I knew there was a good turnout for this weeks Dromara CC trailquest pretty soon after landing at the event centre – they was nowhere to park the old transit! I parked up on the Bryansford road and went into the Shimna centre to register the “Lucky red sox”.
Greetings from Martin – who also happened to be on a Dromara CC recruitment drive (I recommend all those local cylcing enthusiests to join up and enjoy all that being a club member offers). Its great to mingle and catch up with old mates and talk about possible tactics before the starts, As I hadn’t pre- registered I had plenty of time to socialise before my start time of 11:09.
After getting my map from Trevor I headed for the bike and a quick look at the map. This time between receiving your map and setting off for that first control is very important. A wrong decision at this route-planning stage could leave you cursing that idea of going for the big pointers on top of the distant hill or that group of controls away out in the far corner of the map with a beast of a headwind to get to or worse still that long drag uphill into a gale to get to the finish with time and energy running out fast!
It quickly became clear there was two major choices, clockwise or anti-clockwise. Anti-clockwise would take the rider out towards Maghera, Castlewellan and the Burren to pick up a whole pile of low value controls before swinging back round towards Moneyscalp, Trassey, Tollymore and Donard forest where big climbs equal big points. Or the rider could opt for the Big points early on with a clockwise loop – I chose this option.
Its great to see the number of trailquests and bike navigation events available to the leisure cyclist increasing all the time. This has one disadvantage to the teams hunting for glory. Everybody is improving! So I was slightly disappointed following my last outing at Dollies Brae. Having competed there the year before and finishing first in what was a pretty bleak day weatherwise – I could only manage 8th this year even though me and partner Mark found more controls! With this in mind I wanted to bust a gut up the biggest hills I could find.
I set off up the steep climb heading for control A, on the way I met a team coming towards me down the hill, for those few who are unaware of the rules of the road for cyclists (its basically the same as for road traffic), ride on the left – unfortunately when your cranking your way uphill at 2mph and your caught on the right, it is hard to move out of the way – lesson learned, from now on I will stick religiously to the left, even if it means riding through potholes, muck and huge piles of horse shit!
Control A bagged then down towards Tipperary wood for control Q. After riding through suburban Newcastle I ducked into Donard forest crossed the Glen river and headed towards P, this was where I had my first control hunt of the day. Control description was “rear of tree start of downhill track” when your in a forest rear of tree isn’t much to go by so I was hoping for a pretty substantial track and going by the wee dot in the centre of the circle the control seemed to be located on the west side of a small stream heading down off the mountain. As I approached the stream I started checking for tracks, unfortunately there were a few and one in particular on the west side of the stream. Alas no marker and by now there were more joining the search, so we went off in different directions and it was soon found about 100m east of the stream. It is handy turning up at a control hunt when someone else has already done the hunting bit and leads you straight to the control. similarly it can be very annoying when you have scrambled about checking every fence post or tree then get the control just as another team land and get it without any hunting!
Nevermind only 5 minutes or so lost and the next few should be pretty straight forward – one up at the Quarry on Thomas’s mountain and then a tight wee climb up to the mast at Drinnahilly. Then came a quick descent to the lower levels to pick up AA at a track junction. Once again 5 mins lost searching around the back of every tree within 100m of the junction. It was during this search that I got chating to the boys from team “Retro Grouch”. I had seen them a few times already (usually disappearing into the distance in front of me) and was to meet up with them a bit more during the cycle.
We crossed the open together and headed into Tollymore to pick up AE, D, and AF which involved some pretty tough climbs and frantic descents! Then it was two 10 pointers (E and C) before heading down the trassey track for Z on the edge of the forest. It was along the trassey track that I bumped into Ivan and Steve of “CCAR” and Stewart and Dennis of Dromara CC team “the Losers” . We were all riding hard and seemed to be doing the same loop. I knew “CCAR” and “the Losers” had started before me and “Retro Grouch” 2 mins after me, so thought at least I was doing well enough.
The four teams rode pretty much together for the next 3 controls in the lovely Trassey valley Y, AD and X. A quick look at the Garmin told me that I had around 80 mins left, It is around this time that I think the score event format of the trailquest gets exciting. The rider has to judge when is the best time to “cut and run” Try and judge how many more controls they can bag before heading for home, always taking care not to get too greedy by taking on that far off 40 pointer that could leave you with a heart-breaking slog back to base with points bleeding away all the time.
With this in mind I was interested to see what the other teams would do. As it happened I wouldn’t find out as they all left me for dead on the brutal climb up Moneyscalp! I bagged B and AG in the woods before picking up a host of 20 pointers in the Burren area. I was glad to get these as there was 100 points worth and quite close together and as I set off at the start I was unsure of how many I would get before having to make a run for home.
I whizzed through Tollymore trying to avoid being spotted by the forest ranger, and bagged the 20 pointer at the lower bridge over the Shimna (T). From here I had planned on getting control K on the way back to the event centre if I had 5 minutes to spare – I had 10 minutes so decided to chance maybe losing 2 or 3 penalties for the 10 pointer further down the Wild Forest lane (L) It was here that I met up with my old friends from “Retro Grouch” again. They were riding in from the direction of Maghera so I guessed they had got a few more than me by this stage. All that was left now was a final slog to the finish, knowing that time was up and collapsing though the doors of the Shimna centre, Trevor wrote down the finish time on the answer sheet – 14:40 one minute over the time.
So after over 40km ride and over 1km climb, I had bagged my first 500+ haul of points. It sure was a high scoring round though “Nocturnal” had bagged 500 and the two teams “The star fangled nuts” (528) and the ever present and hard working “Retro Grouch” (550) stole the show on what turned out to be a great days trailquesting in what has to be my favourite area yet!
Massive thanks to Trevor and all the hardworking staff at the Shimna centre for putting on yet another successful event. Looking forward to seeing you all out again next week at Paddys Barn.
if you havn’t tried a trailquest yet come and give it a go, It’s a great test of both body and brain and gives those who might not have the lungs and legs of the pros a chance to catch them out with a bit of brain power!
