Dromara Trail Quest League Round 1 [Dromara Football Club]
The first round of Dromara Cycling Club's 2009 Winter Trail Quest League took place on Sunday 8 November 2009 in perfect weather conditions. The sky was clear, blue with hardly a breeze, perfect weather for cycling around and up the many hills around Dromara. These leisure mountain biking events appeal to a whole range of cyclists with different levels of fitness and skill and are used to raise funds for the Children's Cancer Care home located in Shimna Valley.
The event headquarters was set up in the club house of Dromara Village Football Club. Derek Hanna and Gary Gray from the club were working hard getting all the entries sorted out on the day. Twenty five teams had pre-registered with a total of 32 starting on the day. First team away was "Blind Zeppelins" at 10:31 with almost all teams opting for the 3.5 hour event. Teams were separated by one minute intervals. There was only one team with junior riders who completed the 2 hour event.
The route choice was a key factor to the success of the day and teams were only shown the map at the start time. The map covered an area south of the football club with markers located as far down as Deehommed Mountain and as far east as Drumboy Hill. The teams were tasked with getting as many markers as possible in the time frame and returning to headquarters by the allocated end time. If teams were late they faced a time penalty based on points. The longer it took them to get back, the more severe the penalty was.
In total there were 72 riders taking part from nearly all the local cycling clubs including Ards, Banbridge, Curran Racing, East Antrim, La Lanterne Rouge, Lagan Valley Orienteers, Phoenix, Shimna Wheelers, Team Madigan, West Down Wheelers and of course Dromara. Approximately one third of the participants were not with any club and many of them were familiar faces at these trail quests.
When the riders returned to the football club they were able to make use of the showers before tucking into some hot soup, rolls, buns, tea, coffee etc. The post race banter is one of the attractions of these leisure mountain biking events allowing all the riders to share their experiences of the terrain and locating the markers.
Team "Retro Grouch" won the event after accumulating 410 of the possible 480 available just beating Dromara team "The Joyriders" who arrived back 2 minutes late and lost two points. Third team on the day was "Who the fox is that" who finished second overall in the 2009 Winter League. Well done to all competitors.
Round 2 of the league will be held next Sunday from the headquarters at Daft Eddies restaurant in Killinchy. See website for more details.
Many thanks to Derek and Gary from the club for organising the event and to the Dromara Village Football Club for their continued support.
