Photo: Thomas Svane Jacobsen cycling Styrkeprøven with Henning Sørum (front). They are located here in close succession. The police write that their concern relates to potential serious accidents due to the short distance to the vehicle in front on a busy road. Photo: Sportograf

Many have asked why Styrkeprøven has these problems with the road authorities and NCF. Many of our loyal participants are also wondering whether Styrkeprøven will be allowed to host in 2024. We will try to provide some answers here, but we cannot guarantee today whether the permit will be granted. However, we can guarantee that those who sign up will be refunded their entry fee if the race is canceled before the event date due to lack of permits from the road authorities.

On Sykkelprat (a group on Facebook) there was a post asking questions about this debate in recent weeks about the Styrkeprøven: Why this conflict with both the road authorities and the Norwegian Cycling Federation (NCF)? The author of the post, Lars-Harald Bergheim, concluded with the following:

“Styrkeprøven as an event is an important institution that has been an important factor in driving cycling at exercise level forward in Norway! And so it must continue to be! Come to an agreement and give us hope for many great trips over Dovre, Valdresflya and Sognefjellet!”

We fully agree with Bergheim on this. It was beautifully written. We’ll give you an update on the situation today. In addition, we’ll try to add a little more color to the debate.

The biggest challenge for Styrkeprøven in 2024 is getting permission from the road authorities to organize the race. All race organizers in Norway must apply to the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (SVV) for permission to organize a race. SVV is the decision-making authority for permits for bike races, but SVV must obtain a statement from the police about the bike race before a decision is made. The police have full decision-making authority when it comes to the use of guards, both trail guards to show the way or whether stationary guards should be used for traffic control, as well as whether it is necessary to use police to assist the event.

Styrkeprøven AS (a non-profit limited company owned by 8 sports clubs) applied to SVV to organize Styrkeprøven in 2024 just before Christmas last year. This was after we had held a meeting in November where SVV was able to comment on a preliminary application. The meeting with SVV was very successful and there was good feedback on the preliminary application. Our application was then finalized with a few adjustments and new risk analyses based on the feedback we received from SVV.

We then received 10. January this year, a copy of the police’s response to SVV’s application for the Styrkeprøven 2024 cycle race. The feedback from the police was partly quite surprising, especially considering the way the evaluation meeting last fall between SVV, the police and us was concluded. Of course, the police must be allowed to have their own opinions, but after a thorough review of all aspects of the police report, we believe that it is too one-sidedly negative.

Styrkeprøven AS immediately contacted Oslo Police District, which is the unit that handles all matters relating to Styrkeprøven on behalf of several police districts. Since there were many parts of the feedback and previous reports from the police where we have completely different perceptions of the situation, we wanted to have a dialog meeting between the police and us. The police declined this, stating that they only want to deal with other authorities. Our attempt to engage in a constructive conversation was rejected. We believed that it should be possible to put an end to a conflict that goes back more than 10 years, and which is still quite incomprehensible to those who currently sit on the board of Styrkeprøven AS.

It is difficult to provide a concise explanation of all the factors that the police consider to be the challenges of conducting the Styrkeprøven on public roads. Therefore, we only have to take some of the most important ones.

The police are of the opinion that very few of the participants comply with the Road Traffic Act and respect other road users. The reports from the police often mention a number of unfortunate situations that the police consider serious, such as cycling on red lights, crossing a solid center line in the roadway, more than two people in width so that other vehicles are unnecessarily obstructed and excessive speed in relation to the signage. In addition, the police constantly point out that they observe participants who lack lights on their bikes and use a pace bar. If the police are right in all these allegations, then strictly speaking, only we participants can do anything about this. We need to change our behavior in traffic and start respecting both road traffic laws and race regulations. As the organizer, we have always provided clear information about this to all participants, both at registration and in the race manual.

We do not believe the police’s claims that the vast majority of participants in the Styrkeprøven are proven to be in breach of the Road Traffic Act. The author of the article also rides the race and observes how many of the participants behave. When we add that the resources from the police in recent years have most likely spent at least two-thirds of their efforts on following the fastest teams from Trondheim and Lillehammer, there is reason to believe that the observations are heavily skewed in a direction that does not represent the vast majority of participants in Styrkeprøven.

This is certainly the case when the police use a speed measurement just before Dombås in 2022 as a basis for claiming that 90 percent of participants do not respect speed limits. The police will not say how many and at what time they carried out the speed check. We have a strong suspicion that the police measured the three fastest teams from Trondheim (the team competition) and based on that, the report was written. The result could have been very different if the measurement was taken on the groups that arrived in Dombås a few hours later.

We have reviewed the results lists back to 2010. Based on these result lists, only 10 percent of participants have completed Trondheim-Oslo in less than 16 hours. The vast majority (70 percent) spend between 16 and 24 hours, while 16 percent spend between 24 and 30 hours on the distance. Our observations and feedback from a number of participants in recent years is that many of our participants rarely or never see any of the police officers who are assigned to stand guard during Styrkeprøven. This must also have affected police reports and perceptions of our event.

In our application for 2024, we have removed the team competition. The team competition has been a major problem for the police and SVV. They consider this form of competition to be an active race and believe that security should therefore be similar. It’s not feasible for us as an organizer. Although we have discontinued the team competition, the police fear that there will be an unofficial competition between several teams in the Styrkeprøven.

There will always be some form of competition in a tour race, the results list will always be based on finishing time, but as an organizer we will no longer allow special advantages for any teams or groups or prepare separate results lists for teams. This has also meant that several of the teams that have participated in Styrkeprøven in recent years already stated in October 2023 that the 2024 edition of Styrkeprøven will take place without them on the starting line.

In previous reports from the police and at several meetings, the police have repeated and repeated that several of these teams in recent years should have been disqualified and denied further participation. According to the police, the teams have violated several road traffic laws and race regulations. As an organizer, we could obviously have had a better relationship with the police if we had automatically followed what the police thought, but we haven’t always agreed with all the assessments.

Guarding and security is something else that the police discuss a lot in their reports. In their feedback to SVV, where they do not recommend that Styrkeprøven be arranged in 2024, the fact that cyclists are close to each other is made a major safety issue (taken from a letter of January 10, 2024 from Oslo Police District to SVV):

“We know that for tactical reasons, cyclists choose to cycle very closely (the so-called “roll”) with the risk this entails over such a long time and distance on a busy road. If other road users had kept the same distance from the vehicle in front, this would have resulted in driver’s licenses being confiscated. The police’s concern relates to potential serious accidents as a result of a short distance to the vehicle in front on a busy road. Even if it is claimed that you have trained this way of cycling, this does not change the fact that you cannot train yourself away from the laws of physics.”

The conclusion of the police is that Styrkeprøven cannot be granted a permit because cyclists are close to each other when cycling. If this is to remain a valid argument, it could mean that all cycling races in Norway must be banned. Otherwise, the regulations must be changed to ensure that there is no close cycling and that there is a minimum distance between all participants.

The police are also highly critical of the event because they believe there are far too many participants who bring escort vehicles. Styrkeprøven has had a ban on escort vehicles for several years. Participants must respect this prohibition. As an organizer, it’s difficult to be present everywhere all the time and take care of this with support vehicles. In recent years, some participants have been removed from the results lists as a result of reporting the use of a support vehicle. This is the method we will continue to follow.

When it comes to the use of guards along the route, the police have felt that we did not provide enough men. We have refuted this. For the past ten years, the police have been very concerned that the event is a road race where traffic rules must be followed. Therefore, they have been concerned that none of the participants should get the impression that it is a “free-for-all”. Therefore, other vehicles should not be stopped when participants arrive by bike. We fully support this, but in the last two years the police have suddenly changed their opinion that signage and trail guards are not good enough at intersections and roundabouts. The police believe that the use of stationary guards is absolutely necessary. According to the regulations on cycling on roads, stationary guards must have a certificate of competence for traffic regulation. However, traffic regulation should not be necessary since all traffic rules should apply in tour races.

Only road cycling races have these challenges with training sufficient guards. An organizer of a roller ski race on a busy road is not required to do so. They can simply use able-bodied adults to stand guard at vulnerable locations. In 2023, the police issued a requirement for Styrkeprøven just shortly before the event that all trail guards had to be replaced with stationary guards. We therefore ask whether the intention of the police is to create challenges for the organizer in obtaining enough stationary guards. If the requirement for the number of stationary guards is high enough, it will be impossible for organizers to obtain enough approved guards. This has been a problem for several rides after the pandemic years since the approval of stationary guards must be renewed every five years. There are simply too few volunteers in cycling Norway who have renewed their approval or new ones who have signed up for courses.

In 2023, we managed to get a good number of guards and we set up a rotating arrangement of the guard posts from north to south, but this was clearly not good enough for the police. That’s why our security team is heavily criticized. A security team that we believe was oversized and overqualified in relation to the tasks they were supposed to perform.

So it was good to read Lars-Harald Bergheim’s post on the Facebook group Sykkelprat: “Ritta in 2022 and 2023 is loudly criticized for being poorly organized, few guards, poor signage. Personally, I had a good experience! We never made a mistake, and we were well looked after at all food stations. Reach the finish line safely both years!” That was also my own perception when I cycled from Trondheim to Oslo in 2022 and 2023.

It must also be added that the police in their assessments of Styrkeprøven insinuate that we deliberately under-report the number of injuries and accidents in the event. This is a very serious allegation that we strongly disagree with. What basis do the police have for writing this? We don’t know that. The police write that in 2023 they “came across three incidents that required ambulance assistance“. Our challenge is that the healthcare system is not allowed to disclose any information to us about any person who has been transported to the emergency room or hospital. Therefore, we are completely dependent on reporting from participants if we do not come across the cases ourselves. In our evaluations, we have always included what information we have. It’s not easy to do anything else.

It must also be added that in all sports and leisure activities, there is always a certain probability that some accidents of greater or lesser extent will occur. Things always happen, even in Styrkeprøven, but we want to reduce the likelihood of undesirable events as much as possible. Fortunately, there have not been many serious incidents throughout Styrkeprøven’s more than 50-year history.

The current status is that our application is still being processed by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. The police have therefore sent SVV a recommendation not to allow the event in 2024. Styrkeprøven AS has subsequently sent a separate letter to SVV to respond to 14 specific points in the police’s letter to SVV. It is difficult for us to say anything more at present about the case processing at SVV, but as previously mentioned, SVV was positive to our draft application and risk analysis in November last year. SVV commented that this was much better than before and that the new route was very positive in terms of taking other traffic into account.

Styrkeprøven AS has also been attacked for no longer wanting to cooperate with the sport and NCF. This certainly does not imply correctness. Styrkeprøven AS has always said that we want to be linked to NCF, but we do not have a NIF § 14-2 (4) agreement in place. Such an agreement would have given Styrkeprøven AS a connection to the sport. Without such an agreement, we do not meet the requirements to be on the term list and therefore cannot sell one-time licenses or accept full-year licenses from NCF in our event. Organizer insurance through NCF’s license scheme will also not be valid.

We discovered this just before we were about to open registrations for Styrkeprøven 2024. The reason was that we have changed our registration and timekeeping system. EQ Timing AS, which has now taken over our event, could not enter Styrkeprøven AS. The reason was simply that we are not registered in the sport. We discovered that one of our owner clubs has been the organizer since 2014, and they have even been the organizer without being aware of it.

We have received confirmation from Gjensidige Forsikring (which has the license scheme for NCF) that since there has been no agreement in place in accordance with NIF § 14-2 (4), the insurance policies have not been valid in the Styrkeprøven. This has therefore been the case since 2014, but Gjensidige Forsikring and NCF have clearly not been aware of this either.

A responsible board in Styrkeprøven AS could not simply continue this. We had to take action. Therefore, we opened up for registrations without affiliation to NCF and their license system, but where we offered a separate insurance to our participants from another insurance company. We couldn’t continue with a hidden organizer and pretend we had no insight into the matter. It would have been completely irresponsible and inexcusable if something happened and the insurance company had refused to pay out.

From what we now know, this also applies to other organizers of both cycling races and ski races, where a company is actually the organizer. In other words, we are not alone. Many people may have sold insurance policies without valid coverage and many organizers may not have had valid liability insurance.

At the meeting of Region East 3. In February this year, it became clear that Styrkeprøven AS could not continue as before without a formal agreement in accordance with NIF § 14-2 (4) in place. Immediately after the meeting, we received an email from the cycling president who wanted to sit down with us to find solutions. Two weeks have now passed and NCF has gone silent. No further meetings have therefore been held between Styrkeprøven AS and NCF. What we have been told is that they are working on a draft of such a formal agreement, but it is clearly not as easy when there are several owner clubs. We have also pointed this out to NCF in previous meetings without being heard.

However, Styrkeprøven AS has made a draft agreement with Sogn CK where we hope that Sogn CK can accept the agreement. This could mean that Jotunheimen Rundt will be added to NCF’s schedule.

What we have always said throughout this process is that Styrkeprøven AS wants to be part of the sport, but it must be with sustainable legal agreements and not just continue as before. Styrkeprøven AS feels that we are part of the sport. We are owned by 8 sports teams. All profits from our events benefit these sports teams and no one else. If the road authorities decide that Styrkeprøven is history, only sport and public health will lose out. It could also have consequences for many other races that currently exist.