{"id":676,"date":"2011-03-27T12:09:12","date_gmt":"2011-03-27T12:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irishxcmtb.com\/?p=2319"},"modified":"2011-04-05T21:29:03","modified_gmt":"2011-04-05T21:29:03","slug":"xc-nps-1-track-a-rider%e2%80%99s-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/27\/xc-nps-1-track-a-rider%e2%80%99s-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"XC NPS Round 1 Track: A Rider\u2019s Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A group of riders from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.madmtb.com\">MADMTB<\/a> set off from Dublin yesterday for an eagerly anticipated test spin around the superbly engineered <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irishxcmtb.com\/2011\/03\/24\/xc-nps-2011-rnd-1-preview\/\">NPS #1<\/a> track in Bellurgan Park Co. Louth, which had previously been used for last year&#8217;s Leinster League race (and also the 12hr Bellurgan challenge).<br \/>\nSee the video below, or watch it on <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/21547401\">Vimeo<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/21547401?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"597\" height=\"336\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><br \/><!--more--><br \/>\nThe grounds of Bellurgan are very easily accessible, only approx. 45 mins drive from the north side of Dublin, and pretty-much motorway the whole way up. Driving into the grounds, a steamroller was busy at work compatcing stone along the driveway, the sun had just come up and the morning mist was burning off nicely.<\/p>\n<p>Out of the cars and onto the bikes &#8211; we picked-up the trail and got motoring. We were instantly very impressed with the amount of work that Tony Kelly and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cuchulainncc.com\/?page_id=152\">Cuchulainn<\/a> superman (and superkids) had put into the climb. The winding switchbacky climb which caused a few wheelspins in the wet conditions last year had been totally transformed into a traction-fest with the addition of stone\/hardcore so all the power laid down was put into moving us up the hill.<\/p>\n<p>A deceptive climb &#8211; it does not look steep but it certainly gave the legs a wake-up and swiftly ramped the heart-rates into the upper zones.<\/p>\n<p>The two technical features added to the course will provide a time advantage for riders with the skills to pay the bills &#8211; the first &#8211; a nice steep drop has been solidly constructed, up to the lip, roll over off the brakes, then either over the rock wall or the ladder bridge. The second feature &#8211; a gap jump &#8211; is another solidly constructed affair &#8211; pretty much everyone nailed this one straight off &#8211; all you need to do is pick a nice pace up to it and just float over to the landing, the big sweeper berm catches you nicely and then you&#8217;re off again.<\/p>\n<p>After that, there&#8217;s a huge amount of brilliantly flowy singletrack, with just enough rocky and rooty testers built in to keep the speed and flow while still testing your skill. This is without a doubt an exceptional course &#8211; reminiscent of Kilruddery (brief section of garlic scented singletrack!) and Glen of the Downs in places &#8211; the first snowdrops of the year had poked their little white heads out to see what all the fast fuss was about!<br \/>\nThis is going to be a great race.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.irishxcmtb.com\/racing\/event-registrations-by-category\/\">Register online<\/a> now and get yourself up to it next week &#8211; see you all there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of riders from MADMTB set off from Dublin yesterday for an eagerly anticipated test spin around the superbly engineered NPS #1 track in Bellurgan Park Co. Louth, which had previously been used for last year&#8217;s Leinster League race (and also the 12hr Bellurgan challenge). See the video below, or watch it on Vimeo [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[125,126,122,26,54,124,123,53],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-xc","tag-bellurgan","tag-cuchulainn-cc","tag-media","tag-nps","tag-online-registration","tag-video","tag-vimeo","tag-xc-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.offroadcyclingireland.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}