Stage 1: Vagamo - Vagamo
5.9km - 690m vert
A long day, and a lot longer than planned. For Leah this are a few things in life that she really does not like. Spiders are one, and bus trips are the seventh ring of hell for her. So you can only imagine how she felt when the 3 hour bus trip from Oslo airport to Vagamo took the best part of 6 hours, and included at least 2 wrong turns. The trip was very scenic, as we think the driver avoided all toll roads. Also the bus did not have air conditioning, which made the trip even more unbearable. Result was Leah was not a happy camper, but she was a real trooper as she knocked off the climb, after threatening to not do it for some time.
The stage…..
The climb was a nasty piece of work. Straight out of town, and straight up. The first 2 km, at a stretch, was sealed, then it turned into smooth dirt and some loose gravel and washboards on the corners. If I was not riding the climb hard, it may have been fun, but it hurt. From the village of Vagamo on the valley floor, up the steep sides of the valley, and eventually the to the tree line. I never did look back when I was going up, and that may have been lucky, as I may have just stopped and taken a photo. Some of the corners hit 18%, and we climbed 690m in 5.7km, and that included about ½ a km of flat. Not what you want after 6 hours on a bus.
In the end Leah took a bit over 46mins, and I was up in 32:22, for 2nd in my age group, and about 15th overall. The guy who won my age group won overall, and was 4 minutes faster than me. Oh to be a climber, but not in this lifetime.
The ride back down was a slow one, and we stopped several times to let our rims cool, as well as to shake out our hands from gripping the brakes so tightly. We eventually made it down just before 9pm, and then for a 15min spin out of the legs before a quick change and to the buffet dinner.
At the Viking Tour there are two options for accommodation. Vallhalla camp and the hotel. The camp is in school gyms. We took the hotel option, and pretty happy with that choice.
That was day 1. A long day more due to the bus trip than anything else.
