A mysterious man with hairy legs recently appeared out of nowhere and has been observed playing cat and mouse with the big guns on the local road cycling scene.  Rumours are flying that Holger will be ditching his elite orienteering career to take up professional cycling.  And while it is in fact true that he will be sitting on his bike somewhere between Kristiansand and Hovden (likely with a very sore butt and cramps in his quads) while the rest of the orienteering elite are duking it out at NM Sprint this coming Saturday, he so far has no plans of becoming a professional biker.

To get more fun out of his alternative training on the bike, Holger has been taking part in the local road cycling races on Wednesday evenings.  So far he has remained undefeated, even though the tactics of sitting in the peleton and pulling out sprint finishes have been a bit baffling, and he has had to endure some ribbing about his heavy bike (a whopping 8.6kg!) and hairy legs.  So when the offer came up to enter the traditional 210 km (with 1615m climb) Color Line Setesdal Tour race from Kristiansand to Hovden this coming weekend, it was too tempting to resist, even though it would have been fun to spectate at NM Sprint in Holger’s home town of Arendal on the same day.  In preparation he has been faithfully studying the rules of the Velominati (see especially rule 33) for important insight in the world of road cycling.

The really good news is that his injury is much better, and he has been pain-free for several weeks now.  He has started very gradually adding running to his training regime, and we are optimistic for the fall season.  At the same time it is probably more important than ever to take things carefully to avoid that most common of mistakes, a re-injury due to over-enthusiastic training.  At the moment we are (literally) taking one step at a time and leaving the orienteering competitive calendar out of the planning of his rehab this time round.

Photo: Agderposten (Alexander Nupen)