Today, hiking boots are slowly being replaced by mountain bikes, but the trails still remain very much the same. Finding the right ones that suit our two wheeled means of transportation on the other hand, is another thing, and in most cases takes a healthy share of local knowledge. Something, we don’t have any of, being Swedes and everything. Mattias, the photographer’s, vague memory from a trip a few years ago being the only hint of it. Basically, we’re lost, in a place where all the rumours have told us there’s some of the best riding in Scandinavia to be found.

The words of a local brewer, whom we bumped into after our first not so successful mission, claiming he’s seen people on full suspension bikes from Liahornet, the mountain above his home village of Liabygda, is our only hope to find the epic riding we’ve only heard of.

We park by a closed gate and follow a beaten–up gravel road up the hill to a small, ancient, hamlet overlooking the valley from its position high up on the mountainside. But the hiking trail that leads further into the mountains from there on is anything but a walk in the park. It’s littered with unfriendly, sharp, rocks everywhere, covered in knee deep mud. It’s steep and sloping away to the side. It is damn near impossible just walking up it, riding a bike down would be almost unthinkable.

We get more and more frustrated with every metre we haul ourselves and our bikes upward. As we wade through yet another short section of swamp, just above the treeline, we spot a few tyre marks in the ground. Evidence that other mountain bikers have been up here recently. But where the hell have they descended? It surely can’t be this trail.

As we move on up the hill we see the distinctive shark fin mountain that the brewer pointed out for us disappear in the distance. It’s late in the day and even if we wanted and gave it a hard push we couldn’t reach the summit today. We have no food, no map and no clue.

On top of that, bad weather is moving in. As the wind picks up I pull the hood of my jacket over my head and dwell in my own misery on a big plateau overlooking the surrounding mountains and the fjord way, way down there in the valley.

The scenery is simply stunning in its raw beauty, but to be honest, I couldn’t give a shit. I’m sweating like a pig, yet I shiver from the sudden cold. I’m hungry. I complain like a five year old. I just want to get off this damn mountain, right now. I don’t care that we’ve climbed for ages to get where we are. I just want this over with. Done.

It’s in that very same moment that I spot a familiar sight on a small, almost hidden, piece of trail a few hundred metres away…skid marks. Hikers call them a curse. Right now, for us, they’re a blessing. Proof of a bike trail. Or at least a trail where someone has attempted to ride his or her bike, and that’s good enough for us.

We split a kvikklunsj (Norway’s favourite outdoor chocolate…if you don’t know the mountains like a local, you might as well don a few of their traditions at least) between the three of us and hit the trail, greedy like fat kids for dessert.

The ground is perfectly tacky and drained. The first few turns are almost banked, giving perfect support to the tyres, before the world drops away behind a rock roll. It feels like dropping off the edge of the earth, diving right into the fjord some 900 meters below us. It’s one of the steepest, flowiest, and certainly the most beautiful rock gardens I’ve ever had the pleasure of digging my High Rollers into. Turn after turn of perfectly grippy soil meandering through the dry heather. All my whining and complaining are long forgotten, now it’s all about reaping the rewards of our uphill struggle.

The trail suddenly changes from a dry, barren, alpine landscape, to a lush green forest with crooked mountain birch. My brakes squeal as I try my best to stay on top of my bike through the steeper sections with small pieces of mud hitting my face, as the rear wheel skids and bounces through the damp dirt.>>