On Sunday, Dromara Cycling Club held the fifth in their series of Winter Trail Quests raising funds for the Northern Ireland Cancer Fund for Children. The event headquarters for this round was based at one of the charity’s main sites at Shimna Valley just outside Newcastle in County Down. These mountain bike orienteering events attract a wide range of participants as they offer a challenge for all teams regardless of fitness levels, experience or map reading skills. The aim of the Trail Quest is to try to find as many of markers as possible in either the 2 hour or 3½ hour time limit. The teams, which can be made up of up to three riders, start at one minute intervals when they receive a copy of the event map, an answer sheet and a pen. The map for this round had 33 markers spread across the area from Newcastle to Castlewellan and as far west as Meelmore Lodge.

With the recent cold spell over this event attracted the biggest turn out so far for the series with 91 riders making up 41 teams. The first team away was “The Maryland 2 rides again” (Jon Kay & Julie Murphy) who started at 10:31 am. They had some bad luck today when they lost their answer sheet somewhere on route and had to recall from memory the information written on the markers. The last team away was “Young Guns” with father and son duo Derek and Zak Hanna who were completing the 2 hour event. They are currently leading the junior series. It was great to have four junior teams taking part, three of them for the first time, and they all really enjoyed the event.

The event was won by team "Retro Grouch", Mark Forrester & Glenn Cobain, both of whom are with Team Madigan Cycling Club. Retro Grouch had also won the first round of the series and today finished with 550 points out of a possible 620. Team "The Star Fangled Banner" made up of Dromara CC riders Phil O'Neill and Geoff Brown, who will be hosting the event next week, scored 528 points. Nearest rival "Lucky Red Sox", made up of solo rider and seasoned orienteer Ivan Millar, achieved 509 points . The only other team achieving 500 points was series leader, team "Nocturnal”, comprising Martin McMullan and Lawrence Hamilton. The all-women adventure racing team, Bikedock Belles, had a string of bad luck with multiple punctures etc and had to pull out after one hour having managed to not make it to the first marker.

Also as part of the fund-raising effort Dromara Cycling Club had organised a leisure run which involved twelve road cyclists leaving Dromara village and taking a picturesque route around the county to arrive at Shimna Valley around 1 pm for food. This coincided with the return of the four teams who were completing the 2 hour event. The main bulk of the mountain bike orienteers started arriving back around 2 pm hurriedly leaving back in their answer sheets before incurring any late return penalty points. The riders were then able to tuck into the excellent soup, sandwiches and treats laid on by the catering staff in the centre, while sitting around discussing the day’s adventure.

With over 100 cyclists taking part in the event, the money received has greatly increased the overall total for the series. Dromara Cycling Club now expects to meet our target of £3,000 as a donation for the Northern Ireland Children's Cancer Charity at Shimna Valley.

Many thanks to Trevor Annett, club secretary for Dromara Cycling Club, for setting up the markers for this round of the trail quest series and to the catering staff at the centre who provided the much needed grub.

The last round of the Winter Trail Quest Series will take place on Sunday 24 January 2010 at Paddy's Barn, Saul, Downpatrick. Pre-entry is now available from the club's website.