MTB
How to escape busy city life on your mountain bike in Sweden's capital city in just 15 minutes.
As far as capital cities go, Stockholm must be one of the greenest ones. Busy city life can easily be mixed with chilled days on the beach or, to mountain bikers delight, mountain bike rides in the forest. You can live almost anywhere in or outside of Stockholm and still only be fifteen minutes away from a forest. So, to keep it simple we’ve listed four awesome spots to ride, which are only a heartbeat away from the city center. The perfect trails to escape big city life for an hour or three.
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1. The endless cross-country trails of Hellas
Hellas is the common name amongst Stockholm riders for the massive nature reserve south of the city that host thousands of kilometres of cross-country singletrack. It is only a fifteen-minute ride from the city centre to the trailheads at Hammarbybacken. From there on southwards, your possibilities are endless. Nacka nature reserve goes on for kilometres on end with a trail network as complex as the London underground. It is always mind-blowing being out in Hellas, as it feels like you are in the middle of nowhere, yet you can still see Stockholm’s skyline.
The trails in Hellas are flat and technical with rock slabs, roots and north shores. The trails take you past stunning open landscapes, dense forest and peaceful lakes. The riding is demanding, pulse pounding and you have to work your bike hard to find the smoothest lines and keep your flow over the rough terrain. It is a unique place in many ways and suits both beginners and expert riders. Whilst a 120 mm, 29 inch full-suspension bike might be the perfect fit for this place, it is almost equally as much fun to ride a full on 160 mm enduro bike or, on the complete opposite end, a short travel hardtail - it all depends on how and what you enjoy riding.
I’ve guided many foreign riders around Hellas and they’ve all had the same reaction – they just shake their heads in awe and say that the place is insane
It can be hard as a first-timer to find the right tracks due to the sheer size of the trail network. The trails aren’t signposted and it takes local knowledge to link it all together. With that said, it should not stop you from exploring the area. Getting lost is the best way to learn, but if you don’t feel comfortable doing so, you could join the weekly Happy rides on Tuesday evenings. It is a bunch of bike rider who meet at Hammarbybacken after work, divide themselves into different groups based on skills, and hit the trails for a few hours. They go out every Tuesday, rain or shine, summer or winter - a perfect way to get an introduction and feel to the place.
“Hellas is unique. I’ve guided many foreign riders around Hellas and they’ve all had the same reaction – they just shake their heads in awe and say that the place is insane”, local rider Aron Gooch says. He explains: “It has its reasons. Firstly, the terrain in Hellas is one-of-a-kind. The ground has lots of bedrock, which sticks up pretty much everywhere, resembling a high alpine terrain but on the flat. Secondly, the trail network is absolutely huge. There’s more than a thousand kilometres of technical trails within riding distance from the city centre.”
“My favourite tracks in Hellas are the ones that lead you over technical rock slabs overlooking the lakes. Also, if you ever ride in Hellas you have to go to the burnt forest south of Nackamasterna”, Aron recommends. “The trail that runs up there, above Källtorpsjön, is definitely world-class. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in this trail paradise”.
How to find your way around Hellas
“Mountainbike kring Stockholm” – a book with all the different riding spots in and around Stockholm. It has a huge chapter dedicated to riding in Hellas.
Trailforks – An easy app that shows you the trails in a specific area, and where you are in relation to them. The app doesn’t have all the trail is Hellas registered, but shows a good twenty of them.
Happyride.se – The forum that organises weekly rides in the area.
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2. City Downhill at Hammarbybacken
Hammarbybacken (Hammarby Hill) is a small ski hill on the outskirts of Hellas – and only eight kilometers from the city center. The T-bar lift that runs for skiers in the winter also runs for bikers in the summer and is therefore the perfect escape for downhill riders who want to do a few laps after work or after school.
The hill only has a few tracks, but you don’t need much more to have fun on a bike. And which downhill rider would say no to a lift-accessed ride – in the middle of a capital city? The two main tracks go of to either side of the lift at the top. The easier red track to the right is fast with some corners and small jumps. The more difficult black track – where the Swedish National Championship was held a few years ago - is more technical and has some difficult features.
How to find your way to Hammarbybacken:
Hammarbybacken’s website – Here you find opening hours, bike rentals, lift ticket prices and other important information.
Want to check out some of Stockholm's fastest MTB riding? Check out Episode 3 of Swede Shreds:
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3. Cross country riding in Fiskartorpet
A heartbeat away from Stockholm's University lies a small, yet fiesty network of XC trails in Fiskartorpet. Nestled into a small forested area between Laduviken lake and walking paths you will find several kilometers of natural singletrack, an XC flow trail and a machine-built DH flow trail.
Fiskartorpet is actually a pretty historic area for mountain biking as this is where Swedish bike magazine Bicycling had its headquarters for many years. Continuing the MTB legacy, the same premises are now occupied by Specialized Nordics, who've put in some cash in order to build the flow trails - that start right outside their office.
"I like to call this place the world’s smallest bike park in consent with the Swedish King", Andreas Danielsson says, ex-chief editor of Swedish Bicycling and now part of Sweden Mountainbike who've built the flow trails in the area. "We started creating small MTB-loops here in the 90s, in consent with the landowners of course. And now most recently I was part of building the new flow trails. It's really cool to see how this small area continues to develop and grow".
The trails are varied and fun and suit both beginners and more advanced riders. It's easy to create small loops in the forest and even extend them to Hagaparken, another small MTB trail network that lies on the opposite side of Norra länken and Brunnsviken (see next point) for some bigger riders.
How to find your way to Fiskartorpet:
Trail Forks - here you find a map of all the trails and trial loops in the area.
Read more about Fiskartorpet here:
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4. Downhill and trail riding in Hagaparken
The Royal National City Park, Haga Park, is only a fifteen-minute pedal north of the city centre. It is beautiful and busy and always full of reacreational runners, walkers, tennis players, sunbathers and picknickers. What many don’t know is that it is also a little gem for mountain bikers. In the small patches of the forest around the park hides some of the city’s most fun bike trails. Now this park is tiny in comparison to Hellas, but if you live north-ish of the city and want to escape city life for an hour or two, you should let yourself get engulfed by the fun, fast trails of Haga.
The trails in the park can be divided into two – first there is Hagakullen (Haga Hill), where you will find some of Stockholm’s most well built downhill tracks. They are a bit less than a minute long, fast and flowy with berms and jumps. Secondly, there are the trails in the park itself, which pop in and out of the patches of forest. Link them all up and you have a really fun one-hour loop.
Finding the trails around the park is either done by going exploring yourself - the park is small so its very difficult to get lost - or you follow the blue dotted trees which link together a good one-hour loop in the park.
Whereas Hellas provides lung bursting technical riding, Haga is of a flowier and less technical kind. The downhill runs that shoot down Hagakullen are some of the fastest tracks in Stockholm and they are easily accessible via a five-minute pedal up a gravel road. When you are on top of the small hill you actually have the motorway on one side, and the city on the other side. It is weird, yet refreshing, to be able to escape the city whilst never actually leaving Stockholm.
Once you get to know the park you can link sections together. Warm up on tracks around the park and finish off with some fast downhill and jumps on the hill!
Local rider Lina Skoglund has been riding a lot in Haga over the last few years. “Hagakullen is only a small hill, but it is a really good close-to-city spot, only 10 minutes out with the car from where I live. A few years ago we only used to pushbike with our downhill bikes on the hill, but now you mainly tend to ride your trail bike in Haga. It opens up the possibility to explore the small tracks around the park as well - there are shorter small up and downhill sections hidden in the park that will put a smile on your face. Once you get to know the park you can link sections together. Warm up on tracks around the park and finish off with some fast downhill and jumps on the hill!”, Lina recommends.
“I still ride both my bikes there, depending on how I feel and what I want to ride”, she explains. “I love the downhill tracks that shoot of the hill because of their speed – they are so fast! And it is far from easy to find those types of tracks in Stockholm. My favourite one is the original track that was built back in 2008, which is suitably called “The Orginal Track”, haha”.
How to find your way around Haga
"Mountainbike kring Stockholm" – a book with all the different riding spots in and around Stockholm. It has a small chapter on Haga that shows the downhill tracks but not the trails in the park.
Trailforks – An easy app that shows you the trails in a specific area, and where you are in relation to them. It only shows two trails in Haga - the original downhill track and one of the short trails in the park.
