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Just want to state, that Langøya and the other Vesteralen island deserve more attention. They are of outstanding beauty and compared to the (without question also beautiful but overrated Lofoten) cycling is real fun!
For example, Today = sunday in mid July = main tourist season, we had on the road 7636 on south-east Langøya (detour from main Veloroute 1) 6 cars and 0.5 campervans per hour on that road. Later today cycling on Hinøya the traffic remained to be very low. Nature / landscape / wildlife was fantastic…
Honestly I dont understand why everyone is promoting Lofoten even more. Yes, it is beautiful. But at the same time every possible parking is blocked with 2-3+ campervans, every village is full of international tourist groups… hiking = waiting in a line. Then, the path and the plants left / right are often on the edge of being destroyed due to high number of hikers walking everywhere… prices for rooms are insane (if you get one)… wild camping isnt wild because there are so many „wild“ campers everywhere… Most tourist cars will overtake a cyclist many times because they stop every few kilometers for another smartphone-picture posting in a-social media… Thus, after having cycling on Lofoten in super weather I saw that Lofoten was a little nature paradise when number of tourists per square-meter was 1/50 of what it is today. But now I think mankind is destroying it: first by flying in or by car, then by being there in millions…
However, if you take the ferry to Vesteralen everything is fine again: easy cycling, fantastic nature, low traffic = low noise…
I fully agree, Vesterålen has a lot of great undiscovered roads away from the mass tourism in Lofoten. Lofoten has been destroyed thanks to the complete mismanagement of the islands. There should be a limit to the amount of campervans on the island. They should be heavily taxed with money going to the local community and cycling should be encouraged.
There are still some less busy roads to enjoy on Lofoten by bike but the main E10 is now a joke and I would only cycle early in the morning or late at night.
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