MIDSOMMAR NIGHT'S DREAM

Åre in northern Sweden is Scandinavia's mountain biking hub. With one of the largest bike parks in Europe, adventurous trail riding and vibrant bike culture, this little mountain town is a bike destination to put on your bucket list

- Mattias Fredriksson

The rubber grips exceptionally well on the granite slabs under my wheels as I try to follow my friend, Åre local Janne Tjärnström down the mountain. We are navigating from one slab to the next, and sometimes there is a piece of dirt in between. It’s steep and fast, which makes speed control very difficult. Most of the time, the slabs are smooth as silk, but occasionally loose rocks the size of apples pop up in front of my wheels, which requires quick reactions. This is not a place to ride on a rainy day, that’s for sure. Slide a grater against your thigh and you’ll understand what it’s like to crash on this surface. Luckily, we manage to stay on our bikes through the steep start, and when the trail eventually flattens out, my arms are shaking, so I stop. Janne laughs.

“Welcome home to Åre, my friend! Something different to that loamy BC dirt, right!?”

After moving to British Columbia about four years ago, I am visiting my old stomping grounds in Sweden. Now I am back for my first summer visit since moving to Canada, and it’s a homecoming precisely to my taste.

I moved to Åre at the end of the ’90s when I got hired to be an editor for Åka Skidor, one of the oldest ski magazines in the world. I grew up in the south, far from the mountains, but I was a skier and a mountain biker, so my goal was to live in a mountain town. There are not many of them in Sweden; in fact, Åre is pretty much the only one. So, it was an easy decision when the chance came up and even after becoming a freelance photographer and journalist, I kept living there. After 20 years, I moved away in 2017 together with my partner Elle, who is Canadian.

HOME TO ROOST