Weekends Racing

First up, Oisín Boydell. Having just finished the K-Capital Cup series as the 1st placed Expert, he turned out for the of the opening round of the XC NPS with a lot to live up to. The race was held in Ballinastoe by Sorrento and the trail centre provided a surprisingly exciting course. Stiff competition was provided by Oisín Fitzgerald of MAD, who lead at times but lost out to Boydell in the end by a narrow gap of 10 seconds. Hopes are high that Boydell will be able to dominate the NPS as he did the K-Cup. Rob Higgins also raced, improving marginally previous results but struggling to escape the middle ground of Sports.



Rory Berine had very good form at the second round of the DH NPS. The race was held on Carrig Mountain by FLOW Racing, who built an excellent new course for the race. Early Rain made the course inconsistent and treacherous, being mostly wet on Saturday and then dusty-dry in parts on Sunday. Rory got held up on his first run and crashed as a result. His final run was clean however and he took second place in the Senior Category, building well on a 7th position in the first round earlier in the month.



On the road we had a gang of keen racers attending the Stamullen GP. Ciaran O Conluain and Anthony Walsh got great results, sprinting against each other to finish 4th and 5th in the Senior C race. Anthony made a break from the start of the race but lost his minute gap as the first climb began. Then on the second climb Ciaran and Anthony moved to the head as the bunch split, but it regrouped as the finish line neared with the pace slowing before a group sprint. 4th, 5th and 6th were judged by photo with the UCD riders beating Paul Bracken of South East CC by a hair. Not one to take it easy, Anthony also attended the Money Nolan Memorial on Saturday and finished well in a mixed category race. He is now upgraded to Senior B, hopefully Ciaran will be following soon.




More racing this weekend with the Corkman 3 Day and a Wicklow Triathlon Time Trial on the road. Off road there is XC round 2 in Carlingford and DH round 3 in Cork off the road. Good luck to all.

photos courtesy of Marta, Aido T and irishcycling.com