Is he Norway's fittest bus driver?

It started with a painful kick to the knee. Damianos Pridesis had turned 40 and found a leisure activity that would keep him in shape – taekwondo.

– I injured my knee and had to put taekwondo on hold. To train my knee, I started spinning at a gym, and there I got into conversation with several keen cyclists.

After a good while of spinning, he joined his first bike race, the 170-kilometer race between Bergen and Voss. The bike race gave him a taste for more, and Pridesis joined another race, this time between Trondheim and Oslo.

During the rides, he met several cyclists who were involved in triathlons, a sport in which athletes swim, cycle and run.

– I thought it sounded fun, but there were two problems: I thought I was too old, and I couldn't swim well enough, says Pridesis.

The age challenge turned out to be unfounded. In the age-specific classes, you can find triathletes over 80 years old. But his swimming skills required attention. Although his daughter swam at a national competitive level, and Pridesis had put in hundreds of volunteer hours for the swimming club over many years, his own swimming skills were only just good enough to swim.

– But I wanted to learn, so I asked my daughter and son-in-law for help. My son-in-law has been on the national water polo team in Greece, so both he and my daughter can really swim.

Swimming training began in September. The goal was to be able to swim 400 meters non-stop by Christmas. It turned out to be 1000 meters. In June of the following year, he participated in what is known in the triathlon community as a half-Ironman race. There, participants swim 1900 meters before cycling 90 kilometers and finally running 21.1 kilometers.

– Being able to try my hand at such a competition made me want to try even harder.

It was love that lured him to Norway and Bergen. Pridesis was raised in Athens, Greece, and met his Norwegian wife when he worked at a hotel in Crete.

– We moved to Norway when my wife got pregnant. That's back to 1986. It wasn't easy for me. When we got here it was dark, I didn't know the language and I didn't have a job. I remember really worrying about how I was going to take care of my family. It was tough.

It was his in-laws who helped him settle in.

– It was my family who helped me find my first job, and my father-in-law took a week off to help me get settled. He showed me where the bank and the post office were, and he explained to me how the tax system in Norway works. I also had Norwegian lessons at my in-laws' home.

The first job he got was as a chef. In the second half of the 1980s, there was a strong growth in the restaurant industry and the need for labor was great. Pridesis combined work with education in culinary arts, and eventually became head chef.

But after working for nine years as a head chef for a large-scale pasta restaurant, his employer ran into financial difficulties. Employees were told their jobs were insecure.

– I remember I was on my way home from a meeting at work. In front of me was a bus with a sign on the back that said “Would you like to drive this bus?” When I got home, my wife asked how the meeting had gone. I replied that it was boring, but it wasn’t that bad because now I was going to be a bus driver. She looked at me strangely and wondered if I was really going to become a chef. “I am going to. Now I’m done with this and all the stress about whether I have a job or not,” I replied.

Pridesis contacted the bus company and received an offer to cover the costs of the bus ticket in exchange for a three-year commitment period.

– That's perfect, I thought. Then I'm also guaranteed a job for three years.

Today he is 62 years old. He has been doing triathlons since he was 52. It is a time-consuming sport. Pridesis trains every day, and in the months before the start of the season, there may be two training sessions on some days.

– If you are going to participate in competitions, triathlon requires a lot of training. It is not really a sport for parents of young children, it requires too much time.

With almost 20 years as a bus driver at Tide, Pridesis has a seniority that allows him to choose shifts fairly freely when the rotation is set up. But while others with long seniority often use this advantage to steer clear of split shifts, Pridesis does the exact opposite.

– I choose split shifts, and I get it. I have also asked if I can have a special shift with more hours between sessions, but we couldn't get that. I train during the break on the split shifts. Before the start of the season I also take a few extra sessions in the evenings.

– You train more than many professional athletes.

– He-he, yes, there are no exercisers who do triathlons. Those who do competitions train extremely hard. In addition, you have to sleep and eat right. When there is cake at work, I usually say no. At first, I was teased a bit for it by some colleagues, but not anymore. They know how I am.

– Can one piece of cake be so dangerous?

– No, but it's about discipline. If you take one piece, it becomes easier to take another.

Pridesis has also incorporated elements of mental training into his training. When he runs on the treadmill, he only looks at the wall in front of him.

– I listen to some music at the beginning, but then I turn it off and just look at the wall. It can be quite boring, but it trains discipline.

– What about stress injuries? You must be prone to that, right?

– At first I got several strain injuries, but then I moved my running to the pool. Now I train swimming one day, running the next day and cycling on the third day. That gives you variety, and that helps. Over time, I have also become quite good at listening to the signals that the body sends out. You should train calmly and in a controlled manner, and then you can take that little extra out of the competitions.

Before he started triathlons and when his daughter still lived at home, Pridesis was no more fond of split shifts than most bus drivers.

– When you have small children, it's almost a barbaric arrangement. I know colleagues who have had conflicts at home because their wives are irritated by their work. Many hope that they will get better shifts, but they are disappointed again and again when they end up with equally difficult shifts. I know several who have quit because of it.

Pridesis believes that shared shifts can be particularly demanding for drivers who do not have their parents in Norway.

– Then they need someone to help them get their schedule going. There is no mother-in-law or father-in-law who can help pick them up from kindergarten. I know that there are many who struggle with this.

It's been a long time since Pridesis himself was a father of a toddler. Today his daughter is 40. For him, split shifts have become an opportunity to exercise every day.

– How long do you think you will drive the bus?

– As long as possible, so it will probably be until I turn 75.

– What about triathlon, how long can you do it?

– I hope it will be a long time. I would like to try my hand at the 80-84 age group, and that's still a while away.