Carlingford NPS 3 09 Results

[MarkK]

Girls and Boys ...

http://www.mtbireland.com/news.php?readmore=72

Very very tough course, I really struggled.  Where are all the Sports riders ?  Did Ben M. not finish ?  Are the final times correct ?

[Ben]

Bizarre.  I was pulled after 3 laps and rightly so.  He said he was making me as lapped so i should have been down as finished.  Not too worried though...

I crashed on the first lap and was way way behind.  Had started to pull people back but had nothing left and glad I stopped now.  Am in bits today, elbow is the size of a tennis ball and really sore.  Cuts and scrapes all over too.  I don't think I was the only one either.

[Paul]

There are no times, laps or positions for sports other than the top 3 mark..... its very poor for an NPS.I can only guess where i finished.! ... Course was great, but tough.!

Ben had a bad fall and got pulled after 3 laps i think.

[tadhg]

yea ben ill join u in that club...my knee was huge this morning...its gone down a bit now...but i have cuts and scrapes all over...ahh well we'll live

[Joe J]

well done all ,Great win Mike!Sounds like a though course.Couldnt make it myself (back injury).See ye all tomorrow night.

[MarkK]

Not listing all who started is bad form ... looked at there forum and it seems that they  stopped taking times on finishers early too.  Plus, no DNFs ...

It was hard, I have a swollen left knee from my spill and on lap 4 cramp kicked in badly in my right leg ... would have liked to see lap times because lap4 killed me !

Whens the next NPS ? 

[Ben]

When I was signing on they were missing riders coming through from Sports.  They weren't really bothered taking down numbers which was a bit disappointing despite a girl sitting in a car with the laptop timing system.  Seems weird and a bit insulting too.  If thats what they want to do then the signon for sports should be much cheaper.

Anyone else think 4 laps for Experts and Masters was a bit long?  The Masters winner took over 2 hours, never mind the rest of the field.  I thought the general concensus was to reduce the length of all categories to encourage people to move up and fill up Elites a bit more? 

Fair play to Mike - on a single speed too!

[Paul]

For the sports race i thought the distance was ok...Worked out at 15km on my gps, double the last race. Maybe 12 to 14km would have been better considering it was a tough course... But it way better than the last race in terms of the trails..!!
The disappointing thing is the times, positions and the bunched start with us and the u14 & u16 all going off with in 10 seconds of each other. I think they did the same for the senior races.

I did that race 11 mins quicker than last year but got the same finishing position (i think). So has sports got much faster or were the times from last year just dodgy too.? 

[michaelc]

I think the organisers were seriously stressed out yesterday and (probably) didn't know what they were doing. Late starts, finishing races running into starting races & cars etc.

[MarkK]

Michael ... cars were there to give you that Tour De France mountain stage feel 

[Ben]

I had a bit of that car action too.  Right at the start aswell, some muppets in the middle of the road trying to get to the top car park at ten to two.  Total joke, all standing around arguing.  Was tempted to take the side off one of the cars but I'm too nice a guy.