National Cross Country Round - Slade - 3rd Place!

What an excellent Race course, with plenty of good competition! The new categories are keeping everyone on their toes, it will only make us faster!

I had a pretty hectic stress week, but I still felt confident for a good result. The last 5 weeks of fairly intense training/ lack of races due to cancellations meant that I as eager for a result. I also seemed to be weighing 68Kg in the mornings, without starving myself. So i knew something seemed right!


 During the week's torrential rain, I knew it was time to use Some Kenda Nevagals for the race. The Mud was so thick even the Karma's didn't even cut it! In fact, in the club race the week prior to the race I ended up dangling upside down out of a tree for a split second after crashing.. not good but kind of hilarious.

The Race went excellently. I had a key relaxed start and dropped to the back of the pack to not expend much needed energy. This worked a treat, and I quickly moved up to 3rd position and for a while 2nd. before reverting back to 3rd for the remainder.

I rode the technical sections (many of them) well without crashing, but not fast enough! Aidan and Gar were incredibly quick on each downhill, which had me chasing every moment to make up for lost time.!  I will practice this for sure. However i was climbing well, but, it would have been lovely if the climb was 8 minutes long though!

Avg Hr 195BPM for 1:46 minutes Racing.. Hard eh!

Tollymore National Round pics

Thinking about this race and the incredible slippy corners still gives me goosebumps! To be honest, what a race. Even in the muddy conditions that we saw not long ago. Next time i'm bringing mud Tires though!

Here's some pictures from Graham Boyd's facebook gallery (he's quite the camera man!) well done on finishing up in University too Graham!

Me fixing my goddam puncture on the LAST LAP! I can only blame myself having too much fun on the trail jumping roots!

Exam times )-:

The last few weeks have been about getting through the exams, training sufficiently and attempting a National series race which fell exactly one day before the first exam leading to a last lap puncture after clawing my way back up the ranks. Avoiding the inevitable exam biking performance slump is always a challenge in this time but I still managed to make it to club races albeit feeling a little wrecked and low!!

On a positive note,  I'm just getting back to my usual self now 'quickness wise' so that's good!! but its amazing how much these college exams take it out of me!! And I don't even study 'cram' or leave it to the last minute! I also got a tooth problem sorted that's been bugging me a little bit in the last month, so I'm looking forward to performing!

Back on track and hungry for some more good results!!!

Check out these crazy light tires from KENDA, the Klimax Lite 345G suitable for super flat speedy race tracks! But, my favourite Kenda tire is definitely the Nevagal on the training bike and the Karma on the race bike mixed with a small block on the back, the Nevagal has awesome grip anywhere any time of the year, Fit and forget.

Klimax Lite below

The Dublin Blitz 3rock

This was an amazing race with a HUGE atmosphere. Kudos to Niall Davis and the rest of the crew for organising this. The event itself was all about the opening of Dublin's first official mountain bike trails just 20 minutes cycle from my doorstep in central Dublin!!! This means money, with plenty of newbies taking up Mountain Biking!

The race saw an entry of around 200 People! with a few of my fellow Elite time racers up front ready for the Gun to go! Luckily the rain didn't affect the course too much, and the Kenda Small block/Karma up front kept me rubber side down! I eventually finished 3rd not far off the Winner. I made a tactical error and I learnt by it!

We got cool Paris Roubaix Style trophies too!!! They are essentially  big 3rock rocks!!

Richie