Maitland and Galway represent Killinchy CC at the Irish CX Nationals

Published by admin on January 11, 2016

Tollymore was the venue chosen by host and neighbouring club Dromara CC for the 2016 cyclo-cross national championships on the 10th January – and what a day it turned out to be! After weeks of rain we had a fresh crisp day with snow on the mountains overlooking this fantastic venue. The 2.8km course had everything, the pit lane was buzzing, great facilities and the support from the spectators made it a great event.

The day started off with the women, juniors and over 50 categories:

Ladies champ Beth McCluskey (club – unattached)

Junior champ David Conroy (Scott Bikes-Eurocycles.com)

M50 champ Des Woods (Newry Wheelers)

At noon the M40 category were called to the grid which included our very own Scott Maitland. This was actually Scott’s first race riding in a CX category having completed the Ulster series in the MTB support races. He rode amazingly well finishing in 16th place out of a field of 50 riders on a now well cut up course. He had great support from team mates in the pits, friends and family cheering him on!

M40 champ Robin Seymour (Team Worc)

Scott Maitland in action

Support crew

The final race of the day was the elite men’s 7 lapper at 2pm. After doing pit man for Scott, I (Ross) got warmed up (with a nice cup of tea!) and rolled down to the grid – just making it after forgetting my timing chip! Anyway the whistle blew and off I went narrowly avoiding a crash on the start straight. Keeping steady and finishing was my aim for this race and that’s exactly what I did concentrating on smooth pedalling in the muddy conditions and also not to crash! I changed bike at the end of lap 3 and boy what a difference a clean bike makes! Should have changed earlier. Big thanks to Scott and Colin McClements for assisting in the pits and cleaning the bikes. After seeing my lunch again and another bike change I finished up one lap down from the leaders in 36th place out of 50 riders. I was happy enough with this (especially for an all Ireland event) and my aim is to definitely train more for next season (I think I said that year!) Big thanks to our friends at Dromara CC for all the hard work in organising and to our supporting club mates who came down to join us.

Roll on next winter.

Rossy