The Great Trial of Strength 1995

Trondheim - Oslo

Preparation.

The spring was not of the best - actually, it was one of the worst since I began cycling in 1991. A lot of cold weather with rain and wind. And the bad weather affected the amount of training I got before the tour. Normally I would have had at least four long sunday rides with my team mates, but this year I had only one. And that was a bad one too. I felt so exhausted after that ride. Every year I use to take it easy before Easter. Then I use the Easer vacation to ride almost every day. But even the Easter was horrible; only two day with training. The rest of the time was used inside looking at the snow.

A few weeks before the Great Trial of Strength we use to participate in the Trondheimsfjorden Rundt, a 180 km long race. I have done this race four times and I know that the start use to be hard. But this year, the start was too hard for me. After 30 km in the first long steep hill, I lost the group I was riding with. I was not strong enough to climb the hill as fast as my team mates.

Bad news.

Some weeks before the Great Trial of Strength the easter part of Norway got a horrible weather. Lots of rain and warmer weather. Due to the cold spring, the snow in the mountains had not meltet yet, but now, the warm winds speeded up the melting. The rain and the melted snow caused severe flooding in eastern part of Norway. The flooding was over only a week before the tour. But due to all the damaged roads the tour was canceled only a few days before the start. The organizor told us that they should try to find another date for the ride. All we had to do was to wait and see.

Good news.

A few days after we should have done the ride, we got a new message that the new date for the ride was set to August the 5th. The big problem for most of the riders was that theire vacation already was planned and the new day might not suit them. Another problem is that the night will be longer (read: more riding in darkness) so late in the summer. And since we have to ride in the night, it meant more time in darkness.

For me, the new date was much better than the old one. Even if I had paied the registration fee (NOK 700), I did not want to go on the original date since I had more important things to do (more important than cycling? - is that possible??). But I could do the ride on August the 5th.

For many other people, the canceling of the ride was a big dissapointment. Someone told me about people who got drunked because the ride was canceled. For other, like me, the new date gave me more time to train. And I could need more training. The cold spring did not encourrage me to train very much.

What worried me most was that Leif Grimstveit (Picture: Leif Grimstveit) was unable to join us in August. He is one of three people who have done the Great Trial of Strength every year since the first ride in 1967.

Two days before.

As ussual we (my team-mates and I) have a meeting two days before the ride where we plan what to do. Even if we have this meeting every year, we do something completly different when on the bike. But it is a good social meeting and we always have new people who haven't done the ride before. They will get usefull information from this meeting.

On my way to the meeting, I spotted a man on a bike. "Haven't I seen him before? Oh, yes it's Leif!" (Leif does not live in Trondheim, so the only time I see him is when he come to Trondheim to participate in our trip to Oslo). He had found some spare time for the ride this year too. I guess he could not miss this year's ride after all. I went over to him and said hello. We talked about cycling while walking to the meeting room.

The meeting was just a replay of last year meeting. We planned to do the same as we planned last year, which we didn't do. But as a social event, this meeting is great - bananas, cackes and coke and lots of cycling talk.

The race.

Over 3000 cyclist was on the start line this year, which was about 1000 less than it should have been if the start had been in June. Every 3 minute a group of 80 riders start. My group should start 8:32 in the morning. Before we can start, the bike is checked. If a rider don't have a helmet and working head and tail light he/she is refused to start. After the control a photo shop took a picture of each rider. The rider could buy the picture when arriving Valle Hovin.

The weather was good. The temperature was perfect - not to hot and not to cold, and no wind. I was wearing a long sleeve jersey (the teams jersey), cycling shorts, sochs, shoes and short gloves. I had my shoe cover with me, but after talking with the other people, I put them in my luggage. In my front bag I had gloves with long fingers (I would probably need them during the night).

As long as I have done this ride, the start have always been hard (too hard if you ask me), but this year we took it a bit easier. And that was good because both I and several other riders had complained the previous years about the hard start. I think it is more wise to start easy and get warm before we start to go harder.

I don't know if part of the track is cursed or not, but we began to get a light head wind at the same place as we did last year and the two years before that! But the wind was not that strong, so it caused problem sofar. But when I first felt the head wind, I began to worry about how strong it could get and how long we had to struggle against it.

What caused problem was my legs. They did not want to work hard at all. I have never felt my legs get filled with lactic acid so fast. Every time I was up in the front to pull the paceline, the legs got filled to the top with acid. I don't know what caused it, but after a few hours it was almost impossible for me to be in the front and pull the field. So before we reached the mountain, I was forced to stay behind in the pack.

Soon before reaching Fagerhaug, we stopped for a short break so that some of us could get of theire bike and pee. One had a tubular that did not hold the air. With some help from a few team mates, he changed it (Picture: Changing tubular).

During the climb up to the top of the mountain, the wind changed from a light head wind to a slightly stronger tail wind. The tail wind was good to have during the climb, but when we reached the mountain, the tail wind changed back again to a even strong head wind.

We stopped at the food station at Hjerkinn where I filled up my CamelBak, my two water bottles and my pockets (bananas and bread slices). I also had some time to take some pictures. This was my first long ride using a CamelBak. Before the tour I did not know how it would be to use the CamelBak on a long ride, but sofar I love it. Previous year I have had three botles on my bike and one in the front bag, but now I had only two botles on my bike. Using the CamelBak also gave me more space for food in the front bag.

Before I left I had two glasses with vørterøl (an energy rich non-alcoholic beer) together with a salt tablet. The stop lasted for 9 minutes and 20 seconds. I used a strong whissel to notify the other riders that where about to go again (Picture: Me at the food station).

After passing Dombås the wind direction changed again and we got a good tail wind down the valley. The temperature on the south side of the mountain was much higher too (above 20 deg. Centigrade). It was not only me that could feel the heat. I pulled down the zipper on my jersey to let the air flow more freely around me. But that caused the jersey to irritate my breast nipples so much that they began to hurt. Futher down the valley I began to feel tired, guess it was the heat that caused it. While struggeling to keep up the speed, I began to worry about that I had forgot to put my shoes in my luggage. What should I do when I reached Oslo and have no shoes to wear when going back to Trondheim?

I began to get really tired when we reached the Ringebu food station. The first thing I did was to get something for my sore nipples. After got my nipples fixed, Bjø Sortland and I sat down with a table and began to eat bread slices, some with salamii and some with straberry jam. After finnishing eating, I borrowed a cellular phone and called my friend in Oslo. I asked him if he had a pair of shoes I could borrow. He had a pair of old shoes, so I asked him to drive down to Valle Hovin (where the finnish is) and leave them there.

Before Bjørn and I left Ringebu, we met Egil Skybakmoen, another team-mate. He had left our group at Otta because he wanted to get a Coke at a gas station. Together with him, we got on our bikes and headed down the vally and the next stop.

Not much happened before the next stop at Vingrom (close to Lillehammer). At Vingrom we met several other team-mates. I began to get really tired now, so I got a Coke and something to eat and found a chair. The other riders filled up theire bottles and pockets with water and food before they left. I was to tired to follow them. Five minutes after my team-mates left, I climbed my bike again trying to get some more juice out of my legs. But even if I had eaten several slices of bread, two bananas and had several glasses of Coke, I could not pedal very fast.

I tried to ride together with some other riders, but when a large group passed us, they increased the speed. The pace was too fast for me, so I slowed down and rode on my own. After I crossed the bridge over Mjøsa I began to get a sloooow climbing, but I was so tired that I had problems with getting up the hills. All I dreamed about was a bed. And my dream should come true faster than I could believe in. After a few sloooow hills I saw the "foodstation 1 km" sign.

The first thing I did when I arrived at the food station was to park my bike, pick up a bottle of coke and then find a bed in the tent. I grabbed a few New Energy chocolates from my back pocket and laied down on the bed. The Red Cross had some people that offered me massage. During the 2 1/2 hour I spent at the food station, I had two rounds with massage, first on my lower legs and then on my upper legs.

I used the time to eat, drink and sleep. This was the first time I had used so much time at a food station. It gave me time to see what the riders did when they arrived there. But I thought 2 1/2 hour was more than enough rest, so I got my bike, turned on the light and continued my ride to Oslo.

I felt much better after the long rest. The hills did not cause any problem for me. Several times I caught up with other groups, but the speed they kept was to slow for me, so I passed them and continued to ride on my own. Never during the ride has my body felt so good. The only part of me that did not work as it should was my stomach. If something could go wrong now, it could only be my it.

I continue to ride on my own to the next and second last food station. About 15 minutes before I arrived it, I began to feel that my stomach protested against this ride. I hoped it would keep quite until I arrived the food station, and it did. I also began to feel a bit weaker again.

"This is the end, my only friend, the end"

I tried to get something to eat at the food station, but my stomach did not want much food. With an almost emtpy and upset stomach I could not continue much more. I talked with the people at the food station and asked them what will happen if I stopped here. After a few phone calls I was told that I could stay here for a few minutes. A car would pick me up and drive me to Valle Hovin (the finnish area). I choosed to wait for the car.

While waiting for the car, I laied down on a bed and tried to relax. I began to freeze, so I found a wool blanket and wrapped it around me. But that did not help much. My body was so drained for energy that I kept on freezing. And the mosquitos tried to suck as much blood from me as they could. Why did they want my blood? After all, when I was drained for energy, my blood could not contain much for them either!

The car came and picked up me and my bike. Before we put the bike in the car's back trunk, I grabbed some of the chocolates I had in the front bag, so that I had something to eat during the drive (if my stomach would have it...).

At Valle Hovin.

At Valle Hovin I locked my bike, picked up my luggage and the shoes that my friend have left for me. I checked and found out that I had put a pair of shoes in my luggage. After a long and warm shower I walked over to the canteen to get some food. My stomach wanted something to eat.

In the canteen I meet some of my team mates. I got a plate of dinner and sat down together with them. We talked about the tour for about an hour. After the meal I went outside to see if I could spot anyone I knew (Picture: Geir Wiker with a picture of himself, Picture: Me at Valle Hovin).

Next year.

My team mates did ride very well this year. The Sintef-NTH team got an 8th place on the ten-man's team ranking list, which is better than last year. The ranking list is based on the total time for the ten first riders from a team. The better posision a team have on this list, the earlier can they start next year.