XC Summer round up

With Summer over, the XC race season rounded up and the Junior racers back off to school, finally there is time to catch up with what the Dromara XC racers have been up to over the last number of weeks.

National Championships

The 2019 Irish National Cross-country Mountain Bike Championships were held at Tracton Wood in County Cork the weekend of 21/22 July 2019. Hosted by Mountain Bike Club Cork (MBCC). Dromara CC sent a crack team of riders to compete for the honours.
First off on the Saturday evening after a long drive down, were the Kellett sisters. Fiadh up first in the under 6 race. After initially making her discontent about the nature of the course and stating that she had no interest in racing (Not technical enough kiddo?) – She then learned that there were sweets AND MEDALS for the under 6 race. So off she went, down the rough bumpy narrow trail, taking in the section Daddy hadn’t practiced with her with ease. Once at the bottom, she set about catching up to those in front and raced up the long hill ignoring her sore wee legs to take a brilliant 3rd place and her first ever podium position. One happy wee girl.

Big sister Aoife was next up, and showed confidence and determination to race into the lead of the Under 10 girls race midway through the first lap and refused to let up for the duration, drilling the long hill on each of her 3 laps, to take the win. Two Happy wee girls.

On Sunday, the main championship races were held. First off for the club were Paul Hamilton and Brian Kellett in the M40 race, which everyone knows, is THE race. Lining up against multiple times World and National XC Champion, Robin Seymour. Both of our riders put in great performances. The rain started midway through their first lap and made all their practice practically worthless as the approach of “any line will do” suddenly became “Only Robins line will work”. Paul stuck to his pre-race tactics and produced a pretty impressive 13th place with solid pacing and lap times. Brian had a big off towards the end of lap 1 and had a very sore thigh after being pulled out of a hedge by some spectators. Undeterred, he refused to pull out and got back into his rhythm and clawed back places slowly throughout the race to make the top 20 on his last lap.
Last up was Barry Kellett in the M30 race. There was to be no repeat of last year’s result as the pace of the front two early on was up there with the best of the Elite riders. However a 5 lap slugging match ensued between 5 riders for the 3rd spot. Barry got into 3rd place at the start of his 4th lap and stretched out a 30 second lead with a big effort. Unfortunately, following the example of big brother Brian, Barry also decided to ride into a hedge of brambles and briars on an innocuous section of the course after switching off momentarily. 20 Seconds to untangle himself later, the two chasers were back on his case. A furious last lap of racing and place swapping with the other two riders resulted in a 4th place finish.

Ulster Champs

Exactly one week later, Dromara CC Mountain bikers were in action again, on Sunday 28th July at the 2019 Ulster Cross Country (XC) Mountain Bike Championships held in Lady Dixon Park in Belfast. It turned out to be a very wet day indeed with loads of mud on the trails making conditions hazardous. Bike handling skills and tyre choice would be the order of the day to get round the course.
First up was the under 6 race, George Chambers eliminated all competition with a flying start and never looked back on the two lap race to be the first boy home to claim his goody bag, Alfie Booth also finishing close behind to claim his coveted goody bag.
In the Under 8 race Alexander Chambers went flying round the race course to finish an excellent 8th place.
On to the Under 12 boys and James Armstrong was back on the Mountain bike to finish in a great 6th place.
In the Under 16 boys Cameron McCusker put in a hard shift to finish in 5th place.

The race of the day was going to be the M40 race with Gibson Chambers, Aidy Booth, Paul Hamilton and Brian Kellett all lining up to do battle with each other in a tough 4 lap race. Paul Hamilton was quick of the mark just missing out on a podium spot finishing in 4th place. Gibson Chambers and Aidy Booth did battle for roughly the first two laps but the power, fitness and bike handling of Chambers proved to decisive for Booth to hold onto his wheel for any longer. Chambers pulled away strong as ever to finish in an excellent 7th place with Aidy Booth 8th and Brian Kellett in 9th. All in all a good days racing, there was much mud to be washed of the bikes after this one.

Cooley Thriller

Saturday 10th August saw the hardest of hard men turn out for the hardest of hard races as the 2019 edition of the Cooley Thriller took place. Official results are hard to come by, but what I do know is that Paul Hamilton absolutely smashed around in a time of 3h 33m on a course where sub 4hours is a big achievement. Graham Smyth managed to make the mark by 2 minutes in a time of 3h 58m. Gibson Chambers was agonisingly close, just going over the magical mark by a few minutes. This is bad news apparently for his winter training partner who was looking forward to a more sedate few months of efforts on the bike.