Last saturday was race day, and I was on the starting line of the 6th ever, my second, edition of Nykarlebyloppet. It's a local race through the southwestern part of the municipality of my old home town. When I still lived there, cycling hadn't really managed to get a visible foothold yet. But since then it has grown steadily, enough for me to find myself in the middle of over 150 other cyclists patiently waiting for the start. This year I was also joined by my brother, what a treat!
Just like last year, the pack was lead by a pace car on a short prologue through town. The start and finish had been moved, though, to the fairly recently refurbished sports center Stjärnhallen. The move was motivated by the facilities available, but also made the run up to the finish line more complicated and dangerous. Hopefully next year the race will end on the main street again, with a safer and more crowd friendly sprint to the line being in everyone's interest.
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My official, though not quite accurate time: 2h 17m 50s.
Timed distance: 73,6 km
Average speed: 32.0 km/h
Top speed: 51.8 km/h.
