Bjørnstad 2010

Tor Halvor Bjørnstad - on the winning team offroadfinnmark 700 2010 - wrote this article for the magazine Terrengsykkel.

The offroad racing season can sometimes seem as short as the lifespan of man compared to the world's history. Soon the autumn leaves will cover the ground becoming soil; filling up the cracks between all the roots and rocks the summer rain has exposed on the trails. Every season leaves me with a special and treasured memory. This year, building a new porch made it all happen. Jon Kristian Svaland and I entered our first biathlon competition roughly at the same time, we were equally good and were on the national biathlon team for about as long. When I needed a carpenterwho could receive payment off the books, I sent my old team mate a text message. When the porch was completed and I was to pay up, it turned out Jon Kristian had an alternate plan...

We were given the opportunity to compete in offroadfinnmark. I got in touch with the race manager who was absolutely stoked to have us participate, and equally eager on advising us against riding hardtail. This was shaping up to be a proper off-road race. Fourteen days later we had been riding almost non stop for 50 hours on rough trails. The third night of the race boded clear skies, yet another beautiful night under the midnight sun. We were in the middle of nowhere. The race was organized similarly to a dog sleigh race, three hours behind us a local team who knew the area like their own back pockets were toiling to catch up. This was such a constant grind on the nerves that even my usually stoic dad was following our GPS trackers online real-time. He was observed sleeping with his laptop on his lap that night.

Jon Kristiand and I both knew that we were having the moment of our rather short cyclist careers. The sun hang low in the horizon. The ground was seeping fog from the previous day's rain showers, and millions of dew drops were glittering in the shrub. We were on a technically demanding trail and had been for hours on end. I suddenly realized what was the driving force behind the race and our participation. It was nature. The nature kept me going.

Shortly before 4am the phone in my backpack rang. "It's the end of the world as we know it" by R.E.M was the ring tone. We both started laughing, after participating in offroadfinnmark life simply isn't the same anymore. The race is so extreme, so beautiful, so tough and such a strong experience it really does change your perspective and outlook on life. It's moving across an extreme distance (700 kilometers/434.9miles) with the competition on your tail. The closest I came to a parallel must have been when members of the resistance had to escape across the border with the German soldiers chasing after them.

We arrived in Alta completing the race in 69hrs and 30 minutes. By then we had been criss-crossing all over the mountain plateau of Finnmark, even crossing the border at Valjok all the way to the east. The checkpoints had been the homes of people living in the middle of nowhere, tents and local mountain lodges. The race was planned and executed without a glitch, the media was following the race closely; a colleague had even heard my name being mentioned on the Sami radio several times during the race. The rush and the excitement of having completed the race was immense. I can't even imagine what this summer would have been like without my offroadfinnmark experience.

So this is the tale of how paying for a porch being built landed me on an offroad race in Finnmark. Jon Kristian was an amazing team mate, and at the moment I've got a cold and a big smile on my face having completed the last race of the season, Ultrabirken. The season is over. The winter months will be spent on slow trips on forest trails, finished off with cigars and whiskey in front of the fireplace. I'd like to thank you for my time as a columnist and for a wonderful yearwith team Proteinfabrikken-KMT.