Rolling into this town, any one horse analogies would be forgiven, it is, after all, centred around the main road that passes through on its way south to Oslo from Trondheim. With a population of just under 7,000 it’s the sort of place where the residents are all very friendly with each other and this is continued on to any visitors. It has the fourth highest revenue of all the ski resorts in Norway so is well placed to make the most out of the summer trade opportunities. It’s obvious to see that the terrain is there, but it is now a matter of converting this into killer tracks.
Skiing has evolved over the years and it is now that the powers–that–be have taken notice of what can be offered to bikes as well. There is a small group of local riders that have taken it upon themselves to improve what lies in front of their wheels and develop the area’s riding. With tentative, but solid, support from the resort, things are moving forward, a new track is being built every year and this will surely speed up with more and more visitors to the area.
The main site that is being developed for riding is Vangslia, this is Norway’s first official Kona Bike Park. It’s accessed from one chairlift that takes you to the start of about five tracks, there are a few novice ones that we didn’t check out, as they seem to be more for the beginner, but the two we did were the ‘Flytløypa’ and ‘SuperFlytløypa’, meaning ‘Flow’ and ‘SuperFlow’. These are fun tracks that mix up natural terrain with manmade berms and jumps. And as the name suggests, they do flow good. The ‘Flow’ is graded blue and doesn’t contain anything that will catch you out, but will offer you a blast darting in and out of the trees.
The ‘SuperFlow’ on the other hand is worth having a cruise down first. There are some great sections here and it has a nice rhythm that goes from an intense succession of corners and obstacles switching back and forth on each other to some longer mellower turns that let you re–gather some composure. One particular part that sticks in the mind is the one leading into a gap jump over a stream. Sizeable as it is, it is not just the gap that is memorable, it’s the corners leading into it. These have to be ridden just right to keep enough speed to clear the stream, with a jump between two of them to spice it up even more.
The other area with lift access is Hovden and it is one that I think many of you would like. This is a longer gondola ride that takes you right to the top to a place that feels so remote and is so beautiful that it’s as if you’re in a different world. Looking out over the valleys and mountains it pulls at you, the scenery so great it feels like there’s some magic that you just can’t explain. I could sit there just looking at the sights that surround the mountains for hours on end. But equally as enticing as the vista is the light brown trail that snakes off down the hill. Scandinavian mountains aren’t your jagged up–in–the–air style Alps, but more akin to Fort William’s style of rounded summits. This gives the tracks an amazing feel, they flow and roll over the surface.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t steep sections because at points this track drops away with roller–coaster stomach troubling intensity. The first corners cut their way in between the rock outcrops as if you are water finding the quickest route down the slope. As it ducks and dives through, you come out of a lot of turns blind, but a few runs here and you could hammer these turns. This is a far more natural affair, if a corner’s banked it’s much more likely to be a trait of the landscape than the dig of a shovel that created it.
This track is touted as the best downhill in Scandinavia and was my initial reason for visiting the area. Work started on this track in 2001 after the locals became inspired by watching VHS tapes of freeriding in America. The main guys behind it, Øyvind Mæhle, Nicklas Fastegård and Steinar Husby, utilised the gondola access and have continued with the help of many a local rider to keep this track evolving. As the bike park manager Tore Meirik says, “It was never intended to be a competition trail, but now I guess everyone agrees that it is the best downhill trail in Scandinavia.”
Towards the end of the open sections up top that use the terrain well to challenge a rider’s nerve, there is a section I loved and scared me in equal measures. It is where the track comes up to a blind brow littered with braking bumps. The trail drops away sharply, but halfway down this decent there is a right turn that has a rut that needs hitting just right before instantly whipping left again and down the remainder of the face. It urges you to hit it faster and faster, so much so that I only stopped repeating it when I was getting too tired and blew a foot off coming into it. It’s a great place to stop and look back at your mates and see how they fare. I was riding with the two Mæhle brothers, Øyvind and Håkon, as well young ripper Terje Nylende, who I can imagine you may well see good things from on the World Cup circuit soon if his riding down this section alone was anything to go by.
The motto of the guys that built this track is that for every rock that is removed from the trail, they put in three new ones, and this shows with its tough nature. Lower down the track gets more technical with hard sections of jagged rocks and twists and turns implemented by the Bjørk trees, great to have a tree with the same name as an Icelandic singer hey. And in these trees lives a bird called the Gok whose tweet sounds just like it’s saying ‘Opp-dal’. Makes you feel very welcome.
