CLARION RIDERS TOUGH ON TRACK
Mixed mountain biking conditions at events
West Lothian Clarion’s mountain bikers have been in action recently with a string of great displays.
Ronan Ratcliffe headed south to contest the fourth round of the Borders Mini Downhill competition at Ae Forest.
He impressed on loose, dusty tracks, coming home in fourth place in the 13-14 age category.
He said: “During practice, I was feeling fast and I was ready for my run. Approaching the start gate I had butterflies in my stomach but I was ready to go for it, flying down the hill, hands off the brakes. I had a few dabs on corners and almost crashed a couple of times but felt like I had put in a solid run”.
Meanwhile, Sarah and Johnny Darling and Rhuairdh Fulton were racing at Alyth. This event consisted of four races – a pump track challenge, a hill climb, a downhill race and a crit race (laps of a circuit).
The riders all impressed, with Sarah taking two first places and two second places in the stages to achieve second overall in the under- 12 category. Johnny performed well across all events to take sixth place in the under-10 category, and Rhuairdh dominated all of the events in the under- 8 category to take first place.
Ronan was back in action a few days later at Comrie for the ‘Cream O’ the Croft’ enduro event.
On the Saturday, for the main enduro, conditions were much wetter, meaning there were slippy roots and rocks to contend with.
He had good runs during the first three stages, but suffered a number of crashes on the fourth stage.
The weather and racing began to take its toll and by the final two stages, fatigue was really starting to show.
After three hours in the saddle, though, Ronan had proved himself equal to the challenge and came away with second place.
The next day, in rather better conditions, Ronan was joined by club-mates Jamie Watson, Mairi Dowens and Cori Outram for the mini enduro event.
Ronan threw everything at the five short stages, and was ultimately pushed into second place in the 1213 category. Jamie put in a strong performance to take sixth place in the 10-11 age category. Mairi and Cori also impressed, taking first and second in the 6-7 year olds girls’ category.
Rhuaridh was also back in action at the next round of the Kingdom Crits race in Dunfermline, again taking away a win in the under-8 category while younger brother Alasdair impressed in his first under-8 event.