The 2008 Downhill Mountain Bike season got kick started in Moneyscalp Woods, nestled in the scenic Mourne Mountains last weekend!
 
Over 150 riders turned up and signed to compete in Round 1 of the CRC Winter series.  This was the perfect opportunity to blow out the cobwebs and to find out who is on the gas and who ate all the pies!
 
The course was challenging, it started out on the fire road, where you quickly got up speed and then dropped into a bus stop, the bus stop shot you out on to the fire road, where you had to sprint like a madman for about 100mtrs before you entered the forest.  The pedalling continued as you flew into the woods, you then had to negoiate the tight turns while trying not to slide out on the roots!  Next, you had to get down a tricky rooty section which led you into a little gap jump over the stream ( if you were going fast enough), this is where the fun started!  Berms and flat out off camber rooty sections were your reward for making the effort on the pedally top section and this led you down to the infamous step down and flat out left berm that catches out many a rider and then the final sprint to the finish!  All that in about 1.30!
 
Most of Irelands top Downhill talent was in attendence, the most notable absentees were Ben reid who is in California training, Greg O’ Keeffe was building a wall in Tom Powers house, Jason Murphy was doing a spot of winter training in Morzine!  Ewan Doherty took a nasty fall in practice and broke his arm, but is hoping to be fit for the 1st Maxxis Cup in Portugal in March!
 
Small bikes were the order of the day and the fastest time went to Dan Wolfe in Elites on his Turner 4x machine with a time of 1.16!  He was closely followed by another man on a mini DH bike Kona’s Glyn O Brien, still whooping the young lads!  Stevo Beattie was flying on his little Commencal and finished 3rd in Elite.  With a few of the big names missing or injured in the Junior category, Seanan O Riordain stomped the juniors to win by nearly 3 seconds!  021racing got it’s first podium of the season, Denis Corkery put together a very good second run to move from 5th to 3rd place in the competitive Senior category!  021′ s Richard Thornhill rounded off the top 20 in the Senior category and Rory O’ Keeffe finished in the top ten in Elites for the 1st time in 3 years!
 
The next round is on Sunday the 24th of February, get your ass up there it’s worth the drive!