2017 Off Road season preview

With the 2016 cyclocross season only over us, it is already time to look ahead to the 2017 season for the off road riders in Dromara CC. The number of club members who participate in off road cycling continues to grow, year on year. With the club off road league to look forward to later in the spring and through the summer, groups of varying abilities on social rides and a full season of open racing on the calendar, there is always plenty on offer to please all.

Cross Country Racing

The traditional heart beat of off road racing, cross country is a tough, demanding sport, requiring fitness, skills and bravery (also known as lack of common sense). The rewards are great though. There can only every be one winner in any race, but the beauty of XC racing is that you are always in a race within a race. The guts and glory to beat that rider who got the better of you in the last few races, the satisfaction of breaking into the top 10 of your race category, or simply the pleasure in being able to complete a race lap with no dabs. All race series are based around ability based categories, so in truth, while it may seem daunting at first, you won’t be racing against Nino Schurter in your first race out.

For the really keen racers – you can start as early as the 12^th February with the Biking Blitz series, round 1 is being held at Ballinastoe in Co.Wicklow. They are a great introduction to XC racing with the field split into two categories, “Baggy Shorts” for beginners or “Super Pro” for more experienced riders, plus youth categories from U6 to U18. Race courses are purpose built trail center style trails.

The kids love getting stuck in

Victory!

2 weeks later, much closer to home, XMTB will again be running round 1 of the hugely popular XC Spring series in Ormeau park, Belfast. A full program of youth racing with two separate mens races and a womens race. These are always a super introduction to racing on more natural terrain. Mud, roots and enough corners to make you dizzy, but never
anything overly technically challenging. The challenge is to push those corners as hard as you can.

The Ulster XC Series kicks off in March with ourselves hosting round 1. The courses are varied and challenging in different ways. Again, every round has a full set of youth races from U6 to U16, with Juniors, 3 ability based women’s categories and 4 ability based men’s races.

All information on the Ulster and Spring series can be found on the hugely informative Ulster XC Website.

The National Points series runs from April to July, culminating in the one off National championships race on July 23^rd this year. The 5 race series starts with the big trip to Tracton woods in Cork. See http://irishxcnps.ie/ for more information.

Enduro

The relatively new format of Enduro racing continues to grow and is now under the Cycling Ireland Umbrella as a recognised discipline. Requiring great fitness and even greater bike handling skills, Enduro racing will push you as hard as any other form of bike racing, in different ways. The race effort was once described to me like “doing the first lap of a cyclocross race 5 times in one day”, add to that the technical nature of the tracks and you can see how tough it is. 2016 was a great year for our Dromara riders with several of them competing in the Nationwide Gravity Enduro Series as well as the more local Vitus First tracks series. Feel free to have a word with our Enduro experts, Peter Davison and Paul McLean if you want to know more about this popular race style.

Downhill

We have less riders competing in downhill, but the multi-talented Peter Davison continues to throw himself hillsides at speed with a smile on his face. He has recently been appointed as our Downhill representative for all queries on the DH Scene.

Cyclocross

Cyclocross will make a triumphant return at the end of September and take over your life until early January 2018. You have been warned. Riding round parks on weird bikes that look like they are made for the road, but with 33c tyres at 19psi, with course designers throwing in planks, steps and sand traps and other obstacles in an attempt to force you off your bike and running.
The cross season is a fantastic introduction to racing a bike at any age. It is a safe environment and you will always have a race, whether at the front or with those around you or with the wee voice in your head telling you to pull over and go home to end the madness early. If you only have a MTB you can still get a taste in the MTB support race, but it won’t be long before you are browsing for a new CX bike.

It is particularly great for kids, especially those who haven’t raced much off road before and may be a little over awed by tighter tracks on the youth XC races.
http://www.ulstercyclocross.com/