It is strange, that everyone has their vintage tweed and bicycle events in the middle of summer. When the weather is as hot as can be. Well, almost everyone does anyway. Helsinki has their event in the middle of the icy winter instead. Why can there not be an event in the spring or in the autumn when the weather is less, extreme?

That is when Enskede Tweed enters. Last year we had a spring event, but this year we decided to have an event in the autumn instead. The event was quickly named höstrusket. It is a Swedish description of the kind of weather in the autumn with lots of rain, yellow leaves on the trees and puddles on the ground. In short, it is a wool-sweater kind of weather.

The date was set to 14th of October. We all had prepared for the real autumn with rain, woollen sweaters, heavy tweed jackets. Some had even planed to use wellingtons and a macintosh. But what happened? The Indian summer came along and treated us with a sunny and warm day instead. The summer tweed and light shoes had to be taken out from the closet again.

Heading towards the meet up

It is tradition that we all meet at the former Gamla Enskede Bageri (old Enskede bakery), now Robin Delselius Bageri, located in the Garden town of Enskede, as it once was called, at noon. The schedule was planned that we had one hour of gathering before the start at one o’clock. There was plenty of time for lunch or a cup of coffee at the bakery/café.

At the café, waiting for the others to arrive

Rex tandem, with the number plate from Stockholm Bike In Tweed still attached

Some of our members wanted to have a quick lunch at the café, specially becasue they have great vegan alternatives on the menu. But on this day, everything vegan was out. They had some salads, but they contained feta-cheese. That was a disappointment for our members.

To be honest, we are missing the old bakery and café. It was a more genuine and rustic feel to it. robust wooden tables and chairs. A section inside where the bakery was located. You could watch them bake the bread and buns. Now it is more a coffee shop feel to the place. But at least we had some coffee and cinnamon buns while making some last minutes adjustments before the start.

At one o’clock all the participants was ready and we began our route around different parts of Enskede.

We duplicated the route from last year. We passed Enskede church and the old town-houses, that was some of the first ones ever built in Sweden. The entire part of Gamla Enskede (Old Enskede) is designed around 1909-1915, so there are many lovely old villas with nice architectural details to look at.

Our ride continued through Gamla Enskede and headed down to Sockenvägen, the large road that leads up from Old Enskede to the main entrance of Skogskyrkogården (the forest cemetery). But instead of going inside the main entrance, we followed the road ahead. Passing the former tram depot from the 1930’s, it was demolished back in mid 1980’s only to be replaced with those horrible 1980’s style flats.

Yellow leaves

A bit further down the road we stopped at the crossing and took a look at the classic neon sign of “Barnvagnsfabriken” that is located on a building at the crossing. Back in the day it was a pram factory and the old vintage neon sign is still up, considering that the factory closed in the 1990’s. Today it is an Italian restaurant located at the premisses.

We turned right and headed down the road that once was the main road from Stockholm to the countryside before they built the highway in the 1960’s. Today it is a nice calm road with large trees on each side of the road. The road follows the cemetery wall.

The old main road, Tyresövägen

Peacefully riding along

We arrived at a new crossroad where an gasoline station once was located when I was a kid. Today there is modern small flats on that location. We turned right and entered the cemetery and rode along Vårhimmesvägen to the exit on the other side of the cemetery. While riding our bicycles inside the forest cemetery we quietly talked and listened to the wind in the trees and the birds singing. Next year we might take a longer route inside the cemetery, it was really peaceful and quiet.

Vårhimmelsvägen, Skogskyrkogården, (Spring-sky-road, Forest cemetery)

All is still and quiet, a piece of Sweden’s deep forests

After exiting the cemetery we went over the highway on an overpass. There we headed down into Tallkrogen. An area that was built in the early 1930’s by people who wanted to have their own homes. After paying a small fee they got a loan and permission to build a small house, the type of houses were called Egnahem “own home” and was founded by Egnahemsbyrån “own homes agency”. There are some areas like this around Sweden from that era, but they are mainly in Stockholm due to the expansion of population in the 1920’s. The town/city of Stockholm bought huge areas from old mansions. It was old farm land and cottages that was converted into entire new population areas.

They all was in reach of the planned subway system, that started to run in 1950. The name Tallkrogen can be translated to “pine pub” and comes from an old inn that was located there back in the 1700’s. Many of these areas has names from the olden days of mansions and cottages, the heritage lives on in the names.

When exiting Tallkrogen and entering the next area, called Svedmyra. That is also a old cottage name that still lives on. There is an small patch of grass between the houses. We had decided to have a short break there with a picnic, it was a nice break with refreshments and a well deserved rest for some of us that were slightly hungover.

Time for a break

More stickers on the Hermes

The handmade sticker for the event, absolutely wonderful drawing

Enjoying the sun

After the rest we started the last leg of the route. It went from Svedmyra and the 1950’s area with flats and into the area of Stureby. The houses in this area was also built on old farm land. But a few years earlier the other areas. It was built in 1920’s so there is interesting architecture. More of individual designs of the houses. We kept peddling on, passing Strureby and crossing the main road and heading down in to the part that is called Enskedefältet (Enskede field) where they built houses just as in Tallkrongen, but only with a different type of houses.

Heading down to Enskede fältet (Enskede field)

The interesting part with this area is that all streets are named after areas in the Baltic’s that once belonged to Sweden. Finland street, Estonia street and so on. After crossing Enskedefältet we finally arrived at the mansion of Enskede gård. The mansion still stands and are take care of. There we gathered around for a group photo to celibate the end of 2018 Enksede Tweed.

Small, but enthusiastic group of tweed riders

A lovely autumn day

After the event we all went to have a cold beer in the garden of Enskede Värdshus (Enskede inn). It was tasty and it was really great to sit and talk. Sadly the inn closed early. It was after autumn and there are not so many guest at that time of year.

Heading down to Enskede värdshus (Enskede inn)

Time for a drink after the finish

It was a great event, we all were pleased and said it was not the last time Enskede Tweed was held. In fact, when we went on our way later on, we meet some participants from other tweed events. They were out just walking around when we happened to passing by. It turned out that they wanted to join Enskede Tweed next time.

Perhaps it will be a popular event? The main question is, will the next event be a spring or autumn event?