Belfast Rat Race
Scurry To Victory
Rick McKee www.tangoandcash.blogspot.com / 14.08.2008
The start was hilarious, as we were champing to hit the streets, but we ended up lapping the yard and scrabbling around the City Hall for 15 minutes with the initial quiz, before getting our Prologue checkpoints and marking them up, taking a bit longer than we were comfy with.
Striking out confidently round to the back of the City Hall, glad to be on the move at last, we had a minute or so of hesitation and animated debate halfway up Adelaide Street, where we suspected we were doing something gravely wrong in our route choice, but we finally got over it and scooted round the points in pretty good time. Everyone headed off in totally different directions, so there was no way to compare progress until we got back. We managed to grab the Leprechaun by his lucky charms on our way back to City Hall, and we were the first team onto the bikes and up Royal Avenue, a position we somehow managed to defend to the end of the race.
We struck for Cave Hill at a decent enough pace, but seemed to get every red light on the way, which was very frustrating, law-abiding citizens that we are. Arriving at the gates of Cave Hill to the smiling face of Ivan Millar, we tipped the bikes and headed off on the trek, Davy taking far too much time looking at the map and choosing the best route and all sorts of other really boring stuff, despite my protestations.
When we picked up the checkpoint above the quarry, we decided to head straight up the hill to the gravel walkers’ path, rather than head on round the dirt trail, as we knew from biking Cave Hill that it would be as slippery as an eel after all the rain, and we were wearing road runners with no grip. As we neared the top, we could see a few other teams clambering up the hill down round the quarry, about ten minutes away, so we battered on as best we could to keep a bit of distance.
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