Does anyone know of mountain biking/ mountain bikers in Trinity College? Do they have a club, is there any interest in one? The interwebs have failed me, any of you lads from Trinity/know mountain bikers from there?
(And before the mocking starts, they had the course I wanted, I really don't care for the UCD vs Trinity thing.)
Basically I just need somewhere safe to store my bike, meet other mountain bikers, hopefully get funding for transport etc.
Somewhere safe to store your bike? That's definitely not Trinity College then...
I think there's a cycling club there, might be very road-based though, and you don't want that. DUCAC might be able to advise if there is any MTB club, or what the focus of the cycling club is, as all clubs report back to DUCAC. If there isn't a MTB scene, you could look at starting one, either within the cycling club or separately. Some lads managed to get money from DUCAC to start a frisbee club years ago, so anything is possible with the right amount of drive.
Yucky-D does have a cycling club with some sort of mtb scene, maybe they will be sympathetic to you. I know when I was in TCD our orienteering club and the equivalent in UCD worked closely together on transport etc - good craic and a lot of friendly rivalry.
There is a road club in TCD that helped organise the road intervarsities this year along with UCD and DCU. I don't think there are any mountainbikers in it though.
You could also check out the UCD cycling club which has an active MTB section (I was involved with them this year but I won't be next year) and there is a new MTB club being started in the RCSI (royal college of surgeons) and you can contact Tristan (tristantham@rcsi.ie) about that. The college clubs are small so generally they'll welcome any students who want to join them for spins etc.