Ulster XC RD2 - Ballykelly

[barryvankellett]

Up the North coast yesterday, the club had a host of riders taking part in Round 2 of the Ulster XC series at Ballykelly forest, hosted by Caldwell Cycles.
Heavy rain on Saturday and Sunday morning made the rooty forest terrain incredibly technical and taxing for all the racers, after several years of very fast dry races at the venue.

In the Senior 1 race I somehow managed a 3rd place finish behind Graham Boyd (XMTB) with David Montgomery (U/A) taking the win in fine style. Still getting to grips with racing in a smaller field and the politeness and etiquette involved which is far removed from the "Death to anyone who tries to holeshot in front of me" style of Senior 2 racing.
I lost ground on lap 1 being too polite myself and lost more time with awful riding as I paniced and attempted to bridge back straight away. Thankfully Banbridge Junior, James Curry had passed me and was riding super steady and smooth and I resolved to try and just sit with him and he paced me back up over 2 laps to the tail end of the top 3, but just as their pace was lifting so I missed the boat for the top two but should be grateful i got 3rd in truth.
I'm Still waiting to see the facebook video of me riding straight into a tree surfacing.

Big Thanks to John McGuigan for the lift up and also doing the bottles and holding off the benson and hedges in the car the whole way up the road, even with all my effing and blinding about forgetting the garmin. "NO STATS" "NO STRAVA" "NO POINT RACING JOHN!!!"

McGuigan himself is too modest to talk about the race, but he is probably the only man on the day who cut a couple of minutes off his first lap time. Practise makes perfect!

John Shanks finished in 7th place in the Senior 2 Race.
Paul Watson had a fine 6th place in Senior 3 with Adrian Booth not far behind in 8th place with another solid performance. Brian Wilson had a good tussle a little further back with some familiar faces and did himself and the club proud by putting EX dromara rider, Adrian Finnegan in his place at the death!

Peter Ritchie also grabbed a top 10 in the Senior 4 mens race, coming home in 9th place.
Ben Wilson was unlucky to miss out on another Under 12 win, just missing out by 2 seconds to Darren Rafferty of Island wheelers in another epic battle between the two.
Kelly Wilson also rode very well to take 2nd place in the U12 Girls race.

Well done to all. A great weekends racing to top off the super results on the road

[johnmcg]

Congratulations Barry on the podium, it was a superb effort over 5 laps of a very tough course made treacherous by the rainfall before and during the races. A nice report too, it cannot be highlighted enough how well all of Dromara's serious XC racers performed, both young and old. ( I am not included in this group BTW )

As for my experience of the day, the long journey passed quicker with company, even if most of the conversation was about things forgotten, the Garmin was not the only thing Barry left behind. Is this how a national champion prepares for a race ? ( although it seemed like I was getting the blame ! )

My race was purely about survival, I realised I wasn't feeling great and had no umph what-so-ever, and the conditions would test my limited skills to the max. I only fell 5 times during the 1st lap ( I say only because I think I had 7 or 8 incidents during the warm up lap ) but despite this I think I made up a few places. But starting the 2nd lap I was totally drained ( I had about 20 other words I wanted to use to describe my condition at this stage, but feared they would be censored ) There were four of us in close proximity, and the lead kept changing hands as riders made mistakes, so while finishing well down the field I was happy at least that I managed to get to the lead of this group and get a gap. And I finished in one piece !

I then rushed off to get changed and watch the other Dromara riders, and was doing bottle for Barry and John S. This proved to be very stressful as I feared a dropped bottle would lead to admonishment But all went well and it was great to witness the rest of the Dromara gang racing with many little battles won. Roll on Lady Dixon ( is it true it is an easier course ? )

[bigpeter151]

With my slightly controversial move back to s4 this season as a result of last years poor performance this second race saw me face my nemesis, or so I thought..... Turns out that us s4 fools were deemed not good enough to make our way down the chute. This was probably a good thing. I saw at least 2 wheels that looked very like mine did last year. All I could remember of the course was falling off, so forgetting how long it was I set off for a relaxed warm up lap. Turns out that this was not much slower than the actual race laps.... Go figure. This I think was the result of taking off up that hill like a man possessed and people deliberately falling off in front of me... How rude.
I have yet to find a happy medium/pace where I can maintain any sort of speed without sucking in 90% of the surrounding oxygen within a mile radius. Which I'm sure is quite unnerving for anyone that I do happen to catch up with. That said, I finished 9th. On a course that any other day, (not a race day) I would thoroughly enjoy, it's just a pity it's so far away. Looking forward to getting the next one out of the way and then onto garvagh which up until Rostrevor was my favourite course.