Trailquest League -
Round 1 - 2007
 Dromara Football Club
25 November 2007


The first round of this years Trailquest Winter League, organised by Dromara Cycling Club, took place today out of Dromara Football Club. Twenty five teams incorporating 56 riders from the four corners of Northern Ireland turned up for this great event. Once signed on, the teams were given their official start time (from 10:30 onwards in one minute intervals). Only at that official time were the teams given the map of the 20 markers that they had to try to locate. The markers were located as far east as the back of Drumkeeragh forest, west as far as Moybrick Upper, north as far as the river outside of Dromara and south (and up!!!) as far as Slieve Croob.

The task was to get round to as many of the markers as possible in the 3½ hours time limit. This was a true test of orienteering and endurance. At the markers the teams had to answer a question ranging from specific letters / numbers on poles etc to calculations of numbers, counts of holes in posts, windows on buildings or number of gates etc. Some of the markers were easy to locate but most took a bit of time and much pouring over the map! The points ranged from 10 (for the easy ones) to 50 for the ones up the mountains!

In terms of weather, we were very fortunate that the rain that had been there the day before (and had left the ground quite damp) did not reappear until after the event. On top of Slieve Croob there was low cloud cover with cyclists disappearing into the fog. The plus side of the pain in climbing this mountain was the excellent downhill cross country section back down to road level.

The results of round one were:

Rank
 Team
 Points
 Riders
1
 C.C.A.R 1
 216
 I .Kirk & S.Curry
2
 Team Purple 1
 209
 Eddie O’Hagan & Brendan O’Hagan
3
 C.C.A.R.2
200
 Shirley Park & Nigel Martin
4
 Team Caldwell
 180
 Clive Caldwell & Adrian McMenimn
4
 Average Joe
 180
 Paul McArthur
6
 Banbridge A
 170
 William Mulligan, Liam McGreevy & Sean Downey
6
 The Krew
 170
 Gareth McKee, David Graham & Jonathan McKee
8
 Team Purple 2
 167
 Conner Sweeney & Neil Kay
9
 Barnardo Boys
 160
 John Boges & Paul Magee
9
 The Blind Zeppelins
 160
 Martin Grimley & Ross Galway
9
 Phoenix Select 3
 160
 Richard Bell, Ed Boyle & David Tweed
9
 Phil Stewart
 160
 Phil Stewart
13
 Tube and Spoon
 150
 Adam McAlister & Wilson McAlister
13
 Chapsticks
 150
 Trevor Annett & Paul Green
13
 The Sitting Duck
 150
 Geoff Brown & Gareth Williams
16
 Retro Grouch
 140
 Glenn Cobain & Mark Forester
16
 Dangerous Duo
 140
 Brian Curran & David Neill
18
 The Dream Team
 130
 Stephen Prentice & Matthew Adair
19
 Mk 1
 126
 Kieran Murphy & Michael Murphy
20
 Green Machine
 116
 Brian Wilson & Stephen Kelly
21
 Quicksilver
 110
 Simon Curry, James Curry, Paul Anderson & William Forsythe
21
 Who the Fox is That
 110
 Paul McMinn, John Ruddell & Dave McCann
23
 The Mighty Mayne's
 90
 Maurice Mayne, Susan Mayne & Rachel Mayne
24
 Team Frank Millar
 30
 Frank Miller & Florence Miller
25
 Iconic
 0
 Alistair Fiddes, Ronan Byrne & Manta Sargas

The team at the end "Iconic" arrived home more than 30 minutes late and unfortunately lost all the 150 points that they had worked so hard to obtain. This was a hard lesson for them and others but I do hope they return to try again.

I know there are many of you out there who want to find out the answers to the questions at the markers.  They are as follows:


Marker
 Location
 Question
 Answer
 Points
1
 BESIDE STILE
 TOP RIGHT  NUMBER AND LETTER  L7
 50
3
 SILVER BIRCH TREE
BOTTOM LEFT LETTER
 X
 20
5
 ON TREE AT BOTTOM OF STEEP DESCENT
 WHICH TYPE OF WATER
 Deep River Rock
 20
6
 ON  SIDE OF SEAT
 TOP RIGHT NUMBER AND LETTER
 5N
 10
7
 HALL
WHAT YEAR WAS HALL OPENED
 1971
 10
9
 ON TREE NEAR BEND
 BACK TO SCHOOL LETTER AND NUMBER
 P2
 10
10
 OLD HOUSES UP LANE
 NUMBER OF WINDOWS IN HOUSES
 11
 50
11
 POST AT BOTTOM OF SINGLE TRACK
 SUM OF NUMBERS
 19+5=24
 10
12
 BESIDE RIVER
 NUMBER OF SILVER BOLTS ON PICNIC TABLE
 24
 10
13
 END OF LANE
 NUMBER OF HALF BARS IN FLAT BAR GATES
 13
 20
14
 OLD HOUSE
 MAKE OF OIL DRUM
MAXOL
 20
15
 ON POST BESIDE GATE
 TOP RIGHT NUMBER
 4
 10
17
 UP LANE
 NUMBER OF SWINGING GATES
 2
 20
18
 WOODEN POST AT BEND
 TOP RIGHT NUMBER AND LETTER
 9K
 20
19
 HALF WAY UP LANE
 NUMBER OF HOLES IN WOODEN POST
 3
 10
20
 UP LANE
  LETTER ON POLE
 R
 20
21
 TOP OF SINGLE TRACK BESIDE FALLEN TREE
 BOTTOM RIGHT LETTER
 B
 20
23
 ON FENCE POST NEAR RIVER
 GERMAN CAR
 A4
 20
25
 UP SMALL LANE BESIDE HOUSE
 COLOUR OF TAPE ON GATE POST
 BROWN
 10
30
 POST ON STILE
 BOTTOM RIGHT LAST LETTER
 F
 30


Many thanks to Derek Hanna and Gary Gray from Dromara Cycling Club for organising this excellent event. Many thanks to the riders who turned up to support both the event and the Children's Cancer Home, Shimna Valley, who are benefiting from the proceeds of the 3 events.  Also thanks to Andy Potts and Deek for providing the photographs.

I look forward to the next one on the 29 December 2007.















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