The Great Trial of Strength 1994

Trondheim - Oslo

Many people who have read my WWW pages have asked me "Why no 1994 report?". Well, I tried to do the tour in 1994, but it turned out to be a nightmare (in daylight...). But since so many want to read my story, I have compiled a short story about what happened. This was written almost one year after the ride, so it is not much detailed. Well, here it goes...

Preface

This year my preparation for the great tour to Oslo was not the best. No mather how hard I tried, I did not get the same results as in 1993. I felt that my body did not want to ride hard this year. After each hard training or race, I was felt weak for days and my stomach was upset (maybe I was overtrained?). I continued to train hoping that my body would get better with more training. Also my PC told me that I had less miles on the road that in 1993, but I felt I had enough for the ride to Oslo.

This year I tried something else on the day before the ride. I alwasy use to take the day off, so that I don't have to stress at work. This year I also had something called aroma therapy, which is easy massage all over the body (well, almost all over the body...) with aromatic oils. It was wonderful treatment. I got some oils that should get the juice (power) out of my muschels during the race. I don't know if it helped or not, and I didn't care about that either. Laying there getting a good massage was just so good.

At the start line

The weather forcast the evening before was bad. We could expect lots of rain on the other side of the mountain, very low temperature (just above the freezing point) and it was a chance that we could get a headwind. But while waiting to start, the weather in Trondheim was very good, an almost clear blue sky and no wind, and the temperature was so high that I began to worry that I had too much clothing on. But I decided that I should not do anything about my clothing.

On the road again

At 8.39 am our group started. It was 80 people in each group, but not all of them was riding under the Sintef/NTH team name. Soon after the start we get a short but steep hill. Everyone say that if you have not got any flat before this hill, you will probably not get it at all. You may ask why? The answer is simple, on the first few km after the start, loose things tend to drop of the bikes. Some of these loose things are lights, and they break when they hit the road. So the road may be covered with broken glass and hard plastic. And there is always a lot of people that don't understand that you have to secure your lights etc. on your bike.

Once again I managed to get out of town without getting a flat, but I will always remember what happended some years ago, when one of my team mates got a flat up the first hill. We all stopped so that he could change the tire (tubular). While he changed, another team mate found out that he should take of some clotes. But when the first one was finnished with changing tire, we left - without the one changing clotes. We did not know that we had to wait for him too. And that was the last time we saw him during the race.

After the first climb, I began to feel the first sign of fatigue. And that was only 15 km after the start. I still had over 500 km left to ride! But I kept on pedaling - no way back! I felt that I had too much cloting on, but I knew that it was too late to do something with it, and I would probably need it later.

Only a few km after we had passed Berkåk, Mr. Leif Grimstveit (who is one of four who have finnished all previous tours) touched the back wheel of the rider in front of him, and went down. I was riding behind Leif, and I watched him going down. Several years ago this happened to me in a local race, and I remember how fast it happened. But watching this happening to another rider right in front of me, was like watching it in slow motion. The accident also came as a surprise to me. I was too late to stay clear of thim, so (I think) I ran over his back wheel before I stopped. About 1 minute later we was on our bike again, but Leif began to have problem catching up with us. Some of the riders in our team continued, while some of us (including me) slowed down to wait for him, but after a few minutes he told us that he had to stop and fix the back wheel, and that we should continue without him.

As we began to get closer to the mountain, the temperature dropped. I was glad that I did not do anything with the cloting before I started. We also got a cold headwind that grew stronger and stronger. The plan was to stop at the food station at the mountain, but due to the lower temperature and some mechanical problem one of my team mates had, our team leader decided that we should stop on the last food station before the moutain.

I used the time at the food station to fill my bottles with water, my pockets with bananas, get something to drink and eat and to change to gloves with long fingers. From the food station we could see the dark clouds covering the moutain we was about to climb. The temperature had dropped even more, but we still had dry roads. The people at the food station could tell us that it was +3 deg. Centigrade and snow at the next food station (at the top of the mountain), and the wind was very strong.

My team mate with mechanical problem desided to stay off. He had so much problem with the read derailleur, that he found out it would not hold all the way down to Oslo. So we left without him. After 10 minutes on the food station, it was hard to get on the bike again. I was feeling more tired than ever, and began to worry about how this journy would end. While thinking about how nice it would have been laying in my bed instead of freezing on my bike, we got a small taste of what was waiting in front of us. It began to rain. And as the rained get worse and worse, I began to get problem with my fingers. They got numb and I know that I had lost the blood cirulation in many finger tips.

On the last climb up the mountain I began to have problem following the other riders. Several times a gap opened between me and the rest of the riders, but each time I managed to close it. But it cost a lot to close it, so I knew that this could not go on much longer. The highest point is a few km before the food station, and the terrain get more flat. But flat terrain did not mean that the suffering was over. On the naked mountain ground, the wind was stronger than ever before. It was so strong that many riders had problem riding in a stright line. During the climbing I had decided to stop on the food station, but when I came to it, I followed the rest of the riders, who did not stop. Soon after I lost contact with the group and I was on my own - the headwind was about to kill me. While riding on my own I began to wonder where the snow they told us about at the last food station where? Maybe it had melted?

I continued to struggle against the wind, but several times I almost ride off the road due to the strong wind. Some days after the ride, I heared stories about people who actually went off the road several times due to the wind. The speed was just over 10 km/hour. The wind and the rain caused my fingers to get so cold that I could not feel them anymore. I began to worry about the descending down to Dombås. With the cold fingers I was unable to use my brakes, and with no brakes I could not descend from the mountain. Since I couldn't feel the fingers anymore, I began to wonder if I still had them (the fingers, not the brakes!)...

Enough is enough!

Just before the descending began, I pulled off the road and went down to a house nearby. I asked those who lived there if I could borrow the phone. I wanted to call the organizor and tell them that I had enough of it and where the could pick me up. After talking with them, the people in the house invited me upstairs to theire living room. They had just fired up in the oven. They placed a chair in front of the oven for me, and they offered me food and something to dring. But my stomach was not ready for food yet, so I only had a cup of warm tea. From my warm place near the oven, I could watch out on the road and see all those riders struggeling in the headwind to get to Oslo.

After about an hour, I felt asleep. When I woke up, the house was empty - I was alone. It turned out that the the wife in the house had taken the children down to Dombås for shopping, while the husban was outside working. I began to get hungry, so I went outside to get some of the bananas and chocolate I had in my front bag on my bike. I began to freeze at once, so I got inside as fast as possible.

Later that evening, my hosts had dinner, and the also offered me some, but my stomach still had problems, so I only had a bit. After I ate the dinner, I felt asleep again.

I wake up by the sound from the kids. They was playing with different things (due to a streik in one of the TV channels, they had no TV to watch). I watched the clock, I had been here for over 6 hours, and I began to wonder if the people who was suppose to pick me up would come or not. I called them again to ask for transport. It turned out that there had been some misunderstanding, but that they would come and pick me up in 30 minutes.

When the car came to get me, I thanked my hosts for theier hospitatily before leaving. Four other riders was already in the car. They had stopped due to the cold weather. The car took us to the train station at Dombås, where we could take the train to Oslo. I checked in my bike and asked them to send it directly to Trondheim, while I bought a ticket to Oslo (I had to pick up my luggage and I should meet an old friend). We had to wait several hours before the train arrived.

Down to Oslo

While sitting on the train to Oslo, I watched out on the dark and wet roads, and I was so glad that I had stopped. By watching the trees, I knew that the headwind that the riders, who still was out there, had to fight against was strong.

The train arrived Oslo early in the morning, and together with three other riders who had stopped, we took a taxi to Valle Hovin, the finnish area. At Valle Hovin I found my luggage and headed for the shower. It was so good to get the training gear off and get some clean clothes on. I then walked to the cantina to get something to eat. Some of my team mates was sitting there eating, so I joined them. Leif Grimstveit was there too, and he had managed to get to Oslo this year too. But he told me that he had another accident during the night. Once again he had crashed, and the damage to his bike had been severe (I don't know if he had to borrow a bike or not).

After talking with the other riders for several hours, it was time for me to leave and go to visit my friend. I thought it was bad that I wasn't able to do the ride this year. I only knew that the bad weather we had this time, was an exception - it could not be worse, or... Only one year to wait for the next chance...