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XC League, Round 1 - Savage Craic
Round 1 of the Cuchulainn XC league kicked off with a bang! 33 Racers, 2 Marshalls, numerous spectators, photographers (thanks to Brian Mulligan), kids, the Bellurgan dog and fine weather (for a while).
At 7:20pm the riders were led up the track to the start of the race to receive a race briefing and an overview of the course. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) we had too many riders to use our planned Le Mans style start and had to settle with gridding the bikes in the track.7:30pm and with the Mega Avalanche start song blasting and Liam blowing his whistle, the race was off.
First rider into the transition from laneway to the drop into the Race HQ was Aiden McDonald followed by a procession wheel to wheel riders coming down the steep bank past Race HQ and into a series of berms and the newly finished and aptly named "Tomb Stone". Continuing on the laneway over the back of the top car park and into the Laurels to negotiate several techinical features in the 3 x 3k lap race.
On completion of the 1st lap it was clear that Aiden McDonald had pulled away from 2nd placed rider Andrew Baldwin by some considerable margin, that was to be the case for the remainder of the race. However, the battle that the rest of the field were were engaging in was savage and groups of riders had formed and were having their own race within the race.
Into Lap 2 we saw the weather change and there was light rain showers (sprinkles maybe) for around 10 minutes which would have made the bone dry course a bit slicker in places. It didn't seem to bother the riders all the same as they thundered past the finish area on completion of laps 2 and 3.
All riders home, 2 DNFs, 2 punctures, 1 busted mech a borrowed bike, a complementary bottle of beer, the war stories, the near misses, the dodgy lines; man, the craic was mighty!
Congratulations to the first 3 riders:
- Aiden McDonald
- Andrew Baldwin
- Niall O'Flaherty
More info: Full results here | Photo Gallery One | Photo Gallery Two.
Very well done to the rest of the field, some of which had never raced before.
We look forward to seeing you all next week for Round 2.
