2014-06-28/29 - Styrkeproven, Norway

Spin through Lillehammer has been removed from the route this year..I am disappoint.
The marshals were amazing and gorgeous, also the descent out of the town..
Looks like more lake shore riding instead..

There seems to have been a lot of pressure from both the police and the road authorities. I feel for the organisers TBH. The rockets teams all seem pretty pissed that they cant have any support. The was a big crash (as you can imagine With these teams being so big and riding so tightly) in a warm up event. Which was sorted pretty quickly because there so many support cars that could help. With only a few neutral cars for styrkeprøven. I get the impression the teams feel its unsafe. I suspect that the annoyance is largely Down to the effect it'll have on finish times too though.

Startnummer: 1021 !!!

The train i was going to get is full of bikes and sleepers - they were nice and gave me refund. I might have to go a few days earlier now by plane - the bike is currently in a Oslo shop getting new chain and cassette (went for orig part - ultegra) rather than chinese, only because it's a new years (mid-summer) resolution to take care of it... don't ask about the cost.... (looked it up on wiggle after and my colleague has the tool - it's going to be a stinger). Last Thursday I took a jaunt up from Rygge to Oslo (20quid flight - 50 quid for bike,dumped the CTC bag in the bin and started riding) minus pedal tool (6 quid to return the confiscated tool 4 days later - hand luggage mistake) - luckily a nice man in Moss cycle shop sorted me out with tightening. Garmin (800) factory reset & update prior to leaving london gave it a fresh lease of life - using it as a mapper/router was amazing, i can't stress how f'ing awesome it was. Took national route 7 from openstreepmap site (moss-trondheim gpx download takes a while to load though, obvs only went to oslo). You're not supposed to cycle on the pavement in norway but with the volume of shared pavements and switching road sides it's really tricky to work out sometimes if you're still ok or not. Basically follow the route into towns then get on the road in my advise (but avoid tunnels - i did only because i didn't trust them - these days they have motorway slip roads exits etc...).

http://www.strava.com/activities/154426229 (even ended up going too far in the end)

Day after I went up to Holmenkollen (took some pics hence slow speed... :-) ) then to the beach ish oddly empty!

http://www.strava.com/activities/154426208

That afternoon trip was all by the built in routing in the garmin (set to "by shortest distance") and was effing great - almost zero traffic on a friday late afternoon!!!

Weather was amazing!! and had been apparently for quite a while - as the bike shop guy said, it was a bit different from the 400km in the rain from last year - so fingers crossed guys that the weather continues!!

Pop quiz: How much is a chain and cassette fitting in Norway?? (shimano/ultegra 10sp).

p.s. i am sooooo unfit - i will without joking be lucky to finish (hoping mental strength will see me through).

Parts in Norway are resonable if you buy them from somewhere like Bikeshop.no, or some of the bigger cities. Its over £10 for a fecking quick link where I am though. So I steer well Clear of my LBS's.

I have all the Tools you'd need to do this. I'd personally fit the Chain With a quick link anyway. But Shimano Chains are eassy to fit without. If you want me to do this Friday night its no problem. Probably a 10 minute job.