– A unique journey by bicycle
300 kilometers on Finnmarksvidda leaves its mark. Hildegunn Gjertrud Hovdenak won the women’s class in Statnett OF300 together with Rakel Mortensdatter Birkeli. She has written a blog about the experience which we have received permission to publish.

Time 17. AUGUST 2017
Offroad Finnmark 300
Those who like the film better than the written word can check the links at the end.
I got on a plane to Alta. About a month ago, Rakel called and asked if I wanted to drive off-road in Finnmark with the team. Despite the fact that I have been flirting with Håkon and his crony Odd Erlend because they were going up, it took me barely 5 minutes to decide to join. Surprisingly enough, at least for me, possibly less surprising for many others. At the airport, Rakel comes and hiccups. Bright as a sun. Both looked forward to how the others coped with the hardships, without it being possible to find out in advance. We have cycled against each other in many races this season. Not a meter below.
But we have found the tone. At least that’s what we think.
I will ride my first team competition on terrain. Rakel raced last year, so she knows what she’s getting into, for better or for worse, but has never raced a girls’ team before.
Both know that when we reach the goal, if we reach the goal, then we have;
A Got a girlfriend for life.
B Had a bad trip.
The day is spent shopping for food, picking up borrowed equipment, packing and eating.

Mosquito repellent and mosquito nets are mandatory, as are raincoats, matches and first aid.
If we end up in need on the fjord, we will burn our tires.
We pack full saddlebags and rucksacks. Compress clothes, and plan food intake.

Where, when and how. Salmon, loin and porridge in a bag. Juice in the bottle and in the evocèn. It is crammed and screwed and planned. Clocks, GPSs and battery packs on the handlebars, in plastic, in the bag in the camper. Everything is charged and loaded. Offroad Finnmark has no marked tracks.

We have good support in Vilde and Tor Espen, who drive a motorhome and prepare for shifts, food intake and bicycle cleaning en route.

The start is at 18.00, and before that there is an information meeting, registration and some media. Time flies, and the clock is getting closer. Planned midday rest and yoga session have to give way.

The first leg is the only one I would actually call a ride. The stage goes around in and around the center of Alta. Nice cycling. But we get a small taste of how wet it will be, and cross both rivers and streams. It is relatively crowded, and we perform under the slogan “Hang, without blowing up”. Most people have probably thought the same, without being able to follow the plan as well as e.g. us.

The first checkpoint is at the start/finish. I have decided to change everything at the three checkpoints in our motorhome. And turns me off. And with my ass bare, I understand that this will be a talking point, while I get assistance to pull the dry pants over the most critical thing. But in sports, war and love, everything is legal. So to say. Body is inside anyway. And just like the bicycle, it is important that it is shod, dressed and lubricated as well as possible.

After 8 min. Are we on the move? 3 min more than necessary. But perhaps it was still necessary. We still have almost competitive pace, but only have a partial following from one team, and will soon be alone.

In the first long climb, Odd Peder stands and shouts that we are 9 teams in total. We look at each other and smile, we both think that we should be better than the target, without daring to say it.

It won’t be long before we take another team.

Both are silent for a while. A little unsure of what motivates the other. Is it to be ambitious, or should we pretend we don’t care, and take it at our own pace. Can the other person become stressed and angry for an offensive attitude, or is that exactly what is needed?

After a little while, I say, a little cautiously, “it would have been a bit cool with the top 5, then?”

“Yes! I thought exactly the same thing!” exclaims Rakel, and with that we have set our goal. It’s inside. Both ignite the tank. Without the tempo increasing for that reason. Here, of all places, the most important and correct saying is “D e jamninj so dreg” And we dreg jamnt.

The fog settles down. Dense and sticky. Visibility is very limited. We see 10-15 meters in front of us. Sometimes a little longer. The only thing you hear is the sound of tires on wet ground and the chain feeding on.

“One person”

“Two”

Both are a bit excited about whether the guys in front will hang on. But it is too far. Beat turns here are death. Or not even death. It just doesn’t work. They wish you the best of luck. We stumble forward, and soon we find out that the Finnmark vista has swallowed both of his glasses.

We probably have just over 7 hours until we are at the checkpoint with the motorhome in Masi. First opportunity to try on new glasses, and one of two possible 1-hour breaks.

We take one more team, which we ride and walk with for a long time. One is the cousin of Rakel’s cousin, the other is 17. And a little later we will meet my brother and son aged 13, who are cycling to meet them. According to rumours, he has cycled out of Masi at 23 and meet us at 4 o’clock on the next stage, according to my very inaccurate calculations. I naturally think that we can’t be far from people when we meet him, but that’s not true at all.

A bit before the 1st. Wilderness checkpoint Cuorvon and we meet two fellows from Valdres. It no longer feels particularly like a competition, although we would like to be better than them.

It’s just nice to see that we’re following roughly the right GPS track. And good to have a chat. At Cuorvon, I run into a tent with a mosquito coil to change, and would rather pee in there and, but go outside to be a bit polite. Rakel has strangely managed to change outside. The mosquitoes are starting to become noticeable. At the checkpoint, we meet Bjørnar (Rakel’s boyfriend) and teammate Kim Eirik, somewhat surprisingly.

Unfortunately, we’re a bit slow here too, so get out of there alone. The stage we are now on takes place in dense fog, partly without a path, and with a growing army of mosquitoes. The screen on the GPS has switched to night mode, because it is night, and is difficult to see. Rakel has the direction, and shows the way, a little zigzag. But still. This is Finnmark special. And he can. Once in a while there is a trail that goes down, and I take the lead. Several times Rakel has to call me back, because we have to change direction. I don’t know how many hours we are in this landscape completely covered in fog, but at one point the fog lifts, and we can see beyond the expanse.

Lighter on the mind, lighter on the bones. It is also a bit more cycleable for a period of time. In front of us we glimpse two. I reckon at first it’s the guys from Valdres, who spent a shorter time at the checkpoint, but the closer we get, the more certain I am that it’s a blue mold ck jersey I see. It’s Håkon and Odd Erlend. Celebrities! Håkon has previously calculated that I will take him again after about 4 p.m. Mil, this is probably something before, but not that much.

“Now it was good to see you,” I shout. In a sort of nonsense, he replies “well one of us thinks so” but inside he is happy that we are there. For now, there is minimal competitive instinct left in the guy. And I suspect that two merry ladies were not entirely wrong to break up the mood. We keep up, and the conversation goes on, albeit not in unison.

When we get a puncture on Rakel’s bike, they stop in sympathy. We can’t fix it with samurai swords and cartridges and have to go in with a hose. And here the most negative words between us in the whole competition will fall “take air in the hose before you put him in” Says Rakel. “No, there will be debris on him” I say.

Putting in a hose is not in itself a piece of art, but for me, who has to beat mosquitoes with one hand, it is not easy. Rakel has a tolerance for mosquitoes that borders on the irritating. It doesn’t go fast, but it doesn’t go terribly slow either, and happy to have brought a pump in addition to cartridges, we sat down on the bike seat again. Because of the mosquitoes, the guys had to move, but I think we’ll take them again, and against normal we’ll do it before too much time has passed.

We are approaching Masi. In advance, we intend to possibly delay until sous for the hour break, which will be at one of the two. We have long since shelved those plans. Here, there will be an hour’s rest.

At Masi, we meet cheers and enthusiasm. Tor Espen gets assistance from Øyvind to change Rakel’s tire, and Vilde is ready with clothing and food. I run in the shower. And have to stand there until I get feeling in my feet. The hour feels like an eternity and we stuff ourselves with food. I gulp down three eggs and three fishcakes and someone cups coffee, which fortunately appears via Bjørnar and Kim Eirik’s support. Rakel gets home-made pizza, and squeezes in more than she can handle.

Everyone is hoping that we will be able to move forward as best as possible. A small mistake by the organizer means that we have to take a break for an extra 5 minutes. Not a crisis in itself, but when it turns out afterwards that the 5 min. Should that be the reason why we don’t reach the target of 22.5 hours, it’s a bit sad. Without there being anything to laugh about.

Good and full, we embark on the next stage, which is just over 35 km. It will turn out that they are very boring. It is incredibly wet and we cross rivers in the unit. When we’re not crossing rivers, we’re paddling around in bogs. It costs time. And powers. I look at Rakel as she wades through the marshes as easily as if it were nothing. I myself limp along, while trying to scratch my back with the bicycle seat and swatting mosquitoes with one hand. I feel the urge to panic, if there are more mosquitoes now, it won’t work. Even if there is no possibility of escape. Rakel copes with the mosquitoes with a calmness I can never get. She is immune to poison, I react to everything.

She also has 8 kg less to carry than me, physically speaking, and has half a meter more feet.

I want what she has. Light weight, long feet and high mosquito tolerance. In the absence of all this, I turn on music on the phone, while I lie in the bog, so that as much of my body as possible is inaccessible to mosquitoes.

Along the way, I make a conversion table. 100 fhm (finnmark altitude meter)= 1000 Northwest altitude meter effective. 1 fkm (finnmark kilometer)=1 austland mil, effectively.

In other words, the trip we’re on is really long. But then a nice path comes along, and I’m on top of it again, still in the full knowledge that it won’t be long. All good things come to an end. But it would have been nice if it had lasted a little longer. I take a slightly wrong path, but see that I have to get back on the path, Rakel follows me on the same wrong path, but gets lost for a while. First, and fortunately last, we don’t have the opportunity to see each other. With a bit of dawning panic, I stand and shout as loud as I can. It doesn’t take many minutes before she answers. Maybe just one, but I have time to think of quite a few scenarios. After a while, it turns out that her gear has taken a hit, and only the lightest gears can be used. A little late, but relatively light-hearted, we reach the tarmac, where we arrive at the conclusion that she should lie behind, and try to keep up the speed as best as possible. We meet the guys from Valdres in the opposite direction, in pace position with a tailwind. Rarely have 5 km on tarmac in a light headwind been so long. We rush into the checkpoint, and get immediate help with the gear. While I squeeze in so much porridge from the bag that I can’t swallow, Rakel sits on the toilet, calling for bum salve. I don’t have anything like this myself, but I know that it wouldn’t have been completely wrong. Little did I know that it would be a little over a week before I would have the somewhat ambivalent pleasure of pecking away the handlebars in a relatively unpleasant shower after the Cykelvasan, which, incidentally, will be so disappointing that it will not steal enough of my attention anyway.

Still a bit energetic after all the food and refreshments we got at the last stop, and probably still spiffy after the despite everything easy km on tarmac, and with tarmac in sight for at least 2 km at the start, we hurry on. The asphalt at the start is in extremely strong contrast to the rest of the stage. Apart from the last part, which can be cycled both quickly and comfortably, although it is starting to become quite uncomfortable to sit on the seat. The Velcro on the shoe has long since filled up with mud, and with every step the straps whip against the frame. We are approaching Jotka, which is the last stop. For quite a long time we have seen one team in front of us, and on the last climb there is reasonably certain hammer time ahead of us. We rushed in, without actually thinking we were in a hurry. I also have a noise in the brakes or at least in the bike, which sounds like a woman’s voice shouting from far away, and when Rakel denies it every time I shout to ask what it was she said, I have a slightly unpleasant fear that someone comes in quickly behind us. Even if the few second rings we’ve had don’t quite agree with us having any ladies within earshot behind us, but who knows..

We will take two barrels from Valdres and accompany them to Jotka, where we will receive absolutely fantastic service, bike washing and nutritional supplements. Eager to finish, we quickly set off from there, but promise that most of it is cycleable. We keep a relatively high speed at the start, boosted by the promises and some road relatively early in the stage. On the stretch of road, a girl stands and shouts that there is only one more climb, and then it is straight home. That claim will turn out to be relatively untrue, but after 4-5 climbs and some rivers, we are actually on our way down the last long descent. I am afraid of my brake discs, and go for a solution without significantly braking at the start. After a sudden stop, fortunately in the heather, and without hitting myself significantly, I come to the conclusion that it is probably worth a brake disc to get down in one piece, and hopefully without destroying anything time-consuming on the bike.

It’s been a long time since the watch ran out of battery, and I don’t have any kind of odometer. Rakel comes and informs that there are 18 km to the finish line. With a slightly negative attitude towards these Finnmark kilometers, I exclaim: “Damn it, 18 kilometres!”

“No, it’s not far,” says Rakel. “No, it’s true, it’s not far,” I say, and with that we have forced our second most negative moment.

It’s an exceptionally light bike, from here to the finish line, that is in the context of Offroad Finnmark. As we approach the finish line, we plan how we will cycle across the finish line. We are fairly certain that our goal of becoming 5. team overall is going to go.

We have agreed to rent, but to ride arm in arm, but one hand on the handlebars is a bit tiring, and with the finish line in sight, we keep putting off when to take each other’s hands. But, in time to be photographed, just before some rough cobblestones, bring your arms together and raise them in the air, only to have to bring them down fairly immediately to stop in the target area. Here, no one enters at great speed, nor a large group, and no large field is needed to stop.

We are given alcohol-free champagne, which I can’t open, so Rakel takes it, and after a sip that we both swallow again, I shake the bottle so as not to lose face. Something has to be done. We are both given a cup, but I treat mine away quickly and imperceptibly. There is no room for carbonation here.

We are handed a check and a suite, and smile for pictures, but then we have to get home. I don’t have a problem with any particular place, other than my ass, but when I don’t have to cycle anymore, it’s not a problem. The only thing is that everything just goes slowly. Terribly slow. I get to sit down in the motorhome, and wait for Rakel, who eventually arrives, walking like an ancient hag. Something or other has happened to her lower back, and she cannot bend over.

While I first go into the shower, Rakel is lying on the floor, trying to take off her trousers. It’s barely possible. It doesn’t take long before we have finished washing and eating, and are ready for bed. The support device in the mobile home, and we inside Rakel’s father’s apartment. After just over 12 hours, we crawl out of bed, but in far better bodies than we had the night before. For me, the only thing that doesn’t work as it should is the hands. In an attempt to wrap gifts for the support system, in food paper, like a lunch box, I know that squeezing the paper into the pages is not quite easy today. But I roll and crumple something, as best I can, and get some well-chosen words down on the paper before they come up for breakfast. Of all things, we have set aside the day for trading. We will have both finery and shoes for the banquet. I have no love whatsoever for shopping, but it’s amazing what can be fun in good company, and after a short day’s work at the shopping center we bought clothes and shoes that we could just as easily wear as groomsmen at a wedding. It is also because of this shopping trip that we are unable to get to the banquet, before it has started, and check into the giant suite before the party is underway. The party involves eating, talking about, and hearing about other people’s pains and problems along the way. Check out the feet of those who have cycled 700 and have bag-filled feet from another world. Similar stabs, and all sorts of other diversities. The party goes ahead without the big shenanigans, and I’m probably in the breach to gather the troop, and early bed. But it’s amazing what to talk about around the dinner table, once you’ve had time to recover, and it’s probably around 3.30 before we fall asleep in our camp. After just under 5 hours, it’s time to eat a formidable hotel breakfast, and wash, clean and distribute equipment. It takes time, but it doesn’t matter to me, because I have the bling on the ticket home, and will stay in Alta for an extra day.

Offroad Finnmark is something that, like giving birth, you don’t want to do again, but once you’ve finished. But when a day or two has passed, you realize that you will join again. Because it is a unique experience, with a bicycle, both on and off. When you stand there with mire up to your hips, and mosquitoes everywhere the mosquitoes can reach, it is not only beautiful, but it is unique. And when you have to be on the move for so many hours, it is relatively gentle to move around on a bicycle, and in marshes and rivers and on the plains. Note here that I’m talking about 300 km, not 700, because from what I’ve heard, you can forget about having a season after that.

And the best of all: Alta.

And those who live there, mostly those who live there. The enthusiasm around, at each checkpoint, the feeling of being a complete queen, that everyone welcomes you, and is genuinely interested in you having a good time.

Because there is no doubt that this is what makes it so incredibly good. Because you will be both tired, and occasionally both angry and angry at all its bogs. All this water. That behind the next peak there is only one more. But when it all comes down to it, that’s what makes it so unique.

It’s an atmosphere that I can’t convey in writing, but which you, if you like this kind of thing, have to climb up to experience. Up for most, down for the few. Whether it’s as a support device or a cyclist, I think we’ll almost come to one, because even if the organizer has good arrangements at the checkpoint, I’m very, very happy with our eminent support device, which we could rely on 100%, and which was only more people to share the joy of finishing with.

And if you have a friend or loved one after they have done this ride, there is at least good reason to believe that it will be able to last a lifetime.

Check the film from Rakel, Vilde and Tor Espen here!!: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ufsdjbqzyiup6mi/402lang

Film from Frikant here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rg8ozwutlc668tp/AABkUp0VuDJ0m3ue1shLOlNDa?dl=0&preview=Team+Skaidi+Xtreme+-+Finish.mp4