Cycling routes

The gravel event is just one day and only shows a small part of all the won­der­ful cy­cling that is around. We have there­fore put to­gether some sug­ges­tions on gravel bike routes in the Stor­uman area (and some as­phalt routes too), which can be used for ex­er­cise and train­ing, or for tour­ing. These are by no means ex­haus­tive, and you can of course com­bine the routes to­gether, shorten, ex­tend, move start and fin­ish and so on. We hope it will in­spire to some epic rides.

Below the maps there are links to an ex­ter­nal site with the routes on in­ter­ac­tive maps and files you can load into your GPS.

Some of the routes can be quite tough (a lot of climb­ing etc), so check out the el­e­va­tion pro­file and the map to see if the route suits you be­fore you go.

Two favorites

With such a rich se­lec­tion of routes, it can be dif­fi­cult to know where to begin. There­fore we’ve se­lected two of our fa­vorites for you who may be an ex­pe­ri­enced cy­clist but have not tried gravel bik­ing be­fore:

• Kaskelu­okt – Um­strand – Bergmyrhobben, and
• Around Joranträsken over Stor­ber­get.

These two are a good rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what gravel bik­ing is all about. Choose a day with nice weather and dry roads. There’s a huge dif­fer­ence be­tween rid­ing on a dry hard gravel road and one that is soft and muddy, and we of course want your first im­pres­sion of this won­der­ful sport to be good.

Short and nearby

Al­though the best areas for gravel bik­ing are a few kilo­me­ters out­side town, there are pos­si­bil­i­ties to make routes that start in­side Stor­uman and are not too long. As it is paved near the urban area, both as­phalt and gravel are mixed in these routes. The map presents two ex­am­ples.

One route goes along low-​traffic paved Kungavägen to En­samheten, and then the old gravel road back. You have to lift the bike over the rail­way (watch out for trains!), and then you ride over the old bridge to­wards Stensele and the cycle path back. It will be 26 km, of which about half is as­phalt.

The other route goes around Noansa­van with an op­tional climb up Noans­ber­get, and then Stensele and back. It will be 28 km, al­most half on gravel.

If you want to cycle shorter and stay closer within town, you can also make a ride as a mix be­tween cy­clocross and crit rac­ing, which is about cy­cling shorter seg­ments around town, cycle paths, or­di­nary streets, paths, il­lu­mi­nated ski tracks ran­domly com­bined in an im­pro­vised route. This of course be­comes a bit jerky rid­ing and is not suit­able for large groups. You have to have very good aware­ness of the traf­fic around and show con­sid­er­a­tion, but it’s a play­ful, fun and var­ied form of cy­cling. The na­ture of this style of rid­ing be­comes a bit more tech­ni­cal and tricky so it’s not suit­able for GPS-​guided routes, there­fore we do not give any ex­am­ples here.

In­ter­ac­tive maps with GPS files below:

• Stor­uman – En­samheten – Stensele
• Noansa­van with climb

Gravel routes west

To the west of Stor­uman to­wards Vallträsk, ac­tu­ally the whole area south of lake Stor­uman, is the most flex­i­ble area in terms of being able to put to­gether a large num­ber of dif­fer­ent routes. There are many gravel roads that are con­nected so you can get around in sev­eral ways with­out get­ting into a dead end.

In ad­di­tion to nor­mal lengths, the ex­am­ples in­clude re­ally long routes up to 200 kilo­me­ters for a full day out for the ex­pe­ri­enced cy­clist, or a cou­ple of days for those who bring camp­ing gear.

A spe­cial route in the list is Lönnberg – Skikkisjön – Lubbträsk, in such a way that the roads are not con­nected. At Kalvber­get there are a few hun­dred me­ters of ma­chine path that you can steer the bike past. At Gråtanliden you have to get through a lit­tle for­est with a more or less vis­i­ble path though, so it is prefer­able if you have a light bike that you can carry (such as a cy­clocross or gravel bike).

A re­ally nice A-​to-B ride (or tour-​retour) a bit fur­ther away is to cycle along the gravel roads from Slussfors to Tärnaby or Hem­avan. The last kilo­me­ters will be on as­phalt, but the rest is fine low traf­fic gravel roads through small vil­lages sur­rounded by in­creas­ingly alpine moun­tains.

In­ter­ac­tive maps with GPS files below:

• Kaskelu­okt – Um­strand – Bergmyrhobben
• Climbs around Vallträsk
• Stor­uman Gravel 140 km B
• Stor­uman Gravel 200 km
• Lönnberg – Skikkisjön – Lubbträsk (re­quires port­ing)
• Slussfors – Hem­avan

Gravel routes south-east

Two routes at Barsele-​Storberget and Joranträsken are shown here. One shorter at 25 km, and one longer at 48 km. Start and fin­ish are at a large park­ing lot on Myrträskvägen di­rectly after the bridge over the river, 16 km from Stor­uman. The pas­sage over the moun­tain next to Barsele-​Storberget is steep. It doesn’t re­quire an MTB but it will be hard to do for tour­ing bikes.

The longer route has a re­ally long up­hill to­wards Åshem, but then you get every­thing back again in a nice fast mel­low and curvy down­hill to­wards Bäckliden.

South of those route is a longer one, Bergsäter – Bu­ber­get, which is 62 km. We have placed start and fin­ish at a park­ing lo­cated at Hästlidmyran be­tween Skarvsjöby and Pauträsk near Bergsäter.

In­ter­ac­tive maps with GPS files below:

• Myrträsk – Stor­ber­get
• Around Joranträsken over Stor­ber­get
• Bergsäter – Bu­ber­get
• Bu­ber­get – Björkberg – Örnträsk

Gravel routes east

Sev­eral of these ex­am­ple routes start in Barsele, about 20 kilo­me­ters from Stor­uman. On some of the routes you need to pass some as­phalt, but it's worth it. A good start is the first route pass­ing Åstorp, and then rid­ing along Gunnarbäcken and the lakes Norsjorn and An­s­jaur.

In­ter­ac­tive maps with GPS files below:

Gravel routes north

North­west of Stor­uman (north of Lake Stor­uman), al­ter­na­tives are more lim­ited as the gravel roads are often dead ends, and the paved E12 with its heav­ier traf­fic is not as pleas­ant to ride on.

There are still some tours that are def­i­nitely worth doing. Cy­cling from Laisbäck up the high moun­tain to the wind farm not least. If you fancy a longer ride and don’t mind some as­phalt you can ride down the other side of the moun­tain to­wards Juktån and ride all the way around and come back on the E45.

In­ter­ac­tive maps with GPS files below:

Riding on asphalt

If you are crav­ing to ride on paved roads with the road bike it’s pos­si­ble to do of course. How­ever, there aren’t as many roads to choose from, and the major roads E12 and E45 are not very pleas­ant to ride be­cause of some fast and heavy traf­fic.

For­tu­nately, there are some low-​traffic paved roads too, and most are hilly enough to pro­vide good va­ri­ety even if you ride tour-​retour.

The route in the pic­ture links the dis­tances Stor­uman – Lus­pho­l­men, Stor­uman – Kungavägen (the paved part), and Stor­uman – Långsjöby via Stensele, a total of 88 km.

An­other very nice and low-​traffic road is the “Gubbträsk road”, the road be­tween Gun­narn and Gubbträsk. It will be 54 km round trip. You can start at what­ever end you want, but the com­mon start is in Gun­narn, where you can park at the gro­cery store. Both E45 and E12 are wide and nice be­tween Stor­uman and the Gubbträsk road so you can ride all the way around with­out any prob­lem (it will be 85km). It’s also pos­si­ble to con­nect tour-​retour Gun­narn – Åskilje north of the river, a road that is paved and has al­most no traf­fic.

The road be­tween Ankar­sund and Sorsele has rel­a­tively lit­tle traf­fic and of­fers sub­stan­tial climb­ing. A tour-​retour ride will be 125 km. If you start from the Ankar­sund side you can take a cof­fee or lunch break in Sorsele, halfway into the ride.

Don’t for­get that the road up to the view­point in­side Stor­uman is paved, and it has gra­di­ents over 10% — a real chal­lenge — and you get re­warded with a beau­ti­ful view from the tower at the top.

In­ter­ac­tive maps with GPS files below:

Making own routes

Tips for mak­ing your own routes:

• Check the route pro­file and put the start / fin­ish and di­rec­tion as it suits. Many peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence short steep up­hills and long mel­low down­hills as more pleas­ant than the other way around, and it can be nice if the end of the route is eas­ier.
• If you want to drive by car to the start, look at aer­ial pho­tos to find a su­tiable spot for park­ing. It is often pos­si­ble to find areas suit­able for park­ing even in the mid­dle of nowhere.
• A hilly route feels com­pletely dif­fer­ent when rid­ing it in the op­po­site di­rec­tion, so do not be afraid to make tour-​retour routes or in­sert small de­tours. It won’t feel repet­i­tive.
• Some­times, by port­ing the bike just a few hun­dred me­ters after a trail or over a clearcut, roads can be linked to­gether which oth­er­wise would re­quire a de­tour of many miles to get around. By the way, car­ry­ing and even run­ning with the bike is an es­tab­lished part of the re­lated genre cy­clocross, so it’s not a strange thing to do.
• Avoid high traf­fic gravel roads (dust and stone shot from cars are not so nice), then rather in­clude a sec­tion of as­phalt.
• In the spring or after heavy rain­ing, the gravel roads can be very soft and make the rid­ing heavy and slow.