Race season has kicked off in the Northern Hemisphere, and this weekend was the turn of the 2018 Vitus First Tracks Enduro Cup to open its account.
Castlewellan was the venue for the opening round of the 2018 Vitus First Tracks Enduro Cup and a good mix of fresh-cut trails, secret singletrack and the usual trail centre hardpack kept things interesting.
Photos: Industry Image. Video: Redhill Media. Words by Glyn O’Brien and Nathan McComb.
Here we go again! It feels like no time at all from we were last here in the beautiful grounds of Castlewellan forest park as it was the last round of last year’s series. Once again, torrential rain on the Friday before the race wreaked havoc on all the hard work the Daddy of ‘Norn Irish’ mountain biking Glyn O’Brien had put in over the long winter months.
Practice
Practice got off to a slow start on Saturday morning for the First Tracks Race Division; with myself faffing as usual, changing tyres last-minute and getting my bike built-up just having just flown back from Spain for the race and catching up with many great people who I hadn’t seen all winter.
Jacko, a changed man this year after spending a winter “working” with Joe Ward, arrived prepared and ready to go. As you would expect, Glyn was eagerly waiting and chomping at the bit to get out and ride his new 29er Vitus Escarpe.
Practice went well; Jacko and Glyn kept her lit and banged out all the stages whereas I chose to take the social media approach and session a few sections, getting loads of pictures and videos. We all had the same plan to leave stage 1 (Uncle Charlie’s) to last; due to a lot of tree felling in that area, we knew it would be the worst affected by the rain the previous day (really it’s just because I didn’t want to get dirty).
After seeing just how bad the stage was, Glyn shot back, grabbed the shovel, and went straight back up to repair the top of the stage as best as he possibly could after 250 odd riders skidded their way down it.
Race day
Once again there’s a lot of hard work that goes on behind the scenes, but this amazing team makes it look easy. Arriving in the carpark at 6.30am to start setting up the race village, myself and Laura hopped on the motorbike with a rucksack full of the timing system to put out at the top and bottom of each stage before anyone set off.
9.30 am and the Challenger and Youth riders set off and the Vitus First Tracks Enduro Cup was a go for 2018! More and more competitors arrived, standing around the race village talking pish about what stage is going to be tough and who’s going to smoke who, with their Hill’s Mixtape coffees in hand enjoying the rare sight of sunshine in Ireland. At 10am the main race started and there was a constant flow of excitement buzzing around the trails.
12.30pm and the Pro-men gathered with their trusty race-steeds ready or not to do battle with the muddy stages. Uncle Charlie’s stage was a great way (not) to ease many into the first race of the season with 2 corners before a really tricky, muddy pedal-catching rut that wouldn’t be out of place at a supercross race. With all the pre-race nerves and the hardest part of the race out of the way after stage one it was on and we could get stuck in.
Stage two had OB feeling “comfortable” after “attacking from the first corner and enjoying” himself and looking forward to the tough, “big pedal” of stage 3. I found her a bit mucky and put the power down on the top sections when I thought it was safe to do so. Jack was definitely happy with it being “better than the first one – short and shnappy” and “buzzing” for stage 3.
By stage 3, only Glyn O’Brien was able to keep his smile going – between rock gardens and some by now very impressive ruts, keeping a cool head whilst giving it their all, took it out of the riders. What Glyn described as “saucy” but “definitely the most physical”, had me struggle with what I felt was one of the pedalliest stages of the lot, definitely hard work but still jumped the double. A stage that made it important to keep the speed up, it lead to some punctures from sharp rock edges for some of the riders (Turkey).
In my opinion, as you go along it just gets tougher and tougher, doesn’t matter whether the stage is easy or not, which definitely rang true at the end of stage 4. Flying into it, this stage had definitely sapped some energy. The boys felt it had “been chewed up quite a bit, leaving it a bit like a ploughed field” but “good fun – it was great”. The loamyness had O.B. feel he could just “lean in and go for it” although some sharp rock edges did sneak up on a few riders (Turkey… again).
Coming into the 5th and final stage, the sunshine and blue skies had the boys “roastin’” and ready to go. With the great weather the pump track was buzzing with the crowd screaming “jump the fence” which after a 2.18-minute sprint is bloody tough – I came over the finish line alive… feeling my heartbeat in my throat. After a few minutes to recover and take a few photos with the lads, it was time to hand in our timing chips before our time ran out.
All in all, mud was flung, fences and doubles were jumped and the craic was had – Castlewellan was a winner.
The Podiums
For what feels like the first time in forever, the sun shone down for the podiums; obviously the MTB Gods were pleased with the efforts O.B. had put in!
The Pro-Men category saw O’Brien round out the podium by taking 3rd after a close battle with u21 winner Jack Devlin, with just seconds between them. It started out as a tight fight for the top step between Rosco and the Lizard. Having consistently shaved seconds off every stage with his wagon wheels, Rosco took the podium by 11 seconds.
The Women’s category had quite a round-up with Team Happy’s Tracy Bisbin all the way from Spain taking a 3rd, Local legend and trail builder Hannah Harvey taking 2nd and Flow MTB rider Michelle Muldoon using her international riding experience to take the win.
For all the results check the Vitus First Tracks website here.
