MTB League Round 6 - Loane takes podium for the second week running.

Tuesday 18th June saw round 6 of the Cuchulainn MTB league for the 3^rd week running on the open mountain, the course, very similar to round 5 (8.7km in length) with a couple of slight route changes to spice up the course.

The unusual sunny and warm weather that we’ve been having has ensured that in spite of the rain that we had Tuesday week ago that the mountain has remained fairly dry and very ride-able.  As with the previous weeks racing the riders set off at the time intervals for their handicaps, starting with a 4km fire road and single track climb to the highest point, followed by a nice flowy grassy single track descent to the area locally known as “The Castles” and finishing through “Aidan’s Canyon” and the final climb to the line.

Racing this week was close again, maybe not so close as round 5, but all 17 riders finishing within 10 minutes with some spirited finishes.  There is a noticeable difference in the finish times compared to round 5’s, in some cases taking as much as 5 minutes off times, which goes to show that weather conditions can have an adverse effect on race day performance.  We had our first rider casualty on Tuesday, Gary Winterlich parted company with his bike on a tricky section of “Aidan’s Canyon” and came down quite heavily.  It does help though to have Dr Meave Baxter racing in the league who examined Gary once he crossed the line, nothing broken, but will be sore for a few days.  Again thanks have to go to the timekeepers (Sandra O’Hagan and Terry McEneaney) for keeping everything honest and enduring the Cooley’s ninja midges.   

Results of Round 6

1^st – John Loane
2^nd – Michael Wilson
3^rd – Sean Kelly

Fastest Rider

Michael Wilson – 33min 01 secs

Round 7 will be on Tuesday 25^th June @ 7pm (insect repellent advisable).  All visiting club riders and guests are welcome to compete as long as they hold a current (2013) Cycling Ireland Licence.