What a venue, best Enduro trails of the year by far. Steep, techy and multiple line choices, it was fantastic! But it all went wrong.....I had finished every Enduro this year, 5 Gravity Enduros, Emerald Enduro, 6 IMBRC Enduro races, 3 Vitus First Track Enduros but my last race of the year never happened. Practice day on Saturday was brilliant until I had a silly little off at the end of Stage 5, managed to go over on my ankle. An evening of ice, elevation and drugs followed, got up early Sunday, cycled on the saddle for half an hour to warm it up but once I stood up it was weak as hell so no race for me. I was lying 2nd overall in my class and dropped to 7th after missing this round with double points. It's been a super season but my body is battered, in the last 4 races I've sprain both ankles, squashed my AC, pulled 2 finger back beyond their limits and torn my knee in bits, a week or two of recovery is needed!
Well done Stevo and hard luck the way you've been going this year and the effort you put in you certainly deserved 2nd in your cat. As the sayin goes "that's racing"
Hard luck on the ankle stevo
Brilliant weekend up there, couldn't believe the quality and quantity of trails in that forest it's well worth a trip up to have a look
Myself max and Adrian drove up Saturday morning and Adrian arrived early and headed off without us me and max were a bit later, we organised the campsite got ready for action and headed out on the bikes for a massive spin 1400meters of climbing over three hours riding and we rode seven stages (there were five but we did some twice!)
Trails were very much gravity orientated steep and technical it was quite greasy on a couple of stages but the weather was perfect
We got back to camp rode down to Newcastle for some supplies had a barbecue and a few bottles of beer round the fire in prep for the big day ahead
Got up early had a shower in a bucket! Got breakfast and ready for action Adrian had signed on earlier than us so he had a different start time so again me and max headed off
We very much treated it as a spin and rode from stage to stage steady and kept it steady and upright on the stages I had no mishaps or near mishaps and finished well down the pack I think max was pushing a bit harder and had a couple of spills and finished further down the pack
We had a brilliant weekend and you can certainly see the draw of these events but in hindsight the way we approached the event is exactly how not to ride a gravity enduro and I couldn't believe how much it has moved on in the couple of years since I last did one
It's a big weekend on the bike with about 2500 meters of climbing and 6hrs or so in the saddle I was shattered towards the end of the second day
I would definitely head back to this venue next year as it was some of the best biking I've done with a bit more planning it would be a really cool end of season blowout and would be good to see a lot more club members attending
Well done done glyn and first tracks team for a great event
That was another brilliant weekend of racing. After Carrick I thought nothing would beat it but Donard was right up there delivering on its promises. 100% of awesome techy natural single track.
I headed up very early on Saturday to get early start on Sunday as the forecast didn't look great for the afternoon. After registration myself, Stevo with bunch of other guys
went off to see what the trails look like. We did stages 1, 4 and 2 when Alfie and Max caught up with us on the transition. As Stevo decided to take a short cut down to car park to refuel I joined Alfie and Max to do stage 5. After short stop we headed off to do stage 1 again, then 3 and then 4 again. I was wrecked after doing seven stages and nearly 1,500m climb.
Relaxing evening at the barbecue / bom fire drinking beer and eating sausages and goulash with Max running with axe into the forest to bring sticks to keep the fire alive ... and more stick ... and even moore sticks. Yeah we had plenty of sticks to keep the fire going.
On Sunday I was first in line at the start. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep the pace of Expert Cycles guys so headed off on my own pushing the bike on most of the steep climbs as my legs were sore after Saturday. Trails were riding much better than on Saturday and I was pushing hard. Felt great on the descends, making few small mistakes but no big spills. Stage 1 and 2 nice and steady. Stage 3 was very fast and unfortunately dropped my chain twice which never happened before. Think this was down to the fast pace plus the trails were quite bumpy. Shona and Jack caught up with me after stage 3 and we went off together to stage 4. Amazing stage where I continued pushing hard, felt great, fast and really in control.
Off to big push to stage 5. Everything went great so far so was looking forward to finish the race on the high. Wasn't given to me. Half way down stage 5 dropped the chain again! Unfortunately this time it got between cassette and wheel cutting few spokes and twisting, blocked my wheel and that was the end of my racing. Carried my bike down but after a while decided to break the chain so I could roll it back to the car park.
Finished last due to this mechanical but after checking my times on stages 1 - 4 I was consistent and well into top 10 finish with 6th time on stage 4. Despite the disappointing finish I'm still delighted with the event, amazing trails, great camping experience and my overall performance on the race day. Definitely gives a boost for next season.
Now off to try something different .... CX here I come!