Dry, fast and very technical was the way everyone described the new Cloon track which played host to the first round of the Irish NPS. Some were even heard to be complaining about the track being too hard, wise up!

The Real Cycles / Commencal team were out in force barring one rider who has now "officially" retired from DH racing (more on that down below), and in every contested category our riders were contenders.

The course itself was very flowing with little or no need to pedal: Working the track features and pumping the course were the order of the day, demonstrated no better than by top Irish rider Ben Reid who astounded everyone by appearing to float the trail and win Elite with an impressive 6 sec lead.

However Team Real Cycles / Commencals Elite Stevo Beattie was not to be out done by attacking the course in his usual style to pull in third spot behind Ger Wolfe who took second. Stevo was carrying a hand injury on the day. Shortly after the race Stevo, who is already no stranger to the world circuit, got selected to ride for the Irish squad. Great news for Stevo and great news for the Team. Well done big lad.

In Vets Stevie Davidson took the win, by 6 seconds, and he says he was taking it easy! Stevie is becoming accustomed to winning, how long will it last?

Karl O'Sullivan our junior rider had a blistering day putting in a fast first run, then even faster second run to take 3rd. This was Karls first race on his new Team edition Commencal Supreme DH bike only having gotten it 2 days previous, so the result is all the more impressive. Karl also got selected to race on the Irish squad, well done.

Peter McDonagh marked his return to competitive racing with a fantastic 4th position in Senior, Pete has more or less been off the bike for 18 months due to an injury and has scared everyone with his imediate return to form. The podium awaits Pete for sure.

And finally, SteveB has anounced with immediate effect his retirement from DH racing. To date this year he's suffered a broken rib and bust knee and has decided, in his own words "I'm too old for this shit". He was last seen training on a local XC course and has started weighting his bike, lots.

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.   more »

Sunday 4 Feb saw round 3 of the Irish Winter DH League return to Moneyscalp forest in Northern Ireland, the weather was fine, the ground was firm (ish!) and the riders were ripping. None more so than Team Real Cycles / Commencal, with 3 riders racing and 3 podiums on the day. It don't get much better than that!   more »

Sunday 14th January saw the opening race of the 2007 Irish DH season with round one of the Chain Reaction Cycles Winter League. Held at Moneyscalp forest, the inaugural home of official DH racing in Northern Ireland this season opener always sees a good turn out with most of the sponsored Irish international riders still at home and keen to prove they are still the best.    more »

Well it's out there. Finally Team Real Cycles has gone official. Here is the press release we erm, released:

Over the past few years the downhill race scene in Ireland has gone from strength to strength. Race promoters are staging better organised races on better tracks than ever before, and more and more riders are turning up to race week in week out.

Halo wheels have a reputation for being immensely strong. Which is what you want when your racing DH on them. When your at the start gate and the start gate dude is counting down, you don't want to be wondering if your wheels are going to survive that rock garden or still be round after that jump. You need to have complete confidence that at the end of the run your wheels are going to still be round and still going round!

That's why when we went looking a wheel sponsor the first door we knocked on was Halo. And the man from Del Monte said yes!

So the boys will be running white Halo wheels on their white Commencal Supreme DH's.

How cool? 

Wow, things sure have moved fast on this one in the last week or so. First off we got our first choice elite rider, then better still he announced he wanted to ride a Commencal. Then our Vet rider said the same, so a few phonecalls later and Team Real Cycles / Commencal was born. And now things are starting to get very serious indeed!

The two main guys (elite & vets) will be be on Commencal Supreme DH frames with their own choice of builds (Fox 40's, Mazzie 888, etc.) Our other vet rider (me!) will be on a Supreme6.1 and our senior rider will be on an as yet undecided Commencal.

We're still talking to a clothing sponsor but most likely now it'll be Commencal who provide it, which would make sense being that the complete range in going to available in store pretty soon.

The frames for the guys have started to arrive in, and my god they're a weapon. Long and low, with built in chain device, 150mm rear hub, adustable head angle and adjustable wheel base, these things are built for one purpose: To be very fast. If the lads can't podium on board these, they ain't ever gonna podium! Pete will get some pics of the frames up tomorrow.

The team will be officially annonced soon, in the mean time the rumour mill will continue to turn over on MTBrider.  

A shop DH team has been talked about seriously for several years now, but never came to fruitition (sp?). We last came very close at the end of last year, but a supplier who was going to back the team with us went bust and balls'd that one up. But finally, at last we're almost there.

A few of the riders are so far confirmed, the "star" name has yet to be, erm, named, although we're in deep discussions with someone at the moment. All that can be confirmed at this moment in time is that for 07 Real Cycles will field a DH team, they will defo be riding bikes, a clothing co-sponsor will hopefully be onboard and we'll most like not be taking things too seriously (much to the disappointment of the co-sponsor: Expect that partnership to be pretty short lived!)

More soon. (Ish).