Winter League 4th and final round- Cloon Wood

The Irish Winter League, the opener to the irish DH race season, culminated in a fast and challenging race at Cloon Wood Ireland at the end of Feb 07. The course was every bit as technical, fast and flowing as the first Cloon race of the year, only the weather added an extra dimension. It was slippy! The medic on the day spent more time at the local A&E dept than race side, always a good sign.

After a fall in his first run and catching up the rider in front on his second, Team Real Cycles / Commencal Vet rider Stevie D was none too pleased pulling in a 1.48 in both runs, it was enough to hold onto 2nd place but not enough to take out his new category rival Steve Bell who maintained a 6 sec lead to take first. Would he have taken first had he not had misfortune on both runs? Who knows. But Stevie does know he needs to step up a gear to take back his place at the top of the Vets podium.

Karl O’Sullivan the teams Junior rider just keeps getting faster, this time missing out on a second place by a tiny 2/10ths of a second! He settled for a well deserved 3rd place behind two other local riders. Karl has improved his placing with every race and he’s only going to get faster once his new team bike arrives.

Elite rider Stevo Beattie was the star of the day taking second place behind one half of the Wolfe Brothers, Ger Wolfe. Beating brother Dan Wolfe into third. Stevo was only two seconds off the first place pace which considering Cloon is the Wolfe brothers back yard, it’s a mighty result for him. Stevo has consistently improved his placing over each consecutive race in the winter league, so first place is his in the next home race!

Winter League- Overall

Two words describe how our new team performed at the Irish Winter League: We dominated.

Stevie D won the Vets cat overall, Stevo took third in Elite and Karl took third in juniors. For a brand new team, with riders on brand new bikes, this is a fantastic result and will give the guys the confidence to go forward and take top spot in future home races.

Moving forward some of the guys will be racing at the forthcoming Maxxis cup in Portugal, from there it’s into the Irish NPS In April where Senior rider Pete McDonagh will be making his long awaited return to racing.

Thanks to everyone who got behind the team, Madison for the support from Commencal & Shimano, Ison for Halo wheels, Silverfish for Intense Tyres and MTB Distribution for Nuke Proof Ti springs for the shock.