A group of First Years attacked the trails in Ticknock recently with the L.A.B Project and Adam O Shea (Outdoor Pursuits Office Dun Laoghaire Youth Service.)
The group finished Week 6 of the L.A.B/Biking.ie Mountain Bike Maintenance and Trails Skills programme by finding out if the new Biking.ie Vitus Sentier rentals with Marzocchi Bomber Z2 forks could actually help you bomb down the flow trails in Ticknock.
And we bombed and bombed down the trails until we blew up!
We climbed the steep trails up to the the phone masts twice. (Well Mr. Doran climbed up the trail twice and some of the group pushed their bikes up but we won't dwell on that -there is nothing wrong with bringing your bike for a walk!)
So after blowing up going up the hill and getting back some energy from Leon's secret stache of jellies we descended the flow trail again and ripped around berm after berm testing the Magic Mary tyres to their limits.
With empty legs and muddy faces we gathered at the cabin for our group photo. Ian and Leon were MTB mentors for the afternoon and they showed the First Years the skills they learned doing the programme last year.
Shane was the 'Man of the Mountain' on this trip for his sheer determination in getting up all the climbs and his sheer enjoyment of the 'deadly' descents. He is a 'complete' mountain biker. He understands that whats goes up must come down. He gets stuck into the journey to the top so that he can 'rail' it on the way back down.
A Big Thank You (on behalf of the shredders) to Carl, Myles, Adam from the L.A.B Project and Leo from Biking.ie for a super stoked afternoon on the hill.
By Martin Doran (I still look fresh in the group photo don't I?)