They met on the virtual platform Zwift, where their bond and friendship continued to grow. Now they are going to ride their first tour ride on the road together, and the choice fell on Lillehammer-Oslo. They field both a men’s and a women’s team, and we have the pleasure of welcoming the Vikings, the first pure e-sports team in the history of the Strength Test, to the ride!

What all the Vikings members have in common is that they met on Zwift, the leading virtual platform for cycling as an e-sport. Over the years, the club has developed to become the largest Scandinavian club on the platform, with approximately 1,600 members. With communication through sound and video, the cyclists have become well known.

The social aspect in the main focus

– Zwift is an incredibly social way to train together in each of our homes, says Vikings cyclist Kjetil Berntzen.

He is one of the riders who trains from home with the team, often several times a week. Many compete both in team pace and joint starts, in different groupings according to level. He says that it gives a lot of training pleasure and motivation to train in this way, together with like-minded people. In addition, Berntzen highlights safety as a major advantage of cycling as an e-sport.

– For example, no boyfriends, cohabitants or spouses need to sit at home and be afraid of whether they will come home from a trip every time, he says.

But after many hours together on Zwift, the desire to invent something together out on the road gradually emerged. Thus the group decided to field a team in Styrkeprøven . The trip goes from Lillehammer to Oslo, and in the same costumes that they wear on the virtual platform.

– As was so beautifully said by our captain: “It’s one thing to talk about cool ideas, but it’s fantastic that we’ve gone for it, and are actually implementing this scheme”, says Berntzen.

A fitting ride

The men’s team had its first and only meeting on the weekend of 26-29 May in Vestfold. There they had time to get to know each other, both on the roller and off the bike. The women’s team, called Vikings Valkyrie, had a training session in Mallorca in April, and also a session in early May.

Karianne Strønen is one of the cyclists, and says that it was captain Synne Gaarder Pedersen who suggested the Lillehammer-Oslo distance.

– We found that this was a race that suited us well in terms of time, length and trail profile, and quite quickly managed to gather 20 interested ladies, says Strønen.

Vikings Valkyrie has female riders from all over Norway, from Alta in the north to Porsgrunn in the far south. Their goal for Styrkeprøven is to ride fast together as a team, and utilize everyone’s strengths along the way.

– We are most looking forward to meeting everyone at once, she says, and adds:

– We have had a few drop-outs in the team and new ones have joined, so it will be nice to let everyone get to know each other, experience hard work and hopefully mastery on the way to Oslo. Once in Oslo, we will have a joint celebration with the guys from Vikings who cycle the same distance.