Video: This is Norway

This is Norway – Norway trip Merida-Velo Team

Riders:
- Pavel Vishnevy
- Clemens Kaudela
- Adrian Tell

Photos and Video: - Florent Delahaye

Text: - Clemens Kaudela

Day1 – Arrival in Oslo
I was travelling to Oslo from Vienna, and checking the weather forecast one last time in Vienna I remember it was a mix of everything: rain, sun, and clouds. I was sitting in the plane with mixed feelings like "hopefully the weather stays good and we can have dirt jump sessions every day" or "if it´s rainy all week I’m gonna be sooo pissed!"

Finally, I arrived in Oslo, out of the plane window it was cloudy, and looked if it was about to start raining. Not the worst, but could be better. Later on I was happy again when I met Pavel, Florent and Danil, always good to see those guys. Just outside the airport, Adrian was already waiting with the Merida van and a little rental car. Everybody was pumped to go to Hafjell, we didn´t waste any more time and jumped into the car and drove straight there.
At first we had to check out the famous dirt jumps of Hafjell and they looked so great. A little shape was required, but overall very good - massive. As it was almost dark we checked in at a cabin hotel.


Day2 & Day3 – preparing Hafjell
Five People, 4 Nations and different morning routines, that takes time. I was ready to go at 9:00am because I was so pumped and ready to shape the trails and ride them. Nobody else was! Anyone who knows Pavel, knows that he takes time for everything, especially for his Shisha.


“OMG!” said Pavel completely stoked about the dirts they have here. “It´s so perfect, I wanna crash here!”, he joked. After a good hour of shaping, the line was ready. I didn´t really think about it, just tried it straight away. With my second run I made it through the line. Boom, the first big jump is massive. The sky got a bit darker and it seemed to want to start raining soon. I wanted to do some tricks before it rained, in 3 more runs I was doing huge No-footed can can´s and a Backflip Superman.


At the beginning Pavel struggled a bit with the line - maybe because he rides without brakes. Suddenly I heard the sound of somebody landing a jump hard and hitting the ground. “I´m alright, I´m OK!”, shouted Pavel straight away. He was OK but the bike wasn’t, he had bent the fork a bit. We all checked the fork and the headset, and after a while he decided to continue riding this setup, because he had no spare parts.


Suddenly it started to rain so Adrian and I took a break for a while. It seemed that it didn't bother Pavel at all as he did one run after another. The first session was good, but there was definitely more that we could do on these dirts. Also the weather wasn’t great, so we decided to stay one day more instead of driving to the next spot.

The decision was perfect - perfect weather, perfect jumps, a blue sky and no wind, the dream of every rider. I had some lines and tricks in mind that I wanted to do while Pavel and Adrian were killing it that day. I think that the pictures say more than a thousand words, so enjoy.



After this session Florent smiled: “I think with this spot we already have enough footage for a video!” Everybody was pretty satisfied.

We chilled a bit, showered, checked out, packed the car and headed to the next spot in the city of “Kongsvinger”. We drove through lonely woods, seeing patches of fog in the moonlight over lakes, which was kind of scary and epic at the same time. It was hard to find a good hotel. With good I mean affordable, because EVERYTHING is more than twice as expensive in Norway than anywhere else. Super exhausted we finally found a motel at midnight just 5 minutes before it closed for the night.

Day4 – long Road
After a good breakfast we went to the dirt jumps. Adrian told us that the local guys had built a new ramp for trick jumps, which obviously sucked – which you soon realize when you see the video of the locals trying it. I didn't expect too much and when we arrived my worst expectations got confirmed. NOTHING was rideable. Every dirt jump was destroyed, the wooden ramps were really shabby and not in position to jump. Hours of work, buying tools and another day lost would have been one choice, but as the media guys said: “this spot isn´t worth all the effort!” Pavel's answer: “Next spot!”

It took us two and half hours to drive through a really nice open landscape with lots of farms and who would imagine… lakes again.


As we got out of the car and checked the spot, everybody was a bit disappointed. The two lines contained mostly very small and steep jumps which were in a bad condition and built of sand where you really don´t wanna crash. The landscape wasn’t exciting, just a football field with houses around. Again Pavel: ”Next spot!”

We went to the final spot, which was Adrian’s home Jump based in Larkrollen on the Fjord.

Day5 & Day6 – Larkrollen
Adrian´s house was about five hundred meters from the Fjord and has jumps right in front of the house. The area was just a big grass field. About 1 by 1 km with nothing on it except for that pile of dirt and a wooden ramp.

There wasn´t that much to prepare so we could ride after a little bit of work. Thank God the weather was on our side again so we could shred that jump for two days including one sunset session, EPIC. Adrian´s mother surprised us with great food... it couldn´t get any better.


The next day a bunch of German’s including Simon Kirchmann, Christoph Laue and a little film crew joined us. Every session is about having fun with your friends, so we could step it up and send some more banger tricks. Adrian stomped some sick 360 double whips. Pavel sent some crazy flip bar spin no hand combo´s and I was happy with some front flip variations. Basically the level was insane.



In the evening we headed back to Oslo, the capital of Norway. The plan was to check out the nightlife, but we forgot that it was Monday night and nothing was going on. Epic Fail.

Day7 – Departure back home
As always time flies by very fast if you have a good trip and ours was awesome and I couldn´t believe it was already over. Looking back, it was a good experience and I had some awesome sessions with my teammates in Norway even though not everything went to plan.


www.merida-bikes.com