Round 6 - North Down
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Trailblazers Trail Quest 2009 Round 6 - North Down |
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| Sunday 5 July 2009 Whitespots Country Park, Newtownards Sunday 5 July 2009 saw the sixth and final round of the series of mountain bike Trail Quests organisers by Trailblazers. The series has been held across Northern Ireland in Claudy, Fermanagh, Cookstown, Delamont Park and Belfast. The headquarters for the final round was Whitespots Country Park just outside Newtownards, where teams gathered from 10 am to compete in either the 2 hour or 4 hour event. Teams were given a timing device (a dipper) and shown a map of the local area with control points marked as well as a sheet of instructions to help the riders find the orange and white marker flags. Once the control point was found, the rider would use the dipper to record the time he/she arrived at that location. The control points for this round had been placed by Paul McArthur who is a regular competitor at these events. Paul had set out 32 control points across a wide stretch of the North Down and Ards area from the Comber Greenway, to Cairn Wood, to Bangor and down to Mount Stewart on the Portaferry Road. Each control point had a points value assigned to it from 10 to 40 points and riders had to work out the best route to maximise the points they attained on the day. In total there were 600 points available and these were split between 300 to the east of the Bangor to Newtownards dual carriage and 300 to the west. To the west lay a wide variety of terrain including several steep climbs and off road sections . The east was flatter, with markers located mostly on country lanes however the eastern points were well spaced out and riders had to work hard to cover the ground between the control points. Paul had deliberately set out the control points so that it would be impossible to get all 32 in the four hour period. This was Paul's first time laying out the markers and he was on hand on the day to give an insight into the amount of time and effort required to set out the course. Among the competitors were Stewart Moore and Martin Grimley from Dromara Cycling Club. For the second round in a row these two, who normally compete in separate teams, joined forces under the team name "The Losers". Stewart, one of the founder members of "The Losers" was out to try to lift the team's overall standing of 4th place to top 3 however, due to the wide extent of the control points, no team scored over 370 points. Martin and Stewart started their event at 11:15 with the weather overcast at first but over the next four hours the sun made more and more of an appearance. They chose to head west, into the off-road sections and hills hoping to gather as many markers as they could whilst still 'fresh'. Martin knew the area reasonably well as he had set out a trail quest in the area back in November 2008, however Paul had found some new and interesting locations to place markers including a ruin of a windmill obscured by trees and up a tight climb to some radio masts. The undergrowth had had a explosion over the last three weeks and all riders had to cope with nettles, ferns and thorn bushes which did not go down well for those in shorts! Team "The Losers" finished with 270 points, 5th on the day and the team stayed 4th overall. After the event, Ivan Millar and family had laid on a barbecue for the hungry riders which was well received. After which, Ivan presented prizes kindly donated by Buff to the category winners. All in all, an excellent days fun. Well done to Paul, Ivan and the rest of the squad from Trail Blazers. The next series of trail quests will be held by Dromara Cycling Club starting in November 2009. Results 2 hour course
4 hour course
Overall standing here (Word document) More details of the events see Trail Blazers website |
   Martin  BBQ afterwards |
 1st open winner - Bobby Smyth (Helter Skelter) |  Open runner up - Ivan Park and Steve Curry (CCAR) |
 1st vet - Wilson McAlister (Tube and Spoon) |  1st mixed - Jon Kay and Julie Murphy (The Maryland 2) |
 1st female - Shirley Park and Joan Trengove (Soup n Muffins) |  1st junior - Team DIRTATB |
