Henrik Jørgensen says:

For tonight’s race, a really sneaky route had been found. It has a bit of everything. basis for a really fast start, a wicked climb, then a long descent, and finally a long flat stretch towards the finish. The route can be attacked in many different ways, so I chose to focus only on the first half. This is because the last half with the descent is so long and steep that you achieve top speed and basically do not need to step on the pedals. This should mean that you get to the bottom fresh and can give it maximum on the flat. Well, back to the chosen tactic. The first part to the climb is not very long, so just full speed ahead, as a start now often is anyway. And the climb itself, I wanted to try to see if I could drive at about 110%, which might be a bit crazy, but I would rather die trying than not have tried at all. Jose Costa and I got to the climb first and he immediately tried with small jerks to shake me off, quite as he usually does. Normally I would try to go along with those jerks but wanted to stick to my 110% plan. This results in Mr Costa several times getting a distance of 30-40 meters down to me. But each time I reeled him back in by keeping a steady pace. And then, what I’ve been waiting for in so many races against him happened. About halfway up the climb, the miracle I had been waiting for happened. Jose Costa broke. He exploded and his W/kg quietly went the wrong way. At that time I was about 25m behind him, and getting closer all the time. When I got up to him, I actually thought he might just be gathering strength. But No… I could just drive away from him and he didn’t come along. It almost gave me superpowers, and I increased the pace even more. In no time I had made a lead of about 300 m. I was riding on pure adrenaline, and could feel lactic acid up above both ears, and just before the top I was honestly about to throw up on the garage floor. But held on to the top and could now enjoy the ride down the descent and recover a bit. When I reached the bottom and drove into the last flat section, I knew that the victory was a reality, and drove controlled to the finish as the winner 🥇. Mega cool route that we can easily drive another time for my sake 😉 I was also happy to see that there were as many as three Danes in the top 10👏👏👏 really strong when you think of our relatively small size and that the country’s highest point is only 145m above sea level 😁 Big thanks to the people behind Mucker’s and to everyone who took part in tonight’s race.

Tranberg says:

3 small kids, so you never know if you will be able to join on these night races, but I was on the bike 2 minutes before race start. Fortunately, it was a flat start, so decided to warm-up in that section. I entered the climb at 26th position and from then on I just tried to find a steady, but hard effort, and I managed to do so with only “srichards” passing me (but eventually fading near the top). I catched Minyana just at the top and crossed in 8th position, so quite satisfied with that climb. Minyana and I did not have the best cooperation on the flat. I tried to take some steady pulls, but he would either go 2 w/kg or 5 w/kg, so it smashed the dynamics. Eventually “tomlerieger” and “kylofsky” pulled us in, and I actually took a couple of pulls (it’s true, Tom), before settling at the back of the group and trying to annoy Minyana a bit by trying to slow him out of the group as he was not pulling at all. That did not work, and in the end, it was a big sprint, where Minyana were the strongest. But really fun race – and a good but tough route!