This story begins with a man from Norway , Jarle Fosberg. At school, he loved history, especially the stories of the Vikings conquering all of Scandinavia and the lands around it. At the age of 14, Jarle Fosberg was first introduced to the Tour de France by his friend Niklas. This was his first taste of cycling, and he loved every minute of it! Later that year Niklas showed Jarle the other most popular races, such as the Giro and the Vuelta. Soon Niklas and Jarle became best friends following all the major UCI WT races and discussing their favourite riders.
After following the pro scene for a year, he begged his parents for his own bike but a poor year on the farm meant that the family had no money and a bike of his own was too much of an investment for the family. Instead, Jarle's family found him a place to work at the nearest bike shop (a 5km walk away). Jarle loved the bike shop and spend as much of his free time as possible here. His manager, Adrian Remme, was a very friendly man and often let Jarle ride customers bikes after a service for "testing" .
It took him 2 years of working at the bike shop on a measly wage but he had finally saved up enough money for his own bike. At school he had been studying Sports Science and managed top marks in his final exams before moving on to a top university. At uni he took a coaching course deciding to utilise his knowledge of bicycles and sports science to help others reach their dream!
5 years on and Jarle is now not only one of the most highly respected in Norway but also one of the best coaches in the whole of Europe! Many pro riders were taking tips from him about diet, training regime and bike maintenance.
Soon after Jarle is contacted by his old friend Niklas, who he had not seen since university. Niklas, who was now a major business man believed that it would be a good idea for them to could create their own youth team and help young members of their community to become top class cyclists as something to do outside work times. Jarle and Niklas had run their local youth team for 2 years, which was now extremely successful, when Niklas had a dream of moving on and creating a new team, moving into the Continental scene and maybe, one day, riding with the big teams.
For the next year they began to form a team, 2 mechanics, a physio, a masseur and several other people for paperwork. Jarle, thinking of his past love of history wanted the team to be created from riders from the countries of the Viking territories. As he was the Directeur Sportif, the rest of the management agreed with him. Although there is some debate over where the Viking territories expand to, they researched and decided on these countries:
- Norway
- Sweden
- Denmark
- UK
- Finland
- Estonia
- Latvia
- Poland
As word spread of this project several companies were interested in sponsoring the new team, something Jarle really needed to get the idea off the ground. Although there were many offers, Jarle and the team decided that Spotify, a Swedish company shall be the sponsors of the team after they offered not only a substantial amount of money (€100,000 per month to be exact) but also because the CEO of Spotify loved the idea of a Viking territory team. The final and deciding reason Spotify was chosen as the sponsor of the team was the fact that Spotify had already ventured into the world of Cycling and already had a good relationship with Cervélo and SRAM. The CEO of Spotify had told us that this relationship had created an agreement where our team would be able to use Cervélo's frames and SRAM's groupset free of charge!
With the funding sorted the team was actually becoming a reality! The youth team was left to be managed by one of Jarle's friends, who was also a coach. Jarle was so excited. Several riders had already contacted Jarle, looking for somewhere to ride for this season, many of them young riders who were very excited with the possibilities of the team. This was one of the best days of his life!
Next time:
An overview of the new team, it's plans for the season, jersey and equipment reveal!
The Pros Sylvain Chavanel
Sondre Holst Enger
Aleksejs Saramotins
Matthias Brändle
Mathias Frank
Hello, I am Jarle Fosberg the Directeur Sportif of Team Viking and I shall be narrating the rest of the story for you. Here at Team Viking we wish to dominate a totally different world from the world we dominated many centuries ago, the world of Cycling! I would like to have a shout out to our Main Sponsors Spotify and to Cervélo and SRAM for letting us use their equipment free of charge and therefore earn a spot on our Jersey!
One of our riders showing off the new jersey to the excited crowd at the reveal!
Main Sponsors
Spotify
Equipment
Frame - Cervélo
Wheels - Zipp
Groupset - SRAM
Our aim for this year is simply just to form a bond between the riders and create a good team attitude where the riders will feel at home. Our main concern is for the riders and therefore we want everything to be as good as possible for them before we think about results. This team will hopefully be just like family!
Our sponsors have set us a few goals, focusing on races inside the Viking territories, although being our first year do not expect very much but also agree that team bonding is this year's goal.
Sponsor Goals
***** Tour des Fjords STAGE WIN*****
***** Arctic Race of Norway STAGE WIN*****
***** Ringerike GP TOP 3*****
**** Hadeland GP 1ST****
**** Szlakiem Grodow Piastowskich TOP 5****
**** Destination Thy TOP 3****
*** Skive-Lobet TOP 3***
*** SEB Tartu Grand Prix TOP 3***
*** Course Cycliste de Solidarnosc STAGE WIN***
** Chrono des Nations TOP 5**
** Volta a Portugal STAGE WIN**
** Czech Cycling Tour STAGE WIN**
* Settimana Coppi e Bartali STAGE WIN*
* Tour of Utah STAGE WIN*
*Etoile de Besseges STAGE WIN*
Database: FDB14 v2.0
Patch: 1.3.0.0
Difficulty: Hard
Evolution: 0.3
Next time:
Rider line-up confirmed!
The Pros Sylvain Chavanel
Sondre Holst Enger
Aleksejs Saramotins
Matthias Brändle
Mathias Frank
PCM.Daily NFL Fantasy Football Champion: 2012 PCM.Daily NHL Prediction Game Champion: 2013 PCM.Daily NFL Prediction Game Champion: 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2021
We, Viking Cycling Team, are very happy to announce our rider line-up for next year!
Our most exciting riders:
Sondre Holst Enger - Age: 20 - Our team is delighted to have Sondre Holst Enger joining us for this year. Certainly a rider for the future Sondre is our main sprinter who is also able to finish strongly after an undulating course. We hope to have a long and loving relationship with Enger in the future!
Spoiler
FLA 77, MON 64, HIL 72, TT 64, PRL 65, COB 60, SPR 75, ACC 74, DHI 66, FTR 59, STA 74, RES 72, REC 72, AVG 75
Lars Petter Nordhaug - Age: 29 - Lars was one of our earliest signings, very excited with the idea of the team and the family relationship between all the riders. Nordhaug has had many great results including 1st at the Grand Prix de Montréal in 2012. As our best puncher in the team we hope Lars the very best for this season and hope he is able to get great results but also for him to enjoy his time here.
Spoiler
FLA 78, MON 71, HIL 76, TT 66, PRL 65, COB 64, SPR 67, ACC 72, DHI 66, FTR 73, STA 75, RES 73, REC 70, AVG 75
David Millar - Age: 36 - Our most experienced and most well-known rider, David Millar has told us he has decided to spend his last season here at Team Viking hoping to finish his career off on a high note. Good luck to him this season, we are very happy to have him show our younger riders how to do things!
Spoiler
FLA 79, MON 67, HIL 70, TT 73, PRL 72, COB 71, SPR 64, ACC 66, DHI 71, FTR 75, STA 73, RES 74, REC 71, AVG 75
Tobias Ludvigsson - Age: 22 - Ludvigsson is our best competitor for the Time-Trial. He clearly has a great future ahead of him and will hopefully get some good results with us in the years we will be working with him.
Spoiler
FLA 78, MON 72, HIL 73, TT 75, PRL 74, COB 64, SPR 63, ACC 68, DHI 76, FTR 78, STA 74, RES 75, REC 74, AVG 76
Michael Valgren - Age: 21 - We are very happy to have Micheal on our team despite the chance of becoming a Neo - Pro with Team Tinkoff-Saxo. Another big contender for the Hill races we hope he has a successful future with or without the team!
Spoiler
FLA 78, MON 70, HIL 75, TT 63, PRL 66, COB 65, SPR 65, ACC 70, DHI 69, FTR 72, STA 75, RES 73, REC 71, AVG 75
Andrew Fenn - Age: 23 - Andrew Fenn decided to move to Team Viking after OPQS, the team he spent the previous 2 years with, were looking unlikely to sign a new contract with the rider. The second sprinter on the team, we hope he is able to bring success and has a great time with the team.
Spoiler
FLA 78, MON 61, HIL 66, TT 63, PRL 64, COB 62, SPR 74, ACC 71, DHI 71, FTR 62, STA 73, RES 71, REC 70, AVG 74
Aleksejs Saramotins - Age: 31 - We are very proud to have the Latvian National Jersey on our team and therefore wish Saramotins the best of luck in the coming years with the squad.
Spoiler
FLA 79, MON 61, HIL 70, TT 65, PRL 70, COB 68, SPR 71, ACC 72, DHI 68, FTR 69, STA 73, RES 72, REC 70, AVG 74
Jussi Veikkanen - Age: 32 - It is an honour to have the National Jersey of Finland on our team and wish Jussi, a strong rider in hilly races, the best of luck this season!
Spoiler
FLA 77, MON 65, HIL 73, TT 64, PRL 67, COB 66, SPR 69, ACC 71, DHI 68, FTR 64, STA 73, RES 71, REC 70, AVG 73
In their first year of cycling we have:
Kobe Donneaux - Age: 18 - Donneaux is the only rider that is not from the Viking Territories but came to us interested in our team and after seeing his talent in all areas and the potential to be an amazing rider, we could not shun him away!
Spoiler
FLA 75, MON 72, HIL 74, TT 69, PRL 70, COB 71, SPR 71, ACC 75, DHI 74, FTR 74, STA 75, RES 73, REC 72, AVG 74
Denis Kolesnichenko - Age: 18 - Denis is another young rider who seems to have a great future. We are very happy to have him in our team!
Spoiler
FLA 75, MON 70, HIL 71, TT 70, PRL 70, COB 70, SPR 71, ACC 71, DHI 72, FTR 68, STA 73, RES 72, REC 72, AVG 73
Mitchell Ironside - Age: 20 - Mitchell has shown to be a brilliant rider pre-season and we hope he is able to get or help others to achieve some great results.
Spoiler
FLA 75, MON 72, HIL 72, TT 72, PRL 73, COB 63, SPR 67, ACC 69, DHI 71, FTR 71, STA 73, RES 73, REC 73, AVG 73
Czeslaw Krynski - Age: 21 - The oldest of the first year young riders and also the strongest climber of the team.
Spoiler
FLA 74, MON 73, HIL 73, TT 73, PRL 72, COB 62, SPR 65, ACC 68, DHI 70, FTR 71, STA 73, RES 72, REC 72, AVG 73
The Rest:
Gatis Smukulis - Age: 26
Spoiler
FLA 78, MON 65, HIL 71, TT 68, PRL 68, COB 67, SPR 63, ACC 66, DHI 68, FTR 78, STA 73, RES 72, REC 72, AVG 74
Alexander Wetterhall - Age: 27
Spoiler
FLA 77, MON 62, HIL 70, TT 72, PRL 71, COB 67, SPR 60, ACC 62, DHI 67, FTR 73, STA 72, RES 74, REC 71, AVG 74
Erick Rowsell - Age: 23
Spoiler
FLA 76, MON 67, HIL 68, TT 70, PRL 71, COB 61, SPR 59, ACC 60, DHI 66, FTR 81, STA 72, RES 73, REC 71, AVG 74
Jonas Ahlstrand - Age: 23
Spoiler
FLA 77, MON 62, HIL 67, TT 61, PRL 65, COB 63, SPR 71, ACC 73, DHI 68, FTR 62, STA 72, RES 71, REC 70, AVG 73
Gert Joeaar - Age: 26
Spoiler
FLA 77, MON 53, HIL 67, TT 67, PRL 72, COB 59, SPR 69, ACC 68, DHI 67, FTR 55, STA 72, RES 71, REC 71, AVG 73
Tomasz Kiendys - Age: 36
Spoiler
FLA 76, MON 71, HIL 71, TT 68, PRL 70, COB 61, SPR 61, ACC 66, DHI 63, FTR 70, STA 71, RES 71, REC 72, AVG 72
Next time:
The team begins it's early season training camps!
Edited by Ducky on 29-04-2015 16:56
The Pros Sylvain Chavanel
Sondre Holst Enger
Aleksejs Saramotins
Matthias Brändle
Mathias Frank
I am very sorry the story stopped so abruptly, I fell very badly ill at the end of November and I am only just beginning to recover. I am afraid I will not be carrying on the story in the coming months.
Very sorry to everyone who was looking forward to my story.
Maybe next year
Ducky
The Pros Sylvain Chavanel
Sondre Holst Enger
Aleksejs Saramotins
Matthias Brändle
Mathias Frank
Hello again,
I have finally got my life back up and running again as normal. I would like to ask whether I should try to carry on this story or start a new one. A major problem is that this story began back in 2014 although with a bit of editing of the previous posts and a new database, I could always shift everything forward a year. If I was to start a completely new story, I would either keep it simple and control my favourite cycling team, IAM Cycling or should I make another custom team story?
Many thanks!
The Pros Sylvain Chavanel
Sondre Holst Enger
Aleksejs Saramotins
Matthias Brändle
Mathias Frank
, Jarle Fosberg. At school, he loved history, especially the stories of the Vikings conquering all of Scandinavia and the lands around it. At the age of 14, Jarle Fosberg was first introduced to the Tour de France by his friend Niklas. This was his first taste of cycling, and he loved every minute of it! Later that year Niklas showed Jarle the other most popular races, such as the Giro and the Vuelta. Soon Niklas and Jarle became best friends following all the major UCI WT races and discussing their favourite riders. 
. 
Hope you enjoy!
- Age: 18 - Donneaux is the only rider that is not from the Viking Territories but came to us interested in our team and after seeing his talent in all areas and the potential to be an amazing rider, we could not shun him away!
. But Nordhaug is norwegian...
but i hope you are better 
