Race Report: 2013 Irish Gravity Enduro Round Three – Dublin
The Gravity Enduro roadshow stopped off at Three Rock Mountain overlooking the Irish capital this weekend for another sell out electric event!
Three Rock at 1470 feet overlooks the Capital city with panoramic views of the city, bay and Irish Sea to the north and east, with the picturesque Wicklow Mountain range to the south. The mountain is a popular destination with Outdoorsy folks and is criss crossed with waymarked hiking and walking trails and is also home to Coillte’s Ticknock Mountain Bike Trails, an 8km figure of eight loop of purpose built singletrack featuring some impressive technical trail features considering the short lap length.
Gravityenduro.ie took some of the fastest elements of the official trails and combined them with some loamy forest descents, rocky fire breaks and tough natural singletrack to make up 5 special stages to delight and challenge the competitors.
Aside from setting an adequate level of difficulty for the competitors to enjoy and being taped wide to give plenty of line choice the stages were also chosen, with the weather in mind, so that they would be rideable no matter what the heavens chose to throw at it!
It is Ireland after all, and after ten days of uninterrupted sunshine, it felt like the missing ten days of rain landed on the hill on Friday evening, with more of the same forecast for Saturday and Sunday.
However, the Enduro gods must have been smiling though, as the forecasted rain never materialised and the riders had pretty much perfect riding conditions for both practise and the race.
As we mentioned earlier, the event was yet another sell out with good representation from club, private and some sponsored riders in the mix.
Racing was close with only three minutes overall separating the top twenty riders, with a representative from each of the age categories appearing at least once in the score sheets. Probably the most impressive of these being Bespoke Cycles Paul Cummins and Biking.ie’s Conor Lavelle scoring 8th and 11th from the 19-29 & 14-18 categories respectively.
It was impressive and encouraging also that in each of the age categories that very little separated the podium finishers in every class.
The day belonged to one man however. Dirt Norco Race Team’s Greg Callaghan had a dominant victory with a clean sweep of all the 5 stages to claim the overall and Male Pro prizes, despite round 2’s victor Dan Wolfe threatening to nick Stage 3 from Callaghan, as only 2 seconds separated them in the end on this!
Full results here.
Another brilliant weekend then from the Biking.ie team, with the next race on the calendar being the National Champs on the 10th/11th August 2013 at Ballinastoe, Co. Wicklow.
Entries are open now, and this is also likely to be another full house so make sure to get yours in early to avoid disappointment. Link to entries here.
Some event photos here.
Words: Alan Duffy, Pictures: Alan & Marta Duffy/Action Pictures Ireland
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