Battle of the Boyne XC TT '13 // Race report

I just got back from Donore where I raced The Battle of the Boyne XC TT this morning. This was a charity event run by John Grifferty and all the money raised was donated to the Irish Youth Squad. 

Since the visitor centre is only about 45 minutes drive from Dublin I wasn't under any serious time pressure. Got up, had my brekkie and after my usual morning coffee I was on the way. 

You just gotta love the Sunday morning traffic!

After the quick drive I arrived to the carpark of the visitor centre there. Qucik prep and I was all set for the race. 

The visitor centre is a lovely looking place

Ready to roll :)

From the carpark we had to ride out to the start / finish point that was in the forest nearby. Basicly the race course was a nearly 5 km long XC loop with plenty of tasty stuff: fire road, forest trails, stinger climbs, loads of switch backs & tons of roots! Yumm, yumm, it was simply a small XC heaven indeed! :)

There was a 1 minutes time gap between the riders. I liked this a lot, there was this real TT feeling indeed. Go!! After the start it was basicly flat out as I expected it! The tough course demanded all the skills and focus I have to say. We had to do 2 laps on the course so I needed to pace myself well right from the beginning to make sure I won't get into trouble at the end. 

I crossed the finish line after 40 minutes and 50 seconds full on racing. I felt great and kind of had a feeling it was going well. After all the remaining riders crossed the finish line I just got the good news: I won! Happy days! :)

The coolest trophy for the winner! :)

This was a special day on the bike indeed: MTB TT events are definitely not usual (they should be 'cause they're so cool and also very challenging) and because it was a charity event that was supporting young Irish mountain bikers, I felt like I can help them a little bit. 

And on the top of that I won the race, so I'm very happy with how everything went for me today. Big thank you to the organizers for runnig the event and also to ThinkBike for the best team van for the race!