Mountainbiking Association of Dublin

Folks,

Just been talking to Sean to discover he got taken out by a car while out on the bike today, but thankfully has nothing more serious than bruised ribs and a whole lotta cuts, grazes, bruises and interesting patterns.

I know from personal experience how quickly this can happen and how painful it can be, so be careful out there and keep those helmets no matter how short a trip you’re doing.

Just think we should all join in wishing him a speedy recovery cos hes had a long time off the bike already, and we were hoping to finally having him back on the bike at races rather than randomly flinging water bottles from the sidelines.

Paddy

Howdy,

WOW a blog post from Dave? What is this you ask?

Well I realised that our illustrious leader hadn’t written about the upcoming weekends biking for a while and neither had anyone else. I’m willing to chalk it down to excitement over the k-caps and all that other racing malarkey. But for those of us who aren’t quite able for the physically demanding and epic cycling that is competitive racing I thought it’d be nice for someone to talk about a weekend of regular biking.

So without further ado (and to stop myself from rambling too much) I present to you:

DAVE’S GUIDE TO THIS WEEKENDS SPINS

*Disclaimer: There will be no desert or army related spins, also that is not me in the pic (more…)

It was a combination of cold, sunny, windy, rainy, icy, crunchy-mucky, misty, snowy and downright miserable weather on Saturday and Sunday (though Saturday was pretty nice in fairness) but that was no reason not to be out biking!

Drop a line in the blog and let us know how you got on…

There was a fair bit of it, especially Saturday with the spin across to Ballinastoe,
then there was the Awesome Club Chairman racing over in the west….
Drop a line in the blog and let us know how you got on…

Howdy MAD ladies!
Beth McCluskey and Richie Byrne from EPIC are looking to run some Women-Specific mountainbiking training days with Glyn O’Brien.
Glyn is a very skilled and succesful MTB’er who runs training courses at all levels for various MTB disciplines - this will be for intermediate XC/cross-country skills training.

The proposed dates are either 9th February or 8th of March, both are Saturdays.

This kind of training is very beneficial both for casual biking and also for racing as your new found skills and awareness will help you overcome technical/difficult terrain and thus increase your sense of achievement and enjoyment of mountainbiking.

For further detail please contact Richie Byrne at richie.byrne@gmail.com or ring him on 0876376065.

Full coverage of the event is available on Irishcycling.com and you can download the results here. There are loads of photos from Arek, Sean and Ryan too

Well, here it is, it has driven me into near-dementia trying to put it together
as my editing software is rubbish, so this is as much as I can put together without throwing the computer outta the window.

I tried the YouTube route and the video ends up looking rubbish so it is linked-off the picture below.

Give it time to download and then watch it.

Alternatively, download the AVI file here, but note it will expire on Thurs 8th Jan.
If someone wants to upload the file to a faster server then by all means give it a go.

If you don’t see yourself in it, then you were obviously going way too fast, slow down, have a mince pie….

Fergal

- Wednesday 26th (St. Stephen’s Day)

Time for our traditional post-turkey special social spin again folks!
Assemble in various states of wellbeing for the usual fare of banter, laughs, hangovers, oh and some biking too…at Taylor’s Pub at 11am.

On-bike nutrition may include, but is not limited to, mince pies, Christmas pudding and dry sherry.

All are welcome.

Sean

After months of pressure from JP the Leadmines beginners ride video finally comes to light. Surely the product of a diseased mind. Where are all these guys? I’m expecting to see most of you in Ballinastoe this Sunday…

Hi All,

Martin has booked a date in February for a one day skills course for MAD in Newry with First Tracks Guiding

He’s hoping to get a minimum of 8 people to head up to the one day course. There is a fee, not much, which will cover a full days riding and coaching.

The course is ideally for riders which have started mtbing in the last year and are looking to gain more confidence on the bike and get tips from the professionals on trail riding, uphill and dh skills (http://www.firsttracksguiding.com/guides.html).

If successful, there will be follow on courses and they may even come to Dublin for larger groups / coaching for the more experienced lads.

Cost is about €200 for five people (€40 each) if we get eight it will only cost €25.

Yes, we will need cars to get there and its about 1.30min from Dublin in Big Wood (original name) Newry (jut across the border) so if you can volunteer to car pool please do.

So far three people have signed up.

If anyone is interested please contact Martin and if you can car pool would be great.

If the demand is high I can book 2 coaches to take more out.