mountain biking in Trinity

[tommyv]

Hey guys,


I'm starting in Trinity this october, and so am trying to find out about mountain biking in Trinity. Does anyone know/know of Trinity students who mountain bike? I hope to get enough interest to get a club going. In the mean time I'm looking for people to bike with to show me the trails, etc, and just have a laugh with. Hopefully you guys will fit the bill! I'm out 2/3 times a week, into a little bit of everything, and fully willing to help out with any trail maintance, organising of events, etc.

[Scrivo]

Howiya Tommy, I meant to reply to you on Epic. I am starting in TCD this Oct too. There are two lads in MAD who are currently in TCD. From what I have been told, it is too difficult to start a new cycling club. Come along on a MAD spin sometime though. There is a good crowd of us in college/ thereabouts now.

[NigelS]

we can finally get this UCD Vs. Trinity thing going...


GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR


I think I'm gonna be on my tobler unfortunately :( Everyone is leaving

[tommyv]

Well thats something anyway!! What course you doing? And now for a bigger question, where can I keep my bike?

[Scrivo]

Bike- at home from what I hear. Apparently bikes going missing very quickly in trinity. Doing BESS. Yourself?

[paddyobrien]

back in days of yore when i was in trinity one of my brothers mates left his bike there overnight and came back the next day to find not only his bike missing, but they'd actually stolen the whole bike rack it was locked to as well.


Which means a flat bed truck of some sort in the middle of the night


which suggests a helping hand from the security guards there

[Barrydanzig]

pfft why bother with UCD vs. TCD, we all know DIT is where its at! however i had the same problem in DIT, there is no cycling club and i got very little interest when i tried to set one up.


as for safe storage of bikes in town, i recommend getting a hacker, that way people aren't attracted to your bike. it works for me! look at www.gumtree.ie for some bargain hackers and the odd time you'll find someone giving away a beast of a bike for nothing on the free trade website.

[tommyv]

Don't worry I won't be riding my good bike around town!! I'm doing science, was thinking about BESS alright but decided against it. Yeah I heard about the bike problem with Trinity, so a €50 pile of rust should deter any opportunists.

[Scrivo]

If there was enough interest, we could put the motion forward to the MAD committee to make a unniversity section of the club. Would benifit both the club as well as giving college people interested in the sport a club to go out with.

[tommyv]

You mean MADmtb, Uni Division? Could work, just posters up everywhere, what we really need though is funding, then we could get a few crappy bikes and helmets that we could lend to beginners on spins and get them into the sport.

[Scrivo]

Yeah MAD-uni. That would be deadly. We could approach some businesses for a bit of sponosrship. Wouldn't need to be much to buy a couple of basic bikes and some gear. I wonder do the college have anywhere to keep them though...

[TomH]

Hey guys,

I am in Trinity and approached DUCAC, thats the governing body for sports clubs within the college, about forming an mtb club. The story then was that I would need to form an unofficial club that would receive no funding from them, after two years the club could apply to become an official college club. However this could only occur if an existing club had ceased to exist as they have a cap on the number of official clubs.


It's not very encouraging really. I also approached a few mtb manufacturers about sponsoring a club but to to no avail. Perhaps if a group of us got together we could come up with something. It would be pretty sweet if we could get a club together, however if we wish to do it this year we would need to move quickly as freshers week is when everyone signs up to the various clubs and we would have to have a stall set up to get some members and funds in the coffers.

Tom

[TomH]

Steve,

I just saw your post now, as far as I am aware there are no rooms available but maybe that has changed, I will get in touch with DUCAC again and see how things lie,

Tom

[tommyv]

I think that is the main thing: somewhere safe to store/work on the bikes. I don't think rushing it a good idea, we should take our time and get a good following first.


This year set up an un-official club, get a hard core of experienced mountain bikers, link up with the other uni's.


Next year try and get some kit together, get freshers and beginners involved, try and get more funding.


The next year try to become official, maybe get a proper team together and go to events as a team. By taking time to get established we make sure we don't have a load of people joining just on a whim, and then never coming back again.


By the fourth year we will hopefully have an established club with enthusiastic mountain bikers of all kinds, a good following and support from within the college, good funding and enough SAFE storage space for club and member's bikes, as well as enough room to work on them as needs be.


Sounds like a lot to ask, but in my opinion entirely worth it in the end.

[oisinfitz]

trinity lads,

When i was in trinity last year i came very close to setting up a mountain bike club as part of the cycling club, only thing that stopped me was that i decided to change course. That way it would have gotten all the official recognition, money etc straight away. The club president was very supportive of this as it means more members and more funding for cycling in general. If you like this idea the president last year was nicolas cosgrave

[paddyobrien]

Lads, just my two cents but,


as a suggestion i'd set it up more as a cycling club rather a mountain biking club. You'd need to find a roadie, or someone willing to do for that side of the club what ye intend doing for the mountain biking side.


I'd imagine you'd get a greater membership that way, and there would be a good few people who's cross over between the two disciplines as well, or start as a roadie and then get into the mountain biking side of it. You may even get some cyclocross types (and those are the main offroad events that run during the college year)


Weight of numbers like that makes it much more attractive to any potential sponsors (a lot of the sponsors you'd be targeting deal in both aspects of the sport .. think shops, energy products, bike manufacturers) and would also help a lot when/if you get an opportunity to apply to be an official club.


Paddy

[paddyobrien]

ah .. already a cycling club there according to oisin

[tommyv]

I know about there being a roadie cycling club, but there is no on-line information about it, and some people are even telling me that it is unofficial, is on a waiting list, etc. I would have no problem joining up with roadies and having shared facilities, nor with joining up with other universities or even an outside club (ie, mad) just so long as I can keep riding. If the orad club is already established then that is the obvious way to go. Oisin if you have any contact details I would love to have them, I doubt much will get done during freshers week or the couple after it, best get as much as we can sorted now! So a quick count, we now have 4? mountain bikers in Trinity/going there? If we could just a get a group together to show that there is support for a mountian bike part of the cycling club, then that should surely speed things along.

[TomH]

Ok so does anyone have contact details for the Trinity Roadie Club?, if so send them onto me please at: heaveyt@gmail.com, thanks

[mel]

Have you counted me in? I'm starting a PhD in October in Trinity. Also, I've got some experience dealing with DUCAC when I was captain of the Trinity TKD club, so if there is anything I can do, let me know.

TomH, I'll send you the email of Nick who I know tried to organize something previously in Trinity.

[TomH]

Got that, thanks Mel, god the club is growing by the day.

[tommyv]

If your talking to him, make sure you get all contact details you can get, of everybody and anybody, the SU, cycling club, the big boss, everyone. Then we just work from the ground up. And don't say something like "we want to join the cycling club and turn it into a mountain biking club", just that we would like a platform to meet other mountain bikers in Trinity, with whom we can train together and even race together (I think stressing the race part would be good. Even if it's only and internal league, they would like to see us as a new way of gaining silver for the Trophey Cabinet, representing the college, etc, etc).


Also note that I am a member of Mountain Bike Club Cork (mbcc.ie), and anyone else who is a member of other clubs let TomH know, this way we show we're not just a bunch of newbies on bikes, or MAD trying to take over.

[TomH]

Tommy v,

I think it's fairly safe to say that I am not going to contact someone who helps to run and has built up a club and say something like "we want to join the cycling club and turn it into a mountain biking club", but thanks for the warning...


I guess at this stage we just want to see if they exist, and if they do would they be welcome to having an mtb branch of the club, depending on the answer to that we can progress.


In the meantime spread the good word and we'll get a few more numbers in our ranks

[tommyv]

Good to know! Sorry, but there are some retarded people out there so have to be careful. One of my mates from down here is also going to Trinity, he's not as big into it as I am but could count as another person on the list I guess.

[john]

I'm starting a p/t course in Trinity in Oct...add my name to the list...

[TomH]

There certainly are Tommy v...

[tommyv]

Right, so so far we have 5/6 people interested in mountain biking in Trinity, info for the guy who tried to do this before, a platform from which to start off on, I think we're more or less set. Tom, any info you find out post it up here, I'd say keeping everything in the one thread would make life easier.


Having talked to the guys from MBUL, apparently starting up a new club is a mixed blessing, the amount of paperwork involved is unreal. Seems joining up with the roadies is the best idea!

[mel]

The paperwork isn't actually that bad once the club is running I remember - most important things to sort are spending budget forms for equipment/race entries/travel etc.

[mel]

oh - and actually - I remember them basing budget partly on members, so the more members, the better, which translates into manning a fresher's week stand and getting as many people to sign up as possible (not sure if you have to already exist as a club for it, will try and find out).

[Sean]

Contact details for the secretary of DU cycling club can be found on the CI website. Nick Cosgrave is the listed name.

Which raises another point (and the one of the reasons I never joined DU Cycling when it kicked off 3 years ago...)- it is not possible to be a member of 2 CI affiliated clubs (incl MAD, MBCC and DU Cycling Club) simultaneously.

Plus, their red kit is nowhere near as nice as our green and black...


Sean

[TomH]

Ok Sean thats the same guy Mel contacted earlier. Any information gathered will be posted here but for the future I think an email list would be more suitable so mail me at heaveyt@gmail.com if you want to be kept up to date. Once we hear back from Nick Cosgrave we can decide on the next steps to be taken.


Setting up a club will obviously be time consuming and paperwork will be involved but that's par for the course.


Sean-That could be an interesting issue, so our UCD riders are all faux MAD riders!, we'll just have to deal with it one way or another. The latest MAD kit is where it's at for me.

[TomH]

Ok guys, this the last posting from me on this thread.

If you want to be kept up to date please email me at this address: heaveyt@gmail.com

I have been in contact with Nick Cosgrave and the people who provided me with their details were cc'd.

Sean the double club issue is easily resolved apparently.

[Sean]

What is the resolution?

[NigelS]

As far as i understand it's ok to join one uni club and one regular club. I don't race for UCD, so I don't see what the problem would be. University clubs and societies are surely considered to be different...no?

[TomH]

I don't know the intricacies of how it works but Nick Cosgrave, DU Cycling Club President, has assured me you can be in both. He apparently resolved this issue with Cycling Ireland last year.

[tommyv]

Just read the email there Tom, excellent stuff, just what needed to be said.

[Scrivo]

You're deadly at engerlish nd shtuff tom....