geiranger

Then came one of those days when Norway barely looked real. The approach to Geiranger was cool and grey, but after the bikes came the ferry, and an entirely new perspective. Massive cliffs rose directly from the fjord. Waterfalls dropped hundreds of metres toward the water. Tiny farms clung impossibly high to the mountainsides. Anne Thompson joined the other riders on deck as the ferry travelled deeper into Geirangerfjord. Everyone had gone inside to warm up. Nobody stayed there for long. Every turn revealed another waterfall, another wall of rock, another reason to grab a camera. Sometimes the highlight isn’t a climb or a descent. Sometimes it’s simply standing in the middle of a Norwegian fjord and taking it all in.

Francine Plante – Trollstigen, Arriving At Valhalla

For Francine, Trollstigen was the day that captured what Road to Valhalla had become. By then, nearly six weeks of riding were behind her. And on this day, Norway seemed to throw everything at the group at once. Rain moved through the mountains. Waterfalls crashed beside the road. Clouds wrapped around the peaks as the switchbacks climbed higher and higher. Cold. Wet. Hard. But for Francine, that was part of what made it so memorable.

There was something almost unreal about pushing through the rain, climbing into that enormous landscape and finally reaching the top with the other riders. Lunch was waiting, everyone was bundled into rain jackets, and below them was the spectacular road they had just conquered. After six weeks riding toward a place called Valhalla, Francine felt that this was the moment they had finally reached it. Not a finish line. A feeling.

One Last Ride To Trondheim

And then, suddenly, there was only one road left. After six weeks of waking up, climbing onto the bikes and continuing north, the group rolled toward Trondheim together. The final kilometres always feel strange. You want to arrive. You’re also not quite ready for it to end. Then came the finish line. The hugs. The tired legs. One final group photo. Helsinki was now more than three thousand kilometres behind us. Ask someone for the best moment of Road to Valhalla and they might still struggle to choose. Åland. Fjällbacka. The rain. Geiranger. Trollstigen. The sheep. The people. After six weeks travelling through Scandinavia by bicycle, you don’t really come home with one favourite moment. You come home with a collection.

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