Dromara CC Trailquest Round 2 - Paul's Report

Last Sunday I decided my calf muscle had recovered enough to allow me to enter the 2nd round of the Dromara CC Trailquest Winter League. It had been nearly 4 weeks since I pulled my calf and I had been very careful in resting it properly and doing very light exercise in-between. I still was not back to ‘full’ running, but it had started to feel good over the last few days so I thought a 3.5 hour ride would be a good test for it.

The event HQ was at Daft Eddies, beside Whiterock. The forecast was good and indeed Sunday morning dawned blue skies and little wind. An amazing 38 teams (79 riders) turned up to race and it was great to see so many people at a trailquest. The organisers reverted back to the old style ‘question and answer’ format where you had to write down the answer to the clue (i.e. what is the colour of the post box) rather that looking for a red and white metal square and write down the corresponding number. My start time was at 10:53, which I nearly missed as my watch was about 3 minutes slower that the official ‘start’ watch. Once I got the map and control sheet I spent the first few minutes planning a route. The standard 1:50000 OS map was used covering an area 10kmX15km (A4 size). The 29 controls where spread over the whole map, from Castle Espie in the north stretching down to Shrigley in the south. My first thought was it was too big an area to clear in 3.5 hours, especially when I was not fully bike fit. I quickly made the decision to miss out the very top part of the map (basically leaving out the controls north & level with Lisbane). My plan was to ride anti-clock wise around the map, leaving the bulk of the controls in the SE corner for the run in towards the finish – my idea being it would give me more of an option if I needed to miss controls if I was running out of time.

Leaving Daft Eddies I headed north along the road and cut up to get ‘C’ at the phone box. I then continued west to ‘O’. I’m not too sure why I decided to leave the 10 pointer at ‘L’ out. I guess I still wasn’t too sure how my pacing would be at that early stage. In hindsight I would have had time to collect it. I then cut west from Lisbane and headed south to ‘J’. My plan here was to get ‘J’, continue west to get ‘AC’, cut back and then head SE along the road towards ‘P’. That was the idea, however I had my first ‘map’ problem instead. Reading the map, ‘J’ looked like ‘L’, so I ended up looking for a ‘white’ house instead of the ‘gate at the wood entrance’. To make matters worst there were about 3 possible white houses in the area. I continued up the road and knew that this was not right. I rode back to the junction, checked another white house, back to the junction and then double checked the map again. That was when I realised it should be ‘J’ I was looking for. I had pasted the CP four times in my quest to find the ‘white’ house and lost about 10 minutes in the process. After the ‘mistake’ and lost time I decided I would have to miss out ‘AC’, so I quickly continued south towards ‘P’.

From ‘P’ I cut back up to the junction at Ballymacahen and headed west towards ‘F’ and the grace yard. I then followed the roads SW and collected ‘B’ before cutting in to get ‘T’. From here it was a 4.5km ride south to get ‘H’. At this point I was about 65 minutes into the race and was happy with my pace so far. My aim now was to get to ‘R’ with about 2 hours to go and hoping this would give me plenty of time to weave my way around the remaining controls along the coast north to the finish. Up to now I had hadn’t seen anyone else, then Jon and Julie (The Maryland 2 ride again) passed me and about five minutes later Paul and Taryn (No frontiers) also passed. I knew both of them had headed south first from the start and I was trying to work out roughly how long it had taken them to go clockwise compare to my anti-clockwise route. I guessed we were all on very similar times.

‘G’ and ‘A’ passed by fairly quickly and I soon found myself riding into Shrigley just into the 90 minute point of the race. Heading for ‘R’ I cycled up to the corner in the road (as marked on the map) and checked the control description; ‘Number of pillars supporting tower’. Now I looked up and saw a large chimney, but thought ‘that’s not a tower’. I looked back down the road where I came up and noticed a small monument with pillars around it. It sort of looked like a tower, but it certainly had pillars around it – I guessed it was simply marked wrongly on the map – so I rode back down and counted the pillars. Now heading north I headed for ‘AB and then up to get ‘S’ before cutting down SE to the shore line to collect ‘N’. Rather that riding back up to the main road again I took a short cut and cut up north pushing/carrying my bike along the edge of the field until I hit the road again. Back on the road I headed east until I was able to head back up north to collect ‘O’. I don’t think my short cut was any quicker that going back up and around via the main road. All it seemed to give me was very muddy tires. Back on course heading north I cut right to get ‘AA’ on the dogleg loop, and then quickly got ‘X’ at the causeway and the blue chimney at ‘Y’. At this point I had about 30 minutes to go and knew I would have time to spare once I hit the finish. I got be feet wet going down to get ‘V’ from the church and got them wet again heading back up to the church (I must admit I had to get off the bike and walk the last 10 meters up the hill to the church). ‘W’ was my last control and when I hit the junction I still had 10 minutes left. I remembered ‘L’ from earlier and thought I’ll give it a chance and go for it. I knew I could afford to be 5 minutes late, if I got the extra 10 pointer, but it was going to be very close. Riding hard down the road I checked my watch again and decided that it was just too far. I quickly turned around and sped back to the finish, just making it with 30 seconds to spare (luckily call).

Overall, it was a great event and an excellent course from first time organisers; Dennis, Alan and Stewart (Team “The Losers”). Apart from controls ‘J’ and ‘R’ (we always like a little moan), everything was perfect. The best news was my calf muscle held out and felt good at the end, plus my fitness was not too bad. However, I did feel it in my legs towards the end (I think that was normal). Thanks again to Dromara Cycle Club for organising the series and I look forward to the next round in December. Doing these trailsquests is a great remainder how beautiful the Northern Irish countryside can be and they are just a brilliant excuse to get out on your bike for a few hours and have some fun – whether you are competitive or not.

Results/Report
My MotionBased Route

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