Castlewellan Trail Quest 2024 Report
We’d no choice but to wait and it was certainly worth waiting for! This year seen the eventual return of our annual festive bike bash, the last being Christmas 2019. The setting of Castlewellan Forest Park never disappoints, and on this occasion nor did the weather with a welcome calm amid a season of storms! But the one thing that always makes the Castlewellan Trail Quest is the company and this year was certainly no exception.
For those unfamiliar with Trail Questing, it’s simply Orienteering on a Mountain Bike and in this case, using the awesome Castlewellan Mountain Bike Trails. The ultimate aim is to score more than the competition by correctly locating as many markers as possible within a two hour window.
To add to the challenge, the markers have differing values based upon their difficulty of access alongside bonus markers that are only available at set times within the two hours. Combine that with the risk of penalties for late returns and screaming legs pale into insignificance to just screaming.
The entry format is flexible with Open and Family categories, be it Solo, Teams of 2, 3, 4 etc, with participants on the day from 4 year old upwards. Many of those participating, albeit Mountain Bikers, were first timers Trail Questers, while many were well seasoned and returning competitors.
That said, with this years slightly more ‘discreet’ placements (well emphasized!), many of the more experienced got caught out as markers were a little less ride by and a little more forensic. Maybe not so reassuring for competitors but more for course setters was the fact that every marker was located at least once during the event!
All in all a fantastic day out, with a big thanks to everyone that helped put it on including our team at Life Adventure, the team at Castlewellan Forest Park and to all those who turned up to compete – we couldn’t do it without you.
Thanks also to competitor Conor McCullough for an awesome video of the day which can be seen here on his YouTube Channel… grab a cuppa and watch!
For now, just remember, it’s the taking part that counts!
See you next year!
RESULTS
Open
- 242 Harrowers Ride Again
- 238 Two Of The Bubble
- 237 Niall Gibney
- 219 Red Baron
- 183 Warren Campbell
- 179 Connect ‘Off Road’
- 172 Wrong Direction
- 169 Team AKA
- 159 Third Time Lucky
- 157 I’ll Be Fun She Said
- 134 Storm In A D-Cup
- 133 Thomas & Glynis
- 132 Hardly Matters
- 124 Second From The Bottom
- 123 Agivey Fat Cats
- 121 Brussel Sprouts
- 115 Weekend Warriors
- 107 James Connolly
- 99 Team Vacant
- 84 44 Stuff Daniel
- 79 Fat Bike Ian
- 44 Micky’s Ambulance Party
Family
- 171 Team Martin
- 165 Team Skye
- 148 MacPac CC
- 123 Team Murphy
- 122 The Winners – Rainbow
- 121 Troublesome Two
- 119 Team Graham
- 115 Team Dunlop
- 95 The Wild Geese
- 80 Alps Lads
- 56 Denvirs
- 12 Clara, Owen & Michael
