June 12, 2016 was Halvvättern 150, a ride which was quite eagerly awaited! This was the first time I was going to be doing a Vätternrundan/Halvvättern ride in a formal group. Earlier in the season, Patrick, and his sons, Jonathan and Alexander, thought up practice sessions, which would help us get used to riding together. There were two memorable 'pizza rides' which saw us riding from Linköping to Borensberg, and wolfing down guilt-free pizzas :) The third and final practice session was a ride around the Lake Roxen, which I missed out on, as I was attempting a 600 km brevet.Sunday dawned on us, and promised to be a lovely day. It'd been decided to meet at Patrick's, and hitch up the bikes onto the bike racks on two cars, and leave to Motala together.  Practically every third or fourth car we encountered on the road to Motala had a bike or two, or more, mounted, pointing to the enormous popularity of the ride. There were cars coming into town with bikes, and many were biking into town too.

After parking the cars, we picked up our number chips and stickers, fixed them and rode to the start point. We were ten strong! L-R: Urban Svensson, Patrick Norman, Lennart Hulen, Anna-Sofie Bark, Mathieu Linares, Alexander Norman, Mats Aigner, Jonathan Norman, and Stefan Sjögren.

The sheer energy and enthusiasm in Motala is very tangible, and it charges you up too! There were a multitude of clicks and clacks of cleats locking into pedals, and off we went!  Since our group was a real mixed bag with people having very different levels of season mileage and form, Patrick elected to stay in the back to monitor the start, and asked Anna-Sofie and me to set a steady but manageable pace for the group.  The first leg was flat, and we made good time, and managed to have everybody sticking together. When we made it to the 1 hour mark, just before the first stop at Borghamn, we'd notched up 28.1 kilometers, which was pretty much what we'd hoped to do.  Mathieu suffered a rookie moment when he failed to clip out in time, at the stop, and ended up taking a small spill, but fortunately, it was nothing major. After the stop at Borghamn was Omberg aka Mountain of Flowers, which was a couple of nice climbs, thrown in quick succession.  We decided to do the climb at whatever pace suited us, and to regroup at the top, which is what we did, and we were rewarded for our climbing effort by a series of short downhill runs through the extremely beautiful undulating road. Before long, we notched up the first 50 km of the ride, and shortly after that, pulled into Ödeshog. More buns and blueberry soup, and some of us topped up our bottles. Refreshed, we pulled away again and rode to Boet, the next stop area, which only had water resupply though. Many of us broke out our stashes of sandwiches and energy bars, to get some sugar.

We also crossed the second of the chip sensor nets, hearing the beep-beep-beep of our RFID chips being picked up by the scanners.  I was feeling fairly fresh and volunteered to take the wind, but it was hard to stick to a pace that would be okay, right through till the back of the pack, so I had to listen to calls or at times, even just for the sound of conversation behind me, to know that they were close enough. Most of the time, it was Jonathan and Alexander behind me, and many times, we would find that we'd left the rest, so we'd slow down till they caught up. During one of the climbs that came our way, we found that we'd dropped Urban, but the next rest area was very close, so we decided to ride up and wait. We pulled into Rök, and before long, Urban pulled in too, and we were a full group again! Urban is all smiles! Despite having very few miles on his legs this year, he rode splendidly.

I also needed to take a bit of an extended bathroom break, so Patrick stayed back with Mats, and asked the rest of the pack to start ahead of us. When I was done, Patrick, Mats and I rode hard and fast, with Patrick doing most of the pulling against a strong wind. I was happy to simply be able to stick with him, as we powered our way back and caught up with the rest of the group. That was a real fun stretch where we really pushed! After we caught up, Mats and I rode at the head for a while, while Patrick continued to watch the pack. We'd upped the pace a fair bit, but the group managed to stick with us for most part. I guess it was the prospect of closing out the ride that was drawing us. One the way to Rök, we had the youngest member of our team, Alexander Norman, completing his first ever 100km ride, a number to which he'd add 51 more kilometers, before the end of the ride! Soon, we were only 30 km from the end. I love that number, as it's a distance I feel is a very safe one, one that is a lot more approachable than 50 km :) I consider the last 30 km as the home-stretch, on any 100+ km ride.  We reached the final stop area at Skänninge, and had to wait for a bit while Mathieu caught up with us. We enjoyed the blueberry soup and salted gherkins while we waited. I saw a pair of riders dressed in an interesting bike jersey, with a painted-on overcoat and tie! I thought it looked cute! They were happy to pose for my photographs!</span>

Once Mathieu joined us, we rode out again, with less than 25 km separating us from the finish line, but many of us were tired, so we maintained an easy pace. I was pretty happy with the high-speed chase we'd ridden some time back, so I was content to reel in the remaining kilometers without any heroics. As we closed in on the final five km, I nudged Alexander into a sprint, but the scheming youngster refused, as he didn't want to use up all of his limited stores! He waited till we were about three kilometers, before launching the sprint! Patrick, Mats and I picked up the challenge and rode hard. Before we knew it, the finish line was upon us, and the kid sneaked right past us, to take a fully deserved position ahead of us! Alexander and Urban really produced top-drawer rides and the perfect weather meant that it is going to stay in our memories for a while, as a thoroughly enjoyable ride. A proud father, with his tired, but happy son :) Congratulations, on a fantastic ride which was also your first century ride, Alexander! The triumphant pack. Only Lennart is missing :( He'd left just before we decided to stop for the picture.