Xmtb McConvey Cycles – Spring Series – Round 3 – 02 March 2014
Ormeau Park Belfast
The third and final round of the Xmtb McConvey Cycles mountain bike series took place on Sunday 2 March 2014 at Ormeau Park in Belfast. The task for the course builders was to come up with a challenging but flowing course that used the same area of the park but making best use of the less muddy sections. The morning of the race arrived and it was quite mild with little wind and broken cloud. A nice morning for off-road racing. The youth races followed a similar pattern to the first two rounds with only the Under 12s getting a slight change in laps, from 4 to 3, which was met with no complaints from the young riders! After their race the seniors and Under 14s were given permission to go on to the course to practice. At noon the fore-casted rain arrived. It was a steady drizzle which went on until 2:30. This covered the period of time that the seniors, Under 14s and Under 16s were competing. The nice flowing track became one long mud slide. A messy one. The mud was clogging up the gears and chains and was the most likely cause for almost 20 riders to pull out of the race. The ones that did finish were covered head to toe in mud riding bikes that were much heavier at the finish than at the start with the weight of the mud. A tough day for all.
Afterwards the riders and host club made their way down to the Ozone Centre where there was a great spread of food, tea and coffee. The prize giving for the whole series then took place with medals and trophies handed out. The crowd then stayed in place for the raffle with the minor prizes of chocolates and wine going first before the star prize, a brand new Specialized bike went up for raffle. The bike was sponsored by Eamon McConvey of McConvey cycles in Belfast and was won by Sean Maguire of VC Glendale.
The club again wish to thank Belfast City Council for their ongoing support of the event .
Photos
Michael Armstrong (Facebook) – here, here and here
Toby Watson (Facebook) – here and here
Results
here
Overall leaderboard
here
Report by Martin Grimley