SykkelStien
The English translation of "sykkelsti" would be cycle lane, cycle track or bike path. In Norway, many roads have a separate lane reserved for cyclists (and pedestrians). One of the goals of SykkelStien is to propose a safe ride in your neighborhood, using the cycle lanes or tracks.
Cycling has become very popular - not only for training. There are books and articles describing routes for biking, but most of these don't indicate the profile of the track. With use of a GPS device and Garmin Connect, Lommekjent.no, RidewithGPS.com and other GPS tracking applications, SykkelStien will give you the possibility to forecast the trip, both by distance and level of climbing. Naturally - this will assist you in selecting your ride.
Garmin Connect has an export function where you can export the track to TCX, GPX or Google Earth formats. In addition you can upload the track to your Garmin GPS device.
The portal is divided into regions i.e. counties. Thereafter each county is divided into townships ("kommuner" in Norwegian). You can easily use the internal search function ("Søk i SykkelStien) if you have a some sort of search parameters.
Hopefully the next version of SykkelStien will give you the possibility to automatically download the decided track either on your cell-phone, PDA or GPS. We have a dedicated domain name; sykkelstien.mobi and this site should be tuned for PDA's and iPhone's.
There are traffic signs indicating the state of the lane - whether you have to bike among pedestrians or not.
Remember - being a cyclist makes you not "superior" to pedestrians! You should always pay attention to all others.
Traffic signs used in Norway
These traffic signs should be relevant when you're biking in Norway:
This traffic sign indicates a dedicated lane for cyclist only
This traffic sign indicates a dedicated lane for both cyclist and pedestrians.
This sign is used for popular routes and indicates the distances.
Information from The Norwegian Public Road Administration (Statens Vegvesen)
A flyer that might be handy when cycling in Norway