Richie Byrne, from Epic, is organising a skills day for any kids interested in giving cycling a go.. its basically a skills loop in and around the start/finish Area , in and out of Cones, a see saw..a couple of Ramps..they all get a Cert for completing it and any age from 0 to 16 . A lot of kids turn up at races, afraid to have a go..this might encourage them
HERE – EPIC MTB

Cait on her way to 3rd spot

Well done on the great performances by our mountainbikers Mel Spath (Cycleways) and Cait Elliott (WXC MTB Team UK) taking 2nd and 3rd spot in Round 4 of the British XC Series race at the weekend.  Read on for Cait’s report on the race, also see report on Britsh Cycling.

Dalby NPS report by Cait Elliott

Mel and I were over in the UK on Saturday for the 4th round of the British NPS series on the world cup course in Dalby Forest. We set off, charging across the grass to get in to the first singletrack – I was 6^th or 7^th at that stage and had to get around a big loop before a passing opportunity. As soon as possible I got up to 3^rd behind Mel Spath and New Zealander Rosara Joseph. As we hit a fireroad Lee Craigie came flying past and I spent the rest of the first lap following her wheel. The course was relentless, no chance for a break at all, you’re working hard all the way through be it climbing, descending or flat. Although following Lee, I was keeping an eye of Mel Spath who wasn’t far ahead of us, and hoped that we’d be able to keep her in reach.

Looping around the grass field at the end of the lap, I was surprised when Lee went left, I was sure the course went right. I began to follow but realised just in time that she’d taken a wrong turn.  I veered back on track and put my head down to get as much of a gap as possible. The next couple of laps I concentrated on making the gap bigger, and by lap three I was sure I was clear. Although it was really hard, especially in the sun, I was having a great time. The course is so much fun and really comes alive in a race. Lots of big berms, nice singletrack and rocky, steep descents that seemed to get faster each lap with the adrenaline pumping.

Next target – Mel, familiar feeling!  I knew she was about a minute ahead at the start of the lap, though the nature of the course meant she was out of sight a lot of the time. On each lap I had her within sight as we went up one of the nasty climbs, but she’d disappear again on the flatter, more draggy 2nd half of the course. By the last lap I was pretty knackered and had to force myself to keep pushing on, but into that climb for the last time I realised I’d gained some time, Mel was less than 30 seconds ahead. That spurred me on to ignore the pain and dig deep, but I couldn’t quite find enough to get back up to her.

Results are here:

http://www.timelaps.co.uk/assets/uploads/EventReport.aspx?eventID=134Dalby03/07/2010

Many Thanks to Cait for the report and the photos!

Cait (right)on the marathon podium

In treacherous and rainsoaked conditions, Cait Elliott (UCD) rode a storming race to get 3rd in the UCI ranked British National Series race in Margam Park at the weekend, a great result in difficult conditions.  And if that wasn’t enough, she went on to take 2nd in the longer half-marathon race the next day!  Cait reports:

British NPS – Margam Park

Due to my last architecture commitments I didn’t arrive at Margam until late Friday night, missing the practice day, so I intended to get up early and do a lap before the race at 10am. However, I woke up to heavy rain at 5am which continued all day, so I decided it was better to stay dry, warming up on the turbo-trainer and racing the course blind. It probably didn’t matter too much since the trails changed so much from their dry, dusty condition the day before.

There was a strong field of international riders braving the cold and wet to line up at the start. I had a terrible start, firstly couldn’t get clipped in, and then my handlebars got tangled with Lee Craigie’s and I had to fight to stop myself being wrestled to the ground. Luckily I stayed upright and there was a fairly long open section before we hit a singletrack climb, so I was able to make up lost time. By the top of the climb I’d managed to move up to 5^th place, and since I had no idea what was coming up on the course, there was an extra incentive to stick to the wheel of the person in front.

Conditions were treacherous, it was raining, and the trails had turned to thick, slippery mud making it very difficult to have any kind of control over the bike. In between were several long fireroad climbs, which suited me well. By the end of the first lap I was in 4^th, following Lee Craigie (Torq) and Lilly Mathews (British team), and feeling strong. The conditions made the descents very slow and awkward, I had a few moments of sliding down steep banks on my bum, but at least there was time to recover before the next hard climb. On lap two, Lilly stopped with mechanical trouble so I got ahead into 3^rd, gritting my teeth to try and take advantage and put some time into her.

It didn’t last too long though, by lap four she was on my tail, and got ahead as I got stuck behind a junior dabbing on a narrow kicker. I caught her again on a climb and it was a bit of a cat and mouse game for a lap. On the last lap someone shouted that I had a 12 second gap, but soon after the track looped back on itself and I saw her several minutes behind, having had a puncture. I’d been preparing myself to try and kill it on the last nasty climb so it was a bit of a relief got get such a lead. I couldn’t believe my luck, all I had to do was hold my position and I’d be on the podium. The mud was getting harder to deal with, there were a couple of steep banks where I decided sliding down off the bike in a damage limitation effort was the best approach, but other than that I enjoyed the trails.

At the bottom of the final descent I glanced back and saw British national champion Sue Clarke not far behind so had to put my head down and power across and windswept muddy field to get to the finish. I finished 3^rd, first podium in a UCI race, so really delighted with that. The sun came out on Sunday and I couldn’t resist racing drier trails, taking 2nd place in the half marathon.

For anyone who wants to dip their toe into mountainbike racing, this beginners series is for you!

Kippure Estate invites you to join their XC MTB Development Summer Race Series to be held over the next few months on the estate.

The races are open to beginners and intermediate racers of all ages. The 4 Race series takes place on the following dates:
Sunday 30th May
Sunday 20th June
Sunday 25th July
Sunday 22nd August.

After the success of the XC Championships in 2008 and K-Capital Challenge Race Series final stage in 2009, Kippure Estate has entered into talks with Coillte, Wicklow County Tourism and Wicklow Rural Partnership to develop permanent mountain bike trails in the Athdown woods opposite the entrance to the estate. Coillte are very open to the idea and in conjunction with all parties a feasibility study is to be commissioned to look into the routes available, costing, etc.

The course for the first round is approx. 3km loop within the grounds of Kippure Estate, loads of singletrack and one nice fireroad climb and will include some interesting features along the way. The climbs aren’t too hard, everything is rideable for beginners.
The relatively short loop will make it great for the spectators.

There is ample parking, acommadation & coffee shop on the grounds of the estate.

Race Categories

There will be an A and  B category for Sports:

A for riders who have reasonable experience on a bike
B for complete beginners

Other categories will be:
Women
Under 16
Under 14
Under 12
Under 10
Under 8.

Schedule
Sign On will be open from 10am. Make sure to get signed on as early as possible

11:00      Under 8/10/12
12:00      Under 14/16, Sports B & Women
13:00      Sports A

Race Entry

Entry fee will be minimal (all underage will be free entry) but one day licences will be compulsory.
Race Entry fee for the underage is free.
Race Entry fee for the sports A & B Women is €10

Day licences will be available on the day priced at €5 for underage, €10 for 16-18 year olds, €20 for adults
More information is available here:
http://www.irishxcmtb.com/Ref_docs/Irish_Offroad_Race_Licence_information.pdf

Online registration

We would really appreciate if you could take the time to fill in the online registration form. Firstly, this gives us an idea of who will be attending so that we can cater for everyone.
Secondly (and more importantly), We can put your details into the computer timing system in advance of the race to speed up the sign on process.

http://bit.ly/cEEEON

Directions

http://www.kippure.com/travel-directions.htm

Google Map – http://bit.ly/9WfkPX

More Info

Kippure Website
http://www.kippure.com

The Flyer
http://www.adventurewicklow.com/Summer_Series_Beginner_Mountain_Bike_Race.pdf

IMBRC – Post on the forum and we can answer any questions
http://imbrc.com/forum

Follow us on Facebook/twitter
http://www.facebook.com/kippure
http://twitter.com/KippureEstate

http://twitter.com/imbrc
http://www.facebook.com/pages/IMBRC-Irish-Mountain-Bike-Racing-Club/316207487946

Regards,

Development Series Team.

Report from Shona:

Well we had 9 new ladies out last night and 5 senior epic ladies offering all sorts of advice and encouragement to the relative newbies.
We started off with a hell of a climb over the scalp, everyone made a damn good go at it and it certainly warmed every one up. then into the epic club course which is a much better for everyone, the climbing and descending are tricky but not intimidating so everyone got around it really well. the light was against us so we didn’t have a chance to check out the other trails but as these spins get quicker we’ll have more time to look around. some of the more experienced ladies went down the fast down hill section of Barneys which they really seemed to enjoy.
|It was really great to see that kind of turn out last night and i’m hoping the big grins on everyone’s faces back at the car park means they’ll be back next week.
check out the thread on epic for a link to more photos and Sylvia’s deadly video!
http://www.epicmtb.com/forums/showthrea … 208&page=3
cheers
Shona

Video of womens mtb spin

Round 1 of the Mountainbike National Points Series(NPS) took place in Saggart in perfect conditions on a tight and gnarly course that everyone agreed was huge fun and tested the abilities of all riders.  Melanie Spath(MAD), having competed in the Ras Mumhan stage race last weekend, showed her class by winning the elite ladies race from Cait Elliott(UCD) who is riding into form and finished less than 3mins behind, with Jenny McCauley(Bray) rounding out the top 3.  Agata Tamulewicz(MAD) won the Sports category from Rose Griffin in 2nd and Gillian Ryan taking the 3rd podium spot.

With a record number of people racing on the day over all the categories(approx 240), nonetheless the turn-out of women was pretty small, with only 12 senior female riders.  There are numerous categories to race in which makes mtb racing very accessible to all, for instance the sports race was 2 laps of a 5km circuit which took just under an hour for the winner, while the elite race was 4 laps of the 5k circuit with a winning time of 1hr32mins.

Unlike a roadrace,there is no worrys about having to hang on to a group, as a mountainbike race is as much a personal challenge, with skill being as important as fitness.  The atmosphere at the races is welcoming to all, with great craic and banter and often refreshments provided, making it a really fun day out – and bring the kids, there’s great underage events too!

Next NPS race takes place in Killarney on 25th April, details can be found on the irish cross country mtb website here.

If you would like to try out mountainbiking, many clubs run easy spins for beginners, check out the websites of your local clubs – around Dublin, Epicmtb.com and Madmtb.com are currently running beginner spins.  Check out Shona’s post on the forum for details of beginner spins starting up soon.

Photos from the event can be found here.

The venue is Slade Valley, Saggart Co. Dublin and the lads have been very busy putting in some great new singletrack and features.

The Dublin-based MTB club will also be running their very popular Team Relay on the Saturday (10 April).

This relay race proved very popular when ran in previous years and everyone should make the effort to get down on the Saturday and rip around as fast you you possibly can before handing over the throttle to the next member on your 3-person team!

Ensure to Register Online for this event as it saves a lot of time and hassle for the riders and the hosting club and it only takes a minute – please ensure to register for the correct race when using the online registration.

Race timing will be performed by www.chipit.ie.
Timing will also be performed using the Offroad Commison laptop & software.

More information (location/accomodation/photos etc..) can be found on the IMBRC website.

Race information (start times, race fees etc…) can be found here

Read on for the blog from top mountain bikers Cáit Elliot and Melanie Spath from the NPS in England.

Irish mountain bikers were in International action again this weekend at the final round of the British NPS series in Newnham Park, Plymouth. A C1 classification meant the race attracted a big field of top class riders from all over the world. The course was hilly with some nice woodland singletrack, but nothing particularly technical. Recent good weather made for very dry, fast racing.

Mel Spath, Cait Elliott and Ciara MacManus travelled over from Ireland for the Elite female race and lined up with riders from 6 different countries including former Olympic, multiple World and European Champion Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesja of Norway. Mel had a great ride to finish 4th on the day and 2nd in the series overall. Cait rode strongly to finish 8th and Ciara in 11th.
Cait Elliott:
“great race, it was tough with the fast conditions and top competition but I really enjoyed it. I felt pretty good and had to battle hard all the way through to beat Jenn O’Connor and Lilly Mathews, so happy enough with the result. The single track was good fun although a bit more technical stuff would have been nice!”
Mel Spath:
“I didn’t feel that great before the race, so I was surprised to find myself in the top 5 as the race progressed. Kate and Annie went off in front from the start, then it was Sue, Gunn-Rita and I chasing after them. Sue managed to pull away from us and eventually I managed to pull away from Gunn-Rita. I almost closed the distance to Sue after the third lap, but I wasn’t able to follow Sue’s attack on the fourth lap and finished after her in 4th position, which I’m really pleased with.”
 
In the Elite men’s race Robin Seymour, Ryan Sherlock and Richard Felle lined up against a large, international field. Ryan was top Irish finisher in 15th with Richie riding well to place 24th. Joe McCall, James McCluskey and Paddy Daly all did well against over 50 riders in the Masters category to finish 8th, 17th and 28th respectively.
Richard Felle:

”I really enjoyed the race, the course rode fast with the recent good weather. My goal was to finish top 20, which I was a little outside of, but I intend to race the UK series next year and improve on this.”
Ryan Sherlock:
“I had been feeling good coming up to the race but as the gun went off I slipped back through the field. I really suffered through the first couple of laps and my breathing was really bad. By the half way point, I got comfortable and started pulling back some positions finishing strong, really enjoying the last few laps. The longer races really suit me at the moment so for 2010 I’ll be focusing on getting the fast starts sorted.”

Last but not least, a group of young riders made the trip over from the North to compete in the juvenile races.

In the same event Ireland had a 5th place with Michele MacMullan and 7th with Nathalie Jedda. This completed what was a great weekend for women’s mountain biking – with Beth McCluskey taking bronze in the cross country event on Saturday.

Well done to everyone racing (and to Peter Buggle and Andy Yoong, who also womn bronze at the event).

Report on irishcycling.com HERE

Beth McCluskey has just won a bronze medal in the world masters xc championships!!!!

Beth is the current national champion and in today’s competition came home in an impressive 3rd place in the 30-39 age group.

Full results can be found HERE 

Tomorrow the downhillers are in action, and we will be represented by Nathalie Jeddah, Meave Baxter and Michelle McMullen.

Follow their progress HERE .

Well done Beth!!!!