Cyclocross Round 8 – Falls Park
It was the final round of the Ulster Cyclocross league series on Sunday. The host club VC Glendale had managed to book falls park as the venue and produce what this reporter considers a truly proper cyclocross course. The rain during the past weeks had certainly stayed in the ground so most of the course was full of muck and something the series has not seen much off.
Lets talk through the course to get a feel for it before we chat about the competitors. The start was on a wide tarmac path before taking an off camber right turn into a muck filled pit eventually coming out at the bridge. Going over the bridge was the first opportunity to see the technical aspects of this course – first was the sand trap, then the steps filled with sand,
The Hill (to be honest on a dry day I am pretty sure this would have been ridden up but add water and this became a slippery beast),
the off camber S bends followed by a sharp hill to the top,
after this technical section the course lead across another bridge(it used to be tarmac but by lap 3 it could be classed as muck as well) and onto a zig zag of turns through the wood to the finish line. I mean how hard can it be!!!
As usual the youth races got off first with Fraser Harrower finishing 6th in the U12 and younger brother Alex showing well in the U8 race. Ben Wilson had a super 2nd place finish in the U14 to get our only podium of the day.
The MTB Support race saw Nathan Mullan take a rare excursion off the road and show young Marty how it is done. Alas it was Peter Davison who showed how it was done again by leading the MTB group with a top 10 finish, and moving up every week, getting stronger. Big Ring Marty wasnt going to be out done this week and felt confident having checked with the Park attendants that no vans would be allowed on or close to the course. It was a closely fought battle with Marty finishing ahead of Robert Davidson followed by Nathan.
In the elite womens race 9 ladies took to the start line with Claire Oakley taking the win and the ulster cyclocross series. Lisa who is still on her way back from injury produced a superb performance only just missing out on a podium. As you can see from below her pit team working hard:
We are still awaiting the final cyclocross series confirmed results to see how Lisa finished but it has been an excellent year for ladies showing a real quality field of rides.
The really race to be in this season has of course been the Cyclocross “B” Race. With all the excitement even Graham Beckett couldnt resist picking up a cross bike and giving it a go – the good news for Graham is that they arent going to get much tougher than this one.
This race saw our mud specialist Derek Graham show what he can do by producing an excellent 8th place and one to watch for next season. Graham Smyth who had a great start has been working on his confidence in tackling these muddy conditions and that practise was paying off as he finished 11th and well up in the series. The rest of the clan finished Richard Cowan(17th), Adi Booth(26th) pipping Brian Wilson (27th) by a mere 4 seconds, Mike Barton (30th), Graham Beckett (32nd), David Broome (40th) and John Shanks DNF due to a puncture (no luck this season).
The last race of the day was the “A” Race and we had Barry Kellett leading the line and harassing poor Matt Adair the whole way around the course to take an awesome 6th place and keep him well up for the series. The other big race of the day was Martin Grimley vs Zak Hanna – in fairness to Zak this is his first season of cyclocross and he even looks like he is enjoying it. Zak who managed to get some time off work produced an excellent ride to take 42nd place but Martin would not be denied his glory of finishing in 36th place.
This was the final race of the ulster cyclocross series however the ulster championships will be held on the 14th December. On a final note Id like to pass on a Dromara CC congratulations to Glenn Kinning who has dominated this series and will be heading over to Milton Keynes to race at the cyclocross world cup this coming weekend – Good Luck Glenn.
Here is a video of the cyclocross at the falls park:
And finally a cap off to all the people at VC Glendale that made the race possible from the marshalls to the ladies serving the food – top marks for your first CX and hopefully many more to come.
