Bikedock Belles

The Dromara CC Trailquest season, although nearly over, has never really got started for the Belles. They had only taken part in one of the previous three races until Seaforde, which was Lagan Valley at the beginning of December. While they never really got into gear at that event, they did manage to finish 15^th out of 32 teams. 

The aim for Round 4 was to improve on that and spend more time pedalling than looking for checkpoints! At Seaforde the girls definitely did that, but spent more time than necessary on river crossings and swings (neither of which were necessary at all!).

Despite this, at Seaforde the Bikedock Belles finished 13^th out of 31 teams and were the first female team (ahem, ok, the only female team!).

Trailquests are off-road MTB orienteering events that involve teams (of 1,2 or 3 people) being handed a map at their start time, deciding upon a route and searching for checkpoints/ markers, that have various scores from 10-40 points. The aim is to collect as many points as possible in a 3½ hour timeframe.

Sunday was a glorious day and truly showcased the beauty of County Down, with a fabulous route planned by Ross of Dromara CC, great food afterwards and awesome craic as always.

Taryn and Andrea were keen to put in a good performance, after a disenchanting Lagan valley one, and arrived prepared on Sunday (well, one of us was, and had even made mapboards….while the other had failed in preparations by appearing with nail polish that did not match the Belles kit!) and got off to a great start. Well, a great start once we quickly realized our target first road was the second on the left, not the first on the left that would loop us straight back to the start point! After that though, the girls pedaled and navigated well, and quickly chalked up points. It was too good to be true! Yip….it was!

The 7^th marker of choice on the Belles' route was the biggest score of the day, a 40 pointer. With that value, it was obviously going to be hard to find – but shouldn't have been that hard as it turned out! On arriving in the vicinity, there were a few teams standing around saying the marker hadn't been found, and couldn't be there because there was a big, fast flowing river in the way.

Much to the astonishment of others, adventure racing mentality kicked in with the Belles – if the shortest point between A and B includes a river…..cross it! However, after 4 river crossings, a load of running, about 40 wasted minutes and still no marker – the Belles had to concede that the best thing to do was to kick their stubbornness into touch and move onto the next marker.

Grrrrrrrrr. But we had great fun trying to find it!

Apart from leaving empty handed, a downfall of the non-located marker was that the Belles' focus had begun to wander and shortly afterwards, while biking up the Ulster Way, a makeshift swing happened to beckon the team.

Who said Trailquest isn't child's play?! Admittedly however, a child would have probably had the intelligence to know that trying to step onto a swinging tyre with a bike on your shoulder was going to result in gravity problems! In a nanosecond Andrea was upended…grimacing as the handlebars hit her cheek….and drenched as rainwater flew out of the tyre! Taryn momentarily thought about running to her team mate's aid, but then shouted "wait, I need to take a photograph" ! and promptly collapsed in fits of giggles.

The cheek was sore, but not as sore as the two girls’ stomach muscles after much laughter.

Focus Belles, focus! That we did, with great navigational skills, team work, and ability in cross country biking and a further unnecessary river crossing!

With fantastic scenery, great weather and fab fun…as well as lots of pedaling!....before we knew it, the 3 and ½ hours was nearly up. There was one marker en route and close to the finish, and having missed the 40 pointer the girls didn’t want to miss another one, and spent a little too long trying to locate it – without joy and then being penalized for being over the 3 and ½ hours.

Oh well, lessons learnt and all that! Although whether we’ll actually remember any lessons …..other than chip resistant nail polish isn’t resistant to Trailquesting….is open to debate!

Ding Dong!

ps click on the thumbnail to enlarge and use arrows to scroll through the others.....

Andrea