Canadian living in Oslo - where to ride?

Hey,

I've just immigrated to Oslo from Eastern Canada (Newfoundland) and I'm hoping to find some challenging trails to ride on my enduro bike (YT Jeffsy Core 4). I'm about to get a vehicle with a roof rack so I'll be able to travel with my bike but I'm hoping somebody could provide some details for challenging trails which are primarily downhill, technical, flowy oriented.

I don't have an e-bike so massive amounts of climbing are not ideal.

Additionally, bike park recommendations would be nice. I know Trysil and Nesbyen are popular. What else?

Hi, and welcome to Norway.

You can add Hafjell to your list of destinations within driving distance from Oslo.

For local trails I highly recommend trailguide.net and mtbmap.no. Grefenskollen, Tryvann(Ride the T-bane for shutteling). Grefsenkollen, Røverkollen, Årvollåsen, Gjelleråsen also got some nice riding but you need to ride up:)

Welcome to the forum, and to Norway!

Check out MTBmap.no, and trailguide.net (where you can use mtbmap.no as a base map).

The trails with a yellow glow have been tagged as recommended, and are usually good. Especially in the Oslo area, most trails are tagged with difficulty and recommended/not recommended, so the map covers most trails. In more distant areas the map might be missing more details.

Hafjell and Drammen are good bike parks, more oriented towards downhill, with lifts, but most can be ridden with enduro bikes.

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm living in Bærum area so they look pretty close by which is great. Are these typically accessed by shuttling a vehicle from bottom to top? Could I for example drive there alone, park my car and ride/hike the trails by myself?

If you or others are looking for a plus one to join group rides I'd love to. I'd consider myself men's expert level of riding having raced in British Colombia and Eastern Canada.

The only place where shuttling is done in the Oslo Area is Frognerseteren/Tryvann where you use the subway for shuttling. There is very little shuttling going on in Norway in general.

One other place where there is a "bike park" with shuttling like Nesbyen is Traktor Bike park about an hours drive from oslo, which is a farmer who has built/cleared trails on his own hillside property. Look it up on facebook. Open for shuttling this coming weekend and the enduro race Traktorland Enduro is held there (this year september 3rd.).

As other's have mentioned, and as you can see on mtbmap.no the forests east, north and west of Oslo are packed with trails. But the style in Norway is natural trails that are not built (some exceptions exist, but in Oslo they are few and far between) and you ride up to ride down. Some of the good descents can require a good hour of riding into the forest also. I would say that the best place for proper techy descents where you can find a lot of trails in a concentrated area is Røverkollen. The gravel road climb to the top is between 10-15 minutes at easy pace (1-1.5km, 100-150 vertical meters depending on where you ended the down part). You can definitely find world class descents in Oslo, but there are generally shorter than what you would find in BC, swiss/french alps and those kinds of places.

From Bærum there are also great trails in the area around Brunkollen and between Brunkollen and Skytterkollen and Fossum. For downhill-oriented riding you can ride on gravel all the way up to Brunkollen from Fossum and then ride a lot of different trails going back down.

Thanks for the feedback,

When I say "shuttling" I meant throwing bikes in the pan of a truck and one person drives to the top, drops the riders, the riders ride and the drivers pick up people at the bottom to return them to the top. Alternatively, shuttling as in full lift-access is not what I meant. I understand that lift-access bike parks are outside Oslo in dedicated areas.

That's great to hear about Røverkollen i'll definitely be checking it out. The ride to the top to get the trailhead is normal for me as well and my bike is well suited for it.

Regarding group rides. Most norwegians like showing of Norway to foreigners, so either stop someone you meet out on the trails, or hang around the larger trailheads for a bit. Sognsvann for example.

You could also try dropping by one of the mtb-specific shops. Both Gira Sykkel and BC Sport is relatively close to you.

Most relevant areas for riding has been mentioned already, but in addition the trails close to Fagervann has fairly long descents and can be accessed by one big grind, either pedalling or pushing.

And if you want to join a local enduro race Ringerike Enduro is on the 13th. Google/Facebook

Exactly, and that form of shuttling is in general not practiced in Norway outside Nesbyen, Traktor Bike park and some other places like that, nor in the Oslo area. In the Oslo area especially, the gravel roads are off limits for cars, normally blocked by locked boom gates. This is also very common in other places in Norway, although exceptions can occur.

Also add Kjærringåsen to the list of bike parks in Norway. In many ways a hidden gem

Thanks again - this is all super helpful. I'm currently in Stavanger for work until November 1st so all my mountain biking will likely come in the spring unfortunately but now I have lots of information to work with.

No it wont, you'll buy studded tires and shred in winter. Some of the most fun I've had on a bike has been on winter trails.
Flowy, fast, spectacular nature. I'm looking forward to winter!

What the man said! You need to throw some money at the problem and buy winter gear and find your local trails which are used by dog walkers and other pedestrians during the winter. These helpful people create narrow singletrack with a smooth hard snow surface (some ice to be expected, hence the studs) which are super fun to ride. You'll need some lights too, since sunset is around 3pm in the winter.

hahaha yes I hope to have a fat bike and winter gear in the future. I'm sure the network of trails around here are spectacular.

Stavanger and Jæren is flat land, generally - but they rarely have an actual winter, as it is generally understood. The reason is of course that the ocean is the primary influence on the weather there, and that ocean is warmed by the Gulfstream. At any rate, if you are there only until November, this won't be of any particular consequence to you, and you should be able to keep biking locally with your current gear. An obvious point, however, would be rain-cover...

(For the record: I'm mainly in the "use" angle of biking, so any actual information about trails, etc. needs to come to you from somebody else; here I'm just commenting general conditions in the area you mentioned.)

You don't need/want a fat bike for those hard packed singletracks. Your trail bike with preferably these tyres: Piikkisika, or similar from Schwalbe, is best for those kind of winter trails.

Though we do love people with fatbikes in winter!

Slightly OT, but Drammen is not far away from Bærum. Bike park with uplifts, and you can access many of the trails used for the annual enduro races from the top there. Local club is Aron SK.

Welcome to Oslo, Mike!

Happy to see all the advice you get from the local mountain biking community.

This has nothing to do with anything and is totally besides the point, but for your entertainment since you are a Canadian in Oslo, here is a Norwegian in Toronto:



Skip to 2:24 to go straight to the battle.

So welcome to Canadia. Go fuck yourself!

Shuttling is not an option anywhere, really, in the forests and hills surrounding the Oslo metropolitan area, or Stor-Oslo. Access to any viable starting points is restricted, and not open for public access by car. The nearest proper shuttle based biking i can think of is Traktor bikepark, which has already been mentioned. However, having a car in the Oslo area, opens oppurtunities to visit countless localities that are otherwise hard to get to. With car, the available trailnetwork is practically endless and the trails are highly variated. In general Oslo trails are of low consequence, intermediate tech level. By that meaning, descents can be excellent, but never alpine and there's not much of built jumps and the sorts. Rather, the trails tend to be consistently somewhat technical. There is a lot of smooth flow, but roots and rocks are never far away.

For expert riding I guess, Hafjell is the best option around. Drammen is closer and quite OK, though the descent difficuties are pretty mixed/messed up.

Its actually just partly true that "marka" is closed off. Here on the northside of it the roads are open for public but often you will be paying a fee ( bomvei).
Ringkollen, just a 30 min drive north from Sandvika, is totally shuttlefriendly.
I dont know if this is your cup of tea, with the natural trails more like in the alps with fast steep rocky sections, twisty tight "flat" pedally trails inbetween pines and (ofcourse) a bit of uphill pedalling here and there its more like a tour with a lot of vertical feets going in the right direction, maybe as much as 3000 ft DH and sub 1000 UH.
Bonus with Soft ice possibilities or handcrafted beer in the small shop at the bottom.
Here is a link to one of the many routes. Going all the way up to Røsstjern might not be seen as necesarry, the first downhill section was very overgrown. On the other side, the climb from the parking just in front of where you have to pay the roadfee isnt that hard.
Check out my activity on Strava: https://strava.app.link/OpPH1w5rdsb

https://mtbmap.no/#13/59.9719/10.7975

https://mtbmap.no/#13/59.9548/10.6276

The trails with red and yellow lines on the outside are technical trails that are recommended.
Black ones with yellow links on the outside are more technical paths that are also attacked.
If you have Garmin GPs, you can download maps from mtbmap.no
https://mtbmap.no/#13/59.9548/10.6276
https://mtbmap.no/garmin
Maps can be downloaded from http://www.frikart.no/

Well, you could just as well shuttle Frognerseteren by car, if you get someone to drive. Dont need to use the subway, which is quite slow.
Never gotten anyone to drive the car though, everyone wants to ride themselves

A lot of biking close to the cities in Norway is more hilly forest biking than mountain biking(with exceptions in west and north Norway)
But trails are "naturally" awesome. I currently live in Switzerland and miss my home trails in Bymarka, Trondheim. Just so damn effective trail biking and an insane network very close to the city. Same in Oslo, but the distances to the trails are a bit longer because it's a bigger city. If your fix is long descents, rough fast and adventurous I would just drive to Nesbyen every weekend. In Norway it's also popular to do "topptur". Basically the same as a ski tour on a mountain bike. Bike and push up to the peak and then the fun starts. You will probably get 100s of tour tips on this forum. Remember Kvikklunsj and kokekaffe and you are integrated.

Dude, solid dissing der

Kanada in Lier must be the place for you;

https://trailguide.net/485
https://trailguide.net/534
https://trailguide.net/1756

Welcome to a place with about 1/2 of the precipitation compared to Newfoundland :-)

You will not have any issue finding places to ride, but as always it is easier getting in on group rides to learn new areas.

In Bærum, we try to keep alive the tradition started in the eastern part of Oslo, by organizing an open group ride every tuesday afternoon, year round. It gets posted in various groups/chats online and also in the subsection "Utflukt" on this board.

The local IMBA-chapter (NOTS in norwegian) started 2 years back and does its best to build the community and emphasize group rides. You find the group on Facebook under "NOTS Bærum".

There are also several clubs to choice from if you would like to do races and more organized training. The largest is BOC (Bærum og Omegn Cyckleklubb) with 800+ members, and dedicated groups for road, MTB and BMX, and also its own clubhouse and designated riding area which is under development now with upgraded pumptrack, jumplines etc.

Thanks Anders & everyone for all the feedback on this post. I honestly stumbled on this website after scouring the internet for something similar to Pinkbike which is widely used in Canada/US. I look forward to returning back to Oslo this fall and getting out on bike.

I've requested to join NOTS Bærum!

Coming to think of it, Trond Hansen, a former freeride pro, and some locals startet a project in Vardåsen skiseneter in Asker some years ago. They wanted to create downhill trails with jumps and features for advanced riders, while also making lines at a less demanding level. Initially the winter polelift (?) was used, but i don.t know if's running now. Below is a short article from last year (you need a Fri Flyt subscription):

https://www.friflyt.no/sykkel/utforsykling-paa-vardaasen-i-asker

Tirsdagsklubben, mentioned by Anders, is still occassionally alive and kicking in the east. Check out Utflukt for flowy, hilltrails in Østmarka.

Now that you know where to ride, make sure to have some Norwegian traditional food after shredding the gnar.



Black Debbath: Traditional Food

Shut the fuck up and eat your blood pudding!