The fun began with a Thinkbike team pre-ride laughing and sliding our way around a brilliant course in Tollymore forest park. Tons of singletrack, lots of mud and roots, this was going to be good!
photo by Richie Byrne
I led into the first singletrack and set about chasing the back of the s1 guys who set off a minute ahead of us. I was worried that after all the dry dust in Spain I might have forgotten how to ride Irish mud but luckily it didn’t seem to be a problem. It was that perfect kind of mud, not too sticky and super slippery but if you hit the right line it was easy to go fast along the twisty trails.
photo by Graham Boyd
Out of the first singletrack and I had a decent gap. Into a good rhythm on the fireroad climb, nice slippy technical climb and more high speed drifting descents. Then chainsuck. Ok, don’t panic, plenty of time – sorted quickly, got back on, pedal pedal. Wow this is good, love racing in Ireland, if only we had more girls racing!
photo by Mike Armstrong
Another singletrack climb, oh no, what’s that, can’t pedal. Jumped off and tried to get the pedals going only to find my rear wheel had fallen off! Calm down still lots of time in hand. I’d lost the end off the quick release squewer but managed to find it in the dirt. Tried to screw it tight but wasn’t happening, faff faff, panic panic. I finally got the wheel in and tight but lost over 3 minutes and Ciara was now way ahead of me. Ok its racing time, nothing like having a carrot to chase!
photo by Graham Boyd
Unfortunately my little break meant most of the men’s field had overtaken me too and the amount of tight singletrack made it super hard to get past people. I gradually started picking people off but wasted a lot of time stuck behind slower riders. Maybe playing around in Spain wasn’t such a bad idea for training, I was feeling super confident on the technical sections and seemed to be dropping people on the climbs too. Into lap 3 I finally caught Ciara again and jumped ahead.
photo by Graham Boyd
Once I’d got a bit of a gap again I’m not sure I was racing flat out all of the time, I had some eyeballs out moments when I had chance to catch one of the guys in front, but other than that I was chilling out a bit and enjoying the riding, challenging myself not to brake and seeing how much I could pedal through the tight corners. Deadly! Then the last trail I was suddenly all over the place, riding like an idiot but managed to hold off a couple of guys behind me with an uphill sprint to the finish. Results are here.
photo by Martin Grimley
Thanks to Banbridge CC for putting on a great race and to all the spectators for the encouraging cheers. Also to Mel and Stew for the loan of a super fast racing machine.