MTB League Round 5

Tuesday 11th June saw round 5 of the Cuchulainn MTB league being contested on the open mountain for the second week running.  The course comprised of 8.7km of open mountain racing covering all terrain types, climbs, technical descents and large expanses of water.

"What a difference a day makes", from dry dusty trails on Monday to the trails you’d expect to see in the depths of winter on the Tuesday; it didn’t dampen the 16 riders enthusiasm who turned up to race for valuable points though.

The first of the riders set off at 7pm followed closely by the different handicapped groups; the first part of the course mainly being a 4km climb before starting a series of steep and shallow technical descents, finishing with a 900m technical single track and fire road climb to the line. The muggy wet weather and torrents of water flowing down the hillside didn’t hamper any of the riders.  And once you’re wet, you’re wet, so you just plough on through, it’s a race!

The race to the line was extremely close, in the final 250m the gradient ramped up quite quickly and sapped the legs of energy, 6 riders finishing in the 55^th minute of racing provided an exciting spectacle as white line fever took hold (we take our racing seriously).  Unfortunately Terry McEneaney who was riding like a demon possessed had a flat tyre approx 6km into the race which lost him about 10 minutes which could have changed the top 3 results.  A big thank you goes to Ed Lennox who endured the midges and the rain to do the timekeeping on the night.

Results of Round 5

1^st – John Loane
2^nd – Michael Wilson
3^rd – Meave Baxter

Fastest Rider

Michael Wilson – 36min 20 secs

Round 6 will be on Tuesday 18^th June @ 7pm.  All visiting club riders and guests are welcome to compete as long as they hold a current (2013) Cycling Ireland Licence.