The 2008 international downhill mountain bike season, got kick started in Gouveia, Portugal nestled in the Estrella mountain range last weekend!

The Maxxis Cup race has now established itself as the first proper race of the season and it attracts a huge entry from all over Europe.

A lot of Irish made the trip this year, with a strong contingent of boys from the North and D4 as well as an army from 021racing! 021 was represented by greg, Sean, James, Kevin Ryan, Kevin Boyd, Jason Murphy, Ben Mullens, Rob Davis and Rory! The trip began as we flew to Madrid, rented our Mini Bus and drove quite rapidily to Portugal. We enjoyed two full days of practice in sunny weather and we turned our mini bus in to our uplift and the spin to the top was nearly as enjoyable as coming down the mountain!

A partially new track greeted all the riders and what a track! Flat to the mat for nearly 3.30min if you were going well. The course was littered with ski jumps, drops, rock gardens and flat out corners.

First rider down was 021 new boy Rob Davis, who was riding like his old skool days, flat out but likes to hit the eject button! Rob got caught out trying to double a tricky drop and hurt his wrist quite bad, no racing for rob. Sean was next to come a cropper in the same place as Rob, the compression sent Sean flying over the bars and on to his head, also aggravating his long term ankle injury.

Sunday morning we were greeted to some wintery weather and qualifying. The top 150 fastest riders would go through to the main event. There were over 400 entries!! Everyone in 021 qualified except for the two Kevins and James who was to busy looking after Brendan Fairclough’s Iron Horse (ranked 12th in the world!!) as well as all the dublin boys, as all their bikes were hanging!

In the final, Jason missed his run, Rory 92nd,went quicker by 6 seconds with a 3.15, Greg 38th, improved with a comfortable 3.03 after crashing in his qualifying run, Ben 117th, had a bit of a crash, Sean, DNS, as his ankle was wrecked. Ben Reid crashed out, the first time in a long time, just goes to show it can happen to anyone! Gee Atherton destroyed the field by 4 seconds, the man is a beast! Dan Atherton 2nd and Cedric Gracia in 3rd.

At the end of the day, 021 enjoyed a successful weekend and an eventful night in Madrid on Sunday! If your talking to Ben Mullen, ask him what he thinks of Lady Boys!!!!