Beitostølen
Beitostølen is the gate for mountain biking in the alpine areas of Jotunheimen, Norways most famous national park. The trails start from the center of town and before you know it, you’ll be in the midst of a bikers paradise, looking towards the high peaks of Jotunheimen. In Jotunheimen there is a lot of single track hiking/biking trails, and I guess most of these are not accessible for adaptive mountain bikes because they are too narrow and sometime both rocky and steep. But that does not mean there is no adaptive biking possibilities at Beitostølen.Beitostølen Trail Arena is perfect for adapted bikes. We contacted the local company “Bike Beitostølen” for trail recommendations for our two day stay.
Accommodation
Beitostølen is also the home of Norway’s most famous sports rehabilitation center “Beitostølen Helsesportsenter”, so the locals are very used to wheelchair users. We rented an apartment at “Stølstunet Bergo Hotel”, located in the town center right above a small shopping center. This apartment was not per definition wheelchair adapted, but for our manual wheelchair it worked out well. They also have an indoor garage where we could charge our bikes batteries at night.
Beitostølen Trail Arena
Gnarlirunden is a 3,4 km long machine built trail you can access at top of the ski lift. This trail has really beautiful views. It is above the tree line and over 1000 moh so you can see the high mountains in Jotunheimen from this trail. It is perfect for any adaptive bike. I think they even tested this trail with a power chair. So technically it’s quite easy but with beams and bums it’s a lot of fun anyway. To access it you can either take the lift, take your bike up the steep gravel road directly under the lift or follow the main road to Gnarli parking lot.
The Blue flow trail opened the summer of 2020. The trail runs from the top of the lift to the bottom. It’s rated blue and is fast and funny. There is a lot of bumps in this flow trail, and often they are close to each other and three in a row. This is hard to ride fast with an adaptive bike so you loose some of the flow because of these jumps. But except from that the trail is wide enough for adaptive mountain bikes.
Slettefjell
The view when riding this trail is spectacular! It’s the most beautiful mountain views I ever seen from my adaptive bike! You need a bike with a strong motor, preferably with a throttle, and it also need to be able to tackle rough terrain.
It’s a 30 minutes drive from Beitostølen. Follow Slettefjellvegen all the way to the top of the mountain and here you will find a large parking lot at 1300 meters above the sea level. Even from your car the views are amazing. Bring your credit card, Slettefjellvegen is a private toll road.
From the parking lot the trail goes in both directions. Follow the trail on the other side of the road (the trail to the left when you are driving on Slettefjellvegen coming from Beitostølen). The trail starts out as a double track/ old cat road (“kjerrevei” in Norwegian) and turns into a single track. But the terrain is perfect for an adaptive bike and we could ride outside the trail many places. No swamps, waters, big trees or big rocks.
The trail follow the ridge of the mountains with beautiful views all direction. On one side you see toward Valdres/Beitostølen/Jotunheimen and the other side toward Hallingdal/Hemsedal. We followed the trail for approximately 3 km before we turn around, it was sunny but cold and we could still find snow in the middle of July. We also tried the trail following the ridge in the other direction, but this one was less accessible and more gnarly.
