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Last Updated: 6 Apr 2018 - 12:06:24 PM |
The first round of this years Trailquest Winter League, organised by Dromara Cycling Club, took place today out of Dromara Football Club.
Twenty five teams incorporating 56 riders from the four corners of Northern Ireland turned up for this great event. Once signed on, the teams were given their official start time (from 10:30 onwards in one minute intervals). Only at that official time were the teams given the map of the 20 markers that they had to try to locate. The markers were located as far east as the back of Drumkeeragh forest, west as far as Moybrick Upper, north as far as the river outside of Dromara and south (and up!!!) as far as Slieve Croob.
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| Ards CC Team |
The task was to get round to as many of the markers as possible in the 3½ hours time limit. This was a true test of orienteering and endurance. At the markers the teams had to answer a question ranging from specific letters / numbers on poles etc to calculations of numbers, counts of holes in posts, windows on buildings or number of gates etc. Some of the markers were easy to locate but most took a bit of time and much pouring over the map! The points ranged from 10 (for the easy ones) to 50 for the ones up the mountains!
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| The only way is up |
In terms of weather, we were very fortunate that the rain that had been there the day before (and had left the ground quite damp) did not reappear until after the event. On top of Slieve Croob there was low cloud cover with cyclists disappearing into the fog. The plus side of the pain in climbing this mountain was the excellent downhill cross country section back down to road level.
The results of round one were:
Rank /Team /Points /Riders
1 C.C.A.R 1 216 I .Kirk & S.Curry
2 Team Purple 1 209 Eddie O’Hagan & Brendan O’Hagan
3 C.C.A.R.2 200 Shirley Park & Nigel Martin
4 Team Caldwell 180 Clive Caldwell & Adrian McMenimn
4 Average Joe 180 Paul McArthur
6 Banbridge A 170 William Mulligan, Liam McGreevy & Sean Downey
6 The Krew 170 Gareth McKee, David Graham & Jonathan McKee
8 Team Purple 2 167 Conner Sweeney & Neil Kay
9 Barnardo Boys 160 John Boges & Paul Magee
9 The Blind Zeppelins 160 Martin Grimley & Ross Galway
9 Phoenix Select 3 160 Richard Bell, Ed Boyle & David Tweed
9 Phil Stewart 160 Phil Stewart
13 Tube and Spoon 150 Adam McAlister & Wilson McAlister
13 Chopsticks 150 Trevor Annett & Paul Green
13 The Sitting Duck 150 Geoff Brown & Gareth Williams
16 Retro Grouch 140 Glenn Cobain & Mark Forester
16 Dangerous Duo 140 Brian Curran & David Neill
18 The Dream Team 130 Stephen Prentice & Matthew Adair
19 Mk 1 126 Kieran Murphy & Michael Murphy
20 Green Machine 116 Brian Wilson & Stephen Kelly
21 Quicksilver 110 Simon Curry, James Curry, Paul Anderson & William Forsythe
21 Who the Fox is That 110 Paul McMinn, John Ruddell & Dave McCann
23 The Mighty Mayne's 90 Maurice Mayne, Susan Mayne & Rachel Mayne
24 Team Frank Millar 30 Frank Miller & Florence Miller
25 Iconic 0 Alistair Fiddes, Ronan Byrne & Manta Sargas
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| Richard Bell |
The team at the end "Iconic" arrived home more than 30 minutes late and unfortunately lost all the 150 points that they had worked so hard to obtain. This was a hard lesson for them and others but I do hope they return to try again.
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| Trevor and Paul |
Many thanks to Derek Hanna and Gary Gray from Dromara Cycling Club for organising this excellent event. Many thanks to the riders who turned up to support both the event and the Children's Cancer Home, Shimna Valley, who are benefiting from the proceeds of the 3 events. Also thanks to Andy Potts and Deek for providing the photographs.
The 2nd and always popular round will take place at Brennans Petrol Station, Seaforde on Saturday 29th December. At this event last year 83 people enjoyed a great days craic, and some welcome soup and refreshments, supplied by Connor McKibben, owner of Brennan's.
The final rouns will be run from the Shimna Valley Chrildrens respite home on Sunday 20th January.
All proceeds wll be given to The Northern Ireland Cancer Fund for Children, who operate the great facility of Shimna Valley House at Bryansford Road Newcastle.
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