Ghost Cup #4, Aalborg
On the top of Denmark we rode the 4th round of the Wednesday evening world championships. And I must say I felt a litlle used after the 700c adventure last week.. But as Klaus Nielsen says thats no god damn excuse for loosing to a fat guy with harry legs.. (0: Fact is that Erik Skovgaard beat me in a sprint finish after 6 laps on a pretty borring course with grass all over the place and aprox 5 trees. (Erik has a sence of humor) Well there is really not more to say. Half the Ghost Cup peloton are going to Poland at the next round, so maybe Anders Juul, MCV will make a top 20 in Vejle (Anders has also got a sence of humor)
/Klaus
Foto: Brian Lykke, MCV
700c
Since we’re a little short in mtb races in DK, I’
ve done a couple of road races in the last couple of weekends. Racing in the B level is a great chanse to get mtb like training as the race length is like mtb marathons. It’s just head on and no tactical borring racing. Mostly.. Aarhus CK hosted this race near Skanderborg the 17th of June. It was my first roadrace this season and as always you are a little nervous about the pace and speed. Fortunately I wasn’t the only fat tire guy. Allan Bacmann and Michael Iversen was present. I thought if I just found bachmann’s wheel I would be ok. (0; . It turned out to be a real spring race with heavily winds and 12 degres. The course was cool and included the biggest hills in the area. Durring the race 4 rideres succeded to brake away and builded up a lead of 1 minutte. I took major leads in the peloton in order to pull them back. Of cause riders from the same clubs as the breakaway guys didn’t take part. But sevaral riders looked as if they were saisfied with sprinting for 5th place. Sad. So, we pulled the guys back with 5 k to go. On the last climp I realised it was over as I got major cramps. The borring guys from the pack passed me and took the glory. They must be proud. Or wise…?
4 days later in the national holydays I decided together with my new neighbour in Odder to enter “Danmarks Højeste” which is a non elite event for riders without racing lisence. A good chance to get milage and quality training. It’s really fun to observe the people and especially their bikes. You can see bikes from the seventies and often combined with riders clothing form same year. In contrast to that you see the latest hightech from the bike industri. Topmodels and lots of Zipp turbular..
In the race started i took of after an hour or so and stayed in front 90 minuttes. Here I missed the first wodden darkblue arrow placed in 2 1/2 meters abowe the ground. I lost the lead and about 7 minuttes. After another hour of chasing I lost another turn. Ok this wasn’t my day. I cruised to the finish 30 minuttes after the peloton just to realise that the guy i front of me bought the last Coke in the race area..Let’s get out of here!
Sunday the 24th I headed to my home town Vejle and VCK’s roadrace. Vejle is a perfect place to ride your roadbike if you are fond of hills. The UCI rated “Post Danmark Rundt” also has its most popular finishes as the peloton climbs up the 20% “Kiddesvej”
We didn’t ride that climp but there were plenty of hilly terrain to attack. And that’s what 4 riders did in the midle of our race. They quickly got away and builded up a 1 minutte lead. There we go again: Hunting. As usual I took a great part af the work in front together with 3-4 other guys while the usual borring suspects behind in the bunch just seemed satisfied with life in the shadow. Halfway I punctured on my rear wheel. In a split second I just wanted to leave the race. But I managed to change tube in 2 minuttes and in the same moment the C peloton passed. I got a free ride in back of the peloton for aprox. one lap. But the lack of speed made me take of. I rode 2 complete laps on my own all out and cought several B riders who were dropped from the B peloton and finihed just out of top 12. I heard from Jacob Kjellemantuz Kjeldesen (mtb fellow rider) that the Peloton pulled back the breakaway on the last climb.. I’ll be d…..
Test the best and win a Pronghorn frame
This is pretty cool, isn’t it:): Everyone can test the Pronghorn Racing bikes at three super cool events in Germany during the summer 2009:
- BIKE Festival Willingen 12. – 14. June
- X-Hardt Bergisch Gladbach 20. June
- European Challenge of MTB Pracht – 11. July
The clou: Everyone, who does a test ride, enters a raffle and has the chance to win a Pronghorn Racing PR-6 XC frame!
I’m looking forward to see many bikers at the events!
Ride on,
Marc
A shitty weekend
Normally when racing I think it is important to take something postive about the race with you home, for example i you did a good start, but died after 20 minutes, then take it with you, that you are a good starter, and that you only have to work a little on your endurance.
Today I made a bad start, and I did not make any good 2 lap, and the 3 was even worse. But the worst thing was that I abandoned the race after 3 lap.
Everything due to a couple of nights of bad sleep. The hotelguests in the hotel where I am staying has kept me awake every night since I came here. I hate it. So this morning I was feeling even more tired than I was when I went to bed saturday evening. So today on the startline I was sleepy and tired, and pretty demotivated.
Later today, my carmechanic called, just to tell me that I had a 20.000dkr maintanence on my old beloved Ford van.
But what I can take with me now, is that I am pretty damn angry, and I wan’t to take it out on my trainingbike when I come home. Me, myself and my bike needs some good training punishment. So halleluja for a shitty weekend….
The story of my bike on NSMB.com
My Pronghorn PR6-LT is featured on the internationally freeride webpage NSMB.com. In the artcle you can read the details of its story and how I became a Pronghorn Rider!
The article: http://nsmb.com/3054-readers-rides-6/
The fat boy is back
Afetr some had weeks og raccing I was starting to feel very tired, and decided to go to Casta del Sol to recover and get some tan on my stomach, and of course drink coffee and eat tappas. Well after a couple of days I looked like this… (see picture).
So it actually felt good to come home again, and start training again. At this very moment I am in Madrid for the next reound of the world cup. The course here is’nt very spectacular, but the crowd is massive, so I am sure it will be great fun. My form is’nt quiet what it was a couple of weeks ago, but my injuries are a lot better, so I think it is a draw.
The race is held in a big park (Casa de Campo) in the city centre, normally, when there is no worldcup here, this park is the home of the prostitutes in Madrid. On raceday they are all gone, but in the days before the race we have about 1000 prostitutes as spectators for our training. Sometimes it can be a little hard to focus on what you are doing!
More action…
Hi again!
The nice weather has returned and I had a little photo session with my friend Johannes Herden (thanks for the pictures!), who had his new camera stuff with him. The spot is at one of my favourite trails – the kids and freeride bad asses built some nice stuff there, so we had some cool pics after the session. More will follow soon, but here some first impressions.
During the next days I will have another photo session for a magazine – pretty cool job 
Pic 1- Getting warm on m Pronghorn PR6-LT
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Pic 2 – A little drop with a very soft landing (aaah, look at my face).
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Pic 3 – Nice impression from the beginning of the course.
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Pic 4 – The bike feels great and I like it’s handling – also in the air.
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Ride on,
Marc
Winners choice
Klaus Nielsen is the fastest XC-Racer in denmark, so let’s take a look on his Pronghorn bike.
You can find the article with all details on the webpage of the german bike magazine “Bike Sport News”:+++ LINK +++ Here are some pictures…
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#3 Ghostcup in Fredericia
Once again i went to race on an ordinary wednesday, this time in Fredericia. I came directly from my grandmas funeral, well it wasn’t really that sad, she was 98 years old.
i didn’t really get much practice or time for warm-up on the route, though it wasn’t really necessary with the practice. The route was generally flat and not very technical. The race began and i went from the front line to the fifth in no time. it seemed hopeless to fight my way back up again. But i kept my motivation and thought “this is great practice for overtaking”. So i ate 1 rider at a time and slowly worked my way up the peleton. my legs were great and i overtook one elite rider after another and ended up as number 3. Quite satisfactive. Klaus Vesterlund once again knacked us all and is sovereign the overall leader of the cup.
My Ride
So after I introduced myself, here is my bike: It’s the Pronghorn Racing PR6-LT built up as an allround- Enduro-Bike. I use it for everything from a few jumps to marathon races and epic rides. The handling is great and it is perfect for cornering and manuals. I ride a SR Suntour Epicon fork with 140 mm of travel. I can easily reduce the travel from the bar to 90 mm or everything between.
Some impressions of my bike:
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Manual on a sigletrail:
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Ride on,
Marc
Great trails in Garda
If you ever have the time spoil your self with a guide and a trip to great trails of Riva del Garda. Don’t miss it. 
Riding in Germany
Hi Folks,
my name is Marc Brodesser and I ride for Pronghorn for a few months now. The Long Travel bike is my toy for playing in the woods and enjoying flowy singletrails. I also do some photo-jobs for magazines etc. and I write for a few of these magazines. Bringing the team-news on the web is also something I do for pronghorn. Here in Germany we have to do a lot of these work, because our brand is not very known. But step by step the biker over here will recognize what great bikes we have in stock. We gonna do some demo days and will be present at races and other events (“calender” on pronghornracing.dk).
As a MTB-Coach (www.ridefirst.de) my season startet in March and we already had some cool seminars with nice customers. Yesterday I had 9 beautiful ladies in my course, which was really a cool thing![singlepic id=2 w=320 h=240 float=]
I rode my LT a lot during the last weeks and I also did some small jumps on my hometrails.[singlepic id=3 w=320 h=240 float=].
I will also race a little bit (Marathon and XC), which will be a cool thing, because I really like these events and I will improve my fitness (I didn’t work on my fitness this winter as I should do…).
Ride on,
Marc
P.S: The last picture shows me near my hometown (30 min. with the train). This year I will visit this place a few times, the trails are great and the landscape is beautiful…[singlepic id=4 w=320 h=240 float=]
Against all odds
To be honest, my expectations for this weekend was pretty low. Feeling almost non-recovered from houffalize, and with the injuries there was no reason to be too optimistic. But my form once again showed it’s best. Before start I was starting to worry a little, Thomas Bonne showed up, and looked un-normal strong, and with his lightweight new bike it looked like a strong coctail. I could never dream of underestimating this guy, when he is in shape, he is a worldclass rider. Bonne turned out to be the toughest contender of the chasing group, but today a pronghornfully and “the little fat guy” on top was the fastest. Yep, that’s right, I won again. So of course I am satisfied today.
Ghost Cup #2, Skanderborg
Hi there!
Yet another XC race is in the 2009 race book. This time Skanderborg Mtb hosted the 2nd round of the wendnesday evening World championships. I came home with quite different experiences: Happiness because of the great track, Back slapping and a kind of anticlimaks due to the outcome of the race.
Let me start from behind: I was really in a bad condition. Form the gun I felt pain pain pain. Not the best warmup for the upcomming Superliga event Sunday. I managed to get away from the pack together with Mtb-o rider Søren Strunge, Team mate Simon Qvortrup and Kolding BC rider Kristian “Seabass” Søgaard. Søren strunge turned out to be the strongest and pulled away right in the beginning og lap 2. I stayed with him for a while but had to let go and after that totally slow down. I was cought by Simon, Seabass, and Allan Jensen. At this point I just wanted to quit, but I took the slipstreem form Allan’s wheel and took another shot at it. I was able to pull away once again and now I started chasing Søren. Waste of time as Søren was long gone and took the victory.
At a race like this with +200 riders in different levels starting at the same time, it is inevitably that you have to be passed or have to pass other riders. It’s not a easy thing to do on narrow singletracks but it’s fairly easy to become quite unpopular. And that’s what you don’t want as a sponsored rider as this reflects on your employer. So. Team Pronghorn Racing has a strict policy not to become unpopular in races like this. (The recent H12 race revealed that other teams could use such a policy ) I really try to make any overtaking of slower riders go as smooth as possible by announcing where and when i’m passing. Nevertheless I had an incident this evening where a rider just started accelerating with me strugling in the high grass next to him. just like he was thinking ” not in a million years are you going to pass me”. I don’t why he wanted to make a scene out of it. After aprox 20 meters in high bumpy grass I decidet to end this bizzare happening. I grabbed the guy’s arm and pulled my self in front. “How about that” I thought. But it earned me a fist in my back. Uff! Conclusion: There are many bad overtakers. No doubt! But there are also some fools to overtake..
I managed to finish the race without a fist fight in second place. Or so I thought. Winner Søren Strunge didn’t manage to subscibe for the race so he was out of the classification. So standing there on the podium I felt a little misplaced.
Well. See you in Silkeborg and Fredericia!!
Worldcup in Houffalize
I went with the danish national team to Houffalize, which was supposed to be my peak this year. But i didn’t really turn out as if it was. My legs felt like gele during the whole race, and i got cramps as soon as on the steep start loop. I ended as nr. 176, which is totally unacceptable. I guess it’s due to too much relaxing actually. I use to train hard 2 days before a race, just to make sure my legs are still there. But this time i skipped the hard training 3-4 days up to the race. Maybe a bad decision.
Home again!
Europetour has come to an end, and I am back home, totally wasted. The trip home from Belgium was a nightmare. First the roads was closed, and I had to drive around to get to a motorway acces, then the camper had engine problems, and during the night the headlights went out. Then I decided to get a couple of hours of sleep until dayligt. Sleeping in front of the toilets on a german Autobahn raststätte is’nt very good sleep I can tell. So at 5.00 I took of again. The race in Houffalize was actually good for me. Goal was top 50. Tactics was set, easy of, and then slowly working my way up.
To my big suprise my legs felt like 2 rockets, and on the start-climb I made a fast forward to 25th spot. Now the tactics changed. Now it was all about staying there. It was like a call of duty, when you are sitting in this position, it is just to go for it, as long as possible. I went, and kept the pace for 40 min. Then the before mentioned rockets exploded, and I finished 59th. Ok, was’nt really top 50, but I am actually satisfied. Now I know I can keep up with the best, for some time. Well, the circumstances was’nt really perfect. Today I got my body scanned, and it turns out that I have been riding three major-races with 1 ripped sinew in the left arm, 1 2/3ripped ligament and 2 broken ribs. Now wonder the last races was pretty painfull. The doctors word was something like this: And you ride your bike like this? impressive. Ohh you did worldcup races like this, you are crazy.
Well I might be.
H12 2009: The MTB-O boys rules
Hi.
The first endurance race is in the book. Pronghorn Racing was representet in the H12 Hustler Race by Kristian Krøyer, Morten Laustsen and myself. We checked out with a 5th. place in the trio classification. It was ok. We had major mechanical problems on one of the first laps which sent us down in the ranks. But Kristian and Morten drove us back in bussiness! We came on to 5th place but that was it. Our struggle took its toll. I just cruised my last laps with the upcomming races this week in mind. Only Kristian and Morten fought until the end. Respect!
What also was respectable was the MTB-O boys’ performance. They was in for the victory until two hours before the finish and was barely beaten by the strong T-bikes team. Totally respect!
Europetour part 3
Welcome to Houffalize, Belgium as we know it. a country with testeteronefilled cows, with muscles twice the size of a normal cow. A country with a lot of very small, and very bad roads, a country of hillbillys, where the looks of a salesman in used cars are the hifhest fashion among men. A country with a population where cycling is not a sport, cycling is a religion, a religion they are fanatic about. leffe drinking fanatics .In this country every little smalltime pro-rider is a bigger star than David Beckham is in the rest of the world. A country where there is special rules for pro-cyclists. This makes Belgium uniqe, this makes Belgium the heart of cycling. That is why it is such a special thing to race in Belgium.