Gravity Enduro RD3 Djouce

The most recent round of the series took place last weekend and man was it a wild one! Saturday saw beautiful blue skies and dusty tracks compared to Sunday's Monsoon which left the trails like mud slides.The last 2 years now we have had pretty bad conditions for Djouce but after my performance in the 1st round in 3Rock I was pretty confident I could put in a good result. So riding up to the first stage and seeing how wet the tracks were kept me happy.

                      Here's a video from practice following my teammate Gavin (Watch in HD!!)

Stage 1

Stage one was the classic run from XTC to the bottom of Son of benchcut. Easy enough stage to start the day which is always good for as I kinda struggle on the first stage of the day in races. Had one small moment on the steep section of Phantom but kept it clean and smooth to win the stage in my category and 3rd overall.

Stage 2+3

The brand new stage that was so amazing, had turned to a mud slide overnight and made for a slightly cautious run with a few mistakes including a nice meeting with a tree. It was still good enough to take 2nd on the stage and 9th overall. Stage 3 I put in a another consistent and safe run to finish 2nd in category and 10th overall 

Stage 4

Stage 4 didn't go well by my own standards with a couple of mistakes and missing some of my lines which resulted with me having to run for a couple of seconds. Considering all this and surprisingly I took the win in my category and almost took my first overall stage win, finishing 2nd overall on the stage by only 2 seconds 

Stage 5

Stage 5 was going well till 2 silly crashes had me rolling around in the mud. Gloves had to come off and was throttle gripping the bike all the way to the end of the stage. Then I had the long walk back up the stage to where I crashed to get my Garmin which had fallen of in the crash. Some trek back up so it was. Lost 12 seconds on the stage and finished 2nd in my category and 14th overall.

Overall it was enough though and I managed to take the win in my category by 14 seconds. Even better I managed to put in my best overall performance to date with a 3rd place overall. Absolutely stoked to get inside the top 5 overall after knocking around the top 10 for the year. Big thanks to Expert Cycles for getting me this far and continuing to support me in my racing along with Endura. Also thanks to Adrian for the photo!

Looking forward to National Champs now in Ballyhoura in a couple of weeks time. Have always done well in Ballyhoura so hopefully it'll be nice to me again! 

Update!! It's been a while.

So its been a while since I last updated the blog. So much has happened in the last couple of months with getting through the leaving cert and trying to train and race at the same time. Happy to be done the leaving and be able to concentrate on biking and racing. So since i last updated the blog I have done the last round of the 2014 Gravity Enduro series, the last round of the IDMS in Carrick, The first 2 rounds of the 2015 Gravity Enduro series and the 3rd round of the Vitus First Track Enduro Cup.

So last year things went well, not quite as I had hoped but got some solid results. Came 3rd at all all rounds of the Gravity Enduro series and 4th at champs. Had an amazing time away racing Megavalanche, finishing 270th in the Main race and battling it out on the World Enduro Stage in Scotland to finish 9th in junior.

Gravity Enduro RD1

So this year with the leaving cert I came into the race season a little bit unprepared and unfit due to not getting enough time on the bike. I was also racing in a new category as I was out of Juniors and into 19-29 and I didn't know how it was going to work out. Come the first race of the year the Gravity Enduro on 3Rock we had great conditions up till the day of the race where it turned into a monsoon! his played to my advantage and managed to win the race by nearly 2 minutes.




Gravity Enduro RD2


So after the first race there was a 2 month gap till the race which gave me some time to get the Exams out of the way. The 2nd round of the Gravity Enduro series fell the weekend I finished the exams so I had been of the bike for a couple of weeks. Considering that I managed to come away with 2nd on 1.5 seconds of the win. So after 2 rounds I'm leading the overall standings by 50 points. the Next round of the series is in Djouce which should suit me well and I can hopefully put in a good effort to keep my overall lead.

Vitus First Track Enduro RD3

Last weekend I was racing the 3rd round of the Vitus First Track Enduro Cup in Rostrevor. Brilliant course with some really nice stages and at 30km long it was a big day out on the bikes. All was goin well for the first 3 stages but on the 4th i bust a chain guide and dropped the chain 1/2 way into the stage and had to run the end of the stage. Thought my day was over  so went all out down the last stage and managed to make enough time back to win my category by 0.82 of a second. Super stoked to take the win on completely new trails with the problems I had.

Looking forward to more racing and have to thank Expert cycles for there continued support.