Tango and Cash

Singlespeed World Championship 2011, Ballyhoura, 27 August

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:52:00 +0000

Team TrailBadger descended upon Ballyhoura MTB trails in force, just managing to nick fourth place on the day. Thanks to Ivan's mum for making the very comfortable badger outfits.

See photo album on Facebook

The TrailBadger squad - Ivan, Lavabo, Enda, Davy, Steve, Rick

A strong finish for Tango & Cash, but plenty of rehab required for the trashed bikes

Blessingbourne MTB Trails

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:06:00 +0000

We are doing an article in Uberdog for TrailBadger in May, and we were fortunate enough to get a preview of the new MTB trails at Blessingbourne, Fivemiletown, on 15 April. Top class!

Totalling around 8km, the red and blue grade trails, skills loop and pump-track are set to open to the public in mid-June, a deadline that we hope hasn't been put back due to our unplanned falls wrecking bits of the trails!

The trails are superb - check out the photos linked below - we think this place is going to be a real hit.

More photos of our day on Facebook

Photos of the Blessingbourne Trails

Blessingbourne Estate Website

Ripping up the new pump-track - Photo kindly supplied by Michelle Brady - Visit Michelle's Facebook page

Say "Nay!" to a Lap of Lough Neagh

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 22:54:00 +0000

The idea was simple – dander round Lough Neagh.

We’d been doing no running, so rather than set off at a gallop and run out of gas after ten miles, we reckoned that if we took our time and just strolled it, we’d be grand and were in for a long but nice day out if the weather held. How wrong we were!

Crossing the viaduct in Randalstown, burning with enthusiasm for the day ahead

We left Antrim at 6:15am on Saturday morning heading anti-clockwise towards Randalstown. The weather was cool and clear; perfect, and so it stayed for the day. By the time we had reached Randalstown, the blisters had appeared in earnest. A quick phone-call and shoe-change in Toome eased things for a few miles, then the blisters got worse, they all burst, and the real misery began.

The only things of any interest on the entire trip were:

A squashed hedgehog just south of Ballyronan
A quick hello to Jim Clements, the farmer who had kindly welded a pedal on for us to allow us to continue our last trip round the lough
A frightening canoe-ride across the Bann at Bannfoot in the most unstable boat we’ve ever been in – how we stayed out of the water, I’ll never know

Aside from that, it was all mind-crushingly dull. Our thanks to Seth and Dale for sorting the canoe, saving us from having to walk into Portadown for a bridge.

We made it as far as Friar Tucks chip shop in Lurgan (the guts of 50 miles), and even before we sat down we knew the dream was over. We were both in considerable anguish, but my own flagging pace ultimately ended our day. Our thanks to Rory Culbert for his support at Friar Tucks.

We had originally planned to finish back in Antrim at about 2am, but quick calculations, based on the speed we were going at approaching Lurgan due to our pulverised joints, suggested that we would still be walking closer to 2pm! So it was sausage suppers and Coke for two, and we called the cavalry to get us home.

This was unquestionably the most boring and relentlessly painful thing we have ever attempted, just pure monotony and nothing to think about except tarmac, blisters and grinding bone. An awful day out. Never again...

Tango tastes Tayto twixt the Toombridge tulips

We already knew from experience that this was a boring enough cycle, so why the devil didn't we realise it would be a simply mind-numbing walk?!

Hello? Hello? Davy's so tired, he doesn't yet realise it's actually his mobile ringing.

All aboard the Skylark! Crossing the Bann, close to the end of our trip. It felt more like crossing the River Styx

Hip Replacement Surgery

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:41:00 +0000

Happy days, July 2006 - delight at the arrival of our On One 456 frames

One of the bikes built up, brand spanking new and ready for the Transalp Challenge.

March 2011 - five years later, it's time for some TLC on the bottom bracket. Thanks to Bugsy for the surgery.
The old girl will be back in business in no time.

Zoo to Zoo, Via Everywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:36:00 +0000

Starting from the Zoo at 08:30 am on Friday 11 March, our plan was to basically explore as much of the off-road stuff around Belfast that we could before tea-time.

The route we took is here - bits of it I am sketchy on precise route, through all the singletracky stuff, as we were back and forth and all over the place. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4342531

A great day’s fun, well over 50km, but no speed records were broken. It was like the tortoise and the hare, except the hare was run over and killed on the road by a truck and replaced by another tortoise.

The tortoise and the tortoise, Cave Hill, just before we finished.

We parked on the entrance drive at the Belfast Zoo, fixed the puncture we'd got with the bike on the roof(!) hopped across the main road, turned left then immediately right opposite Pizza Hut and nipped down through Valley Park down to the Valley Leisure Centre.

Entrance to Valley Park, just down from the NI Hospice building

A quick skite round the old BMX track down in the corner below Valley Leisure Centre, we headed to the main road again and across it down Glas-na-Braden Glen.

Super winding singletrack on Glas-Na-Braden Glen took us along the river all the way down to the Shore Road. To get this singletrack rather than the tarmac path, you need to turn right just after you enter the glen and go down a set of steps made out of breezeblocks.

Across the Shore Road, under the railway bridge, and out onto the cycle path alongside the M2 motorway, all the way into town, through Clarendon Dock and the city centre.

The Big Fish; in front of one of Belfast's most recognisable landmarks

We followed the Lagan cycle route down to Ormeau Park, and headed in for a quick blast round the XMTB singletrack, which was great fun but pretty darn slippery! A great spot for more proper trails to be considered.

We had a great chat with a very nice old fellow on a Dawes Super Galaxy, who stopped to give his assistance when we were fixing a puncture. He then proceeded to tell us of the folly of standard bicycles, the wisdom of the recumbent, and of his many biking adventures in 'Deutschland'.

The view from Belvoir. Yep, we're going back over all that later.

We headed on down the Lagan (on the other side of the river than shown on map), and rattled round Belvoir and the Real Cycles MTBRider.com built trails.

The Real Cycles MTBRider.com log-ride - slippery, but still doable!

Stopping off in the Lock-keepers Inn, we enjoyed some great breakfast and plenty of banter with occasional adventure racing foes Craig and Joe, who joined us for refreshments. Full of bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, muffins and a sneaky Star Bar, all of which took us about an hour, we stopped in with the folks from CAAN at Barnett's Demesne to say hello and congratulate them on their great work on MTB trail development, and were given a guided tour of the fantastic facilities at the Befast Activity Centre. From there, it was out to the bumps, jumps and berms at Mary Peters track, then we headed out to Sir Thomas & Lady Dixon Park for another snuffle around the trails.

Tayto across the world - the Taj Mahal, Sydney Opera House, The Eiffel Tower, and of course Tesco in Dunmurry

From Dunmurry, we lit for Colin Glen along the road; Colin Glen is brilliant! It’s a winding tarmac path climb which turns to rough stone then singletrack, but along sections of it right beside the river there is singletrack snaking parallel to the main path. When you get under the road bridge then up to a long set of wooden steps, go up the steps. The other way looks tempting, but it peters out and you will end up clambering around in the muck and branches and having to ford the river a couple of times and scrabble through a quarry (which is the way we went, clearly!)

Popping out the top of Colin Glen, we then went up the road to Divis & Black Mountain, just climbing on the tarmac, stopping off briefly with the lads building the extension to the Black Mountain boardwalk, who were doing all the joinery out of the rain, in the National Trust shed at the Divis car park.

Hard at work, helping to extend the boardwalk on Black Mountain

The fruits of our labour - not bad for an afternoon's work.

The snow was just starting to fall properly, so we didn’t hang about on Divis & Black and we took the rough stone path back over towards Cave Hill, passing through Wolf Hill Quarry and going over the top of Squire’s Hill on the way.

Onto Cave Hill via the Upper Hightown Road car park, the legs were starting to hurt on the final steep climb, and we were mighty glad to reach the summit, as the weather was now descending into farce.

It was on the summit that we met Elise, a very nice young lady from Boston, MA, who was out enjoying the Irish weather (it was sleeting hard at this point!) and looking for hike recommendations. We had a good chat and a laugh and then bade her farewell in the sleet and snow. Rather than hooking round to the right and down Cave Hill, we stayed left, down the wooden steps, and took the trails round towards the zoo again, which were fantastic fun and very slippery. We had to hop over one fence, then had a nice grassy path to a stile, which dropped us right back to the car again on the zoo driveway – perfect!

CCAR Castle Ward, 15 March

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:10:00 +0000

Photos courtesy of Uberdog, Ireland's only outdoor and extreme sports magazine

Our first adventure race in 18 months, we had not been wasting our time and had been carbo-loading relentlessly in the interim. Miraculously, all the hard work paid off, and we were delighted to just nick second place in a hard-fought CCAR race at Castle Ward on 5 March. Well off the pace of race winners Passing Wind, we were just ahead of the overall race series winners Dogleap, who just had a bad day at the office.

Lord and Lady Tango & Cash take a jaunty carriage ride around their extensive Castle Ward grounds

We couldn’t believe the turn-out of over 50 teams for the race, the final race of the CCAR 2010/11 series, as CCAR had been struggling for numbers last time we’d raced. Great to see the sport really taking off, and Ivan Park and CCAR still at the heart of it.

Early confusion

Following Ivan’s race briefing at HQ, we rolled down on the bikes to the estate house for the start. We were sent off sequentially, starting our timers as we crossed the line, and once we got the nod we set off hard downhill on foot to pick up our first map. There was a bit of mayhem as all the teams seemed to have been given the other map from the one they’d expected, but knowing Ivan, that was deliberate and all part of the fun. Confusion reigned for a time!

After morning prayers, the staff gathered themselves for some marching drills, before serving tea in the drawing room.

We rattled round the two 3-point orienteering loops in sharp enough fashion, but it took us a while before we realised that the thicket shapes marked on the map actually bore no resemblance to those we experienced – but hey, they grew, I guess!

Scotsman

We lifted map C and legged it out of the field round the estate path alongside another team (one of ‘em was a Scotsman, bless him), and we reckoned the only folks in front of us were Passing Wind and Dogleap, who had been joined at the hip for the whole orienteering bit and were absolutely flying.

We were neck and neck with this other team as far as the checkpoint on the gate, where we decided to take a direct route back to HQ while the other chaps took the path. This worked a treat for us, as we had completed and left the wooden skis task without seeing the other guys, who as it turned out, had made a wrong turn on the path.

Damp

Back down to the estate house for the window count, we hopped onto the bikes and followed the arrows to the kayak transition point. Third team on the water, about ten minutes behind the leaders, we took our chance to give both Passing Wind and Dogleap a damn good soaking as they passed us on their return trip.

Further soakings were administered to Surf’n’Turf and Get No Sleep, whom we met on our own return trip. After much tee-heeing, it was only later that we did our sums and realised that we were worst off, as they only had one soaking each, but we got soaked 4 times – we’ll know for again.

Out of the boats and onto the bikes, we looped up to the cairn and some other stuff I’ve forgotten, and back to kayak transition, guiding a couple of lost lads down to the boats for their paddle section, and retrieving their dropped water bottle.

Wii foot

The wee foot loop to the orienteering-posts and the castle ruin was handy enough until we got the grid reference, then we realised we had to batter back up that bloody hill again to the CP at the back of HQ.

We met Passing Wind and Dogleap, together as usual, coming down as we were halfway up the hill; they were about fifteen minutes ahead of us. Dropping back down the road to the bikes again, loads of teams were now streaming up the hill, about ten minutes behind us; there was plenty of racing still to do, so we knew we had to keep motoring and be careful with the navigation. Without delay, we hopped on the bikes and headed out to do the bonus bike loop after the water-filler-with-holes-ball-thing-task.

Brucie bonus loop

We picked up bonus 1 no problem, then we made a major balls-up on the way to the bonus 2, completely missing a road because of where we’d folded the map. Davy is still adamant that it was the map’s fault!

This mistake meant we had to pass bonus 3 to get to bonus 2 (meeting Dogleap and then Passing Wind going the correct way; they must have wondered what the devil we were at!), then back to bonus 3 again. It added just over 2km that we could ill afford at this point, as we knew there were other teams close and we were starting to flag from our efforts.

We picked up bonus 2 just ahead of Get No Sleep and hot on their heels His’n’Hers, both of whom we met on the road with them heading for bonus 2, and us now heading back again from bonus 2 to bonus 3. We reckoned we now had only about 2 minutes on Get No Sleep, which was unfortunate, as we were both absolutely HANGIN’ at this stage. Cramp starting to set in, Davy had taken to snorting Dioralyte powders (even trying one sachet as a suppository!) and I was in the foetal position softly singing “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me” – we thought we’d be caught by the chasing pack for sure.

Dogleap barking

Eventually realising that everyone else behind us was absolutely busted as well, we managed to keep slugging on through the woods. Arriving up to Greg at the jigsaw, Dogleap were just leaving it, so we reckoned they’d either cocked up somewhere, or they are RUBBISH at jigsaws! It turned out that Dogleap had lost a fair bit of time by taking a different route up to the jigsaw across a field, and the poor lads had been chased back by an angry farmer.

The drop back down the hill on the bikes was hairy enough in places, and we had to resist the temptation to ride the new GREAT-looking MTB trails, to instead sproughal down through briars and bracken to the estate path. We could see Dogleap about 200 yards ahead just disappearing round the corner, and we ground our way rightly up the mucky path up the back way to HQ.

Phew!

We crossed the finish line surprised to see only one set of bikes; the skittish steeds of Passing Wind. Dogleap's altercation with the farmer, and a wee bit of confusion on the perimeter of HQ, ended up scuppering their hopes for second, and they nipped across the line just after us to take third, with Get No Sleep finishing strongly to take fourth, just ahead of His’n’Hers.

Great fun afterwards, with grub and refreshments laid on in capital style by Joan, and no doubt more craic besides, well into the evening.

Massive thanks to Ivan and the rest of his team CCAR, who put on another incredible race; amazing stuff, made all the more remarkable given the small team of marshals.

Well done to Passing Wind on the day, Dogleap on their overall series win, and all the category winners across the field. An honest workout, no mistake, and no better way to enjoy the best of the outdoors; in good-natured competition, against yourself and others, up to your elbows in muck!

The cortege prepares to leave

The Antrim Hills Heeeeuuuuugh!!

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:31:00 +0000

A noble quest to meet Tayto and sample the food of champions

The idea was to nail the four Antrim Hills peaks over 500 metres (Slievenanee, Trostan, Slievanorra, Knocklayd) with the singlespeeds, drop into Ballycastle to meet the Tayto road-show for some well-earned crisps to replace the calories we’d lost, then head round Fair Head and do some other fun bits and pieces on the way back to Glenariff. That was the plan...

Nothing would stop us meeting Pat Tayto in Ballycastle, who we were shocked to find was Davy's long-lost twin brother.

We were more than happy to leave Davy’s violently sick family at home in Antrim at 7:45am, and we parked near the wee hostel above Glenariff Forest Park at about 8:30am. It was a cold, crisp, but clear morning – perfect for the hills.

We’d never been up on Slievenanee and it was a nice enough walk up from Agan Bridge. The tops of the hills must have been frozen for weeks, as there were some intriguing ice formations, but it’s normally so boggy in the Antrim Hills in general that we were glad of a crusty top; though when we did sink beneath the crust it was damnably cold on the wee tootsies!

Slievenanee done, we picked our way down to the saddle before dragging the bikes up Trostan, and by the time we were on top, the sun began to shine, and all was going according to plan. We celebrated with Cadbury’s Cream Eggs and a sandwich before dropping onto The Ulster Way for a bit, then taking road and path towards the top of Slievanorra.

Clearly having not escaped the plague that had ravaged his family, Davy started to complain mightily of sore guts, then he ran out of gas and we had to get off and walk for ten minutes, then unusually he stopped complaining for a while, before finally collapsing in the ditch vomiting BIG.

Davy comes a cropper half way up Slieveanorra

Our Antrim Hills 500 dream now looking in tatters, he felt much better after a good hurl, but within another 5 minutes, he had no energy left in the tank at all and could barely walk. He dragged his ass slowly to the top, and it was a long free-wheel down to the road.

We decided to split up here, sending me up over Knocklayd, the fourth and final mountain, and Davy cut his losses and took the flattish road round towards Ballycastle. Knocklayd was a savage enough climb, but soon nailed with bike over shoulder, and the descent down into Ballycastle Forest and into the town was amazing, best of the day; great craic if you can be bothered dragging a bike up there.

By the time I had reached Ballycastle, Davy had only just arrived too, on foot, completely wasted, having succumbed to both a broken freewheel AND a puncture on the road. We walked the bikes to the Spar to see the folks from Tayto, I ate my own body-weight in prawn cocktail crisps, then went for a hot dog and chips for dessert. Davy just drank Coke and was having difficulty staying upright, so we took the common sense approach and got the bus to Ballymena.

After Davy had vomited again into a bin at Ballymena bus station, big Stevie picked us up and left us back to the car at Glenariff – good old Stevie! On the way back to Antrim, one more bout of vomiting from Davy from our moving car just off the Greystone Road (Davy was driving!) was enough to do us for the day.

All-told, a thoroughly enjoyable wee trip, unless you’re Davy!

Slievenanee, in happier times

The flat top of Slievenanee was bleak, looking towards Trostan

Ice! This all looked much better on the day

Summit of Trostan, sun out, cream eggs down the 'hatch' (ah, I enjoyed that pun)

Looking from Trostan towards Slievanorra and Knocklayd

Davy considers the erstwhile contents of his stomach on Slieveanorra

Davy IS genuinely sick here, but always puts on a good show for the camera!

Top of Knocklayd, on my lonesome

One more barf from the car, 300 yards from home

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 14:30:00 +0000

Following 2010's hibernation and meditation, we're coming back into action in 2011 with renewed vigour, unquestionably bigger and better rested than ever before. In the meantime, we wish all of our friends and colleagues a fulfilling festive period.

(OK, Davy, you can relax the abs now - we got the shot)

The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.
Charles Dickens

TrailBadger Annual Conference, 9 December

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 17:06:00 +0000

A successful and enjoyable evening with 15 friends, fire, meat, music and banter in the snow-covered winter wonderland that was TrailBadger HQ.

Three items on this year's agenda:

Man of the Year award - won for an unprecented second year on the trot by Hugh for outstanding endeavour, but he was ready this time and didn't quite yield the entertainment of 2009
Riding a bike up the ladder that nearly resulted in Sparky's death at last year's conference, over the TrailBadger igloo, and down the snow ramp - following Rick's rather laissez-faire attempt, this was manfully achieved by Davy, albeit he landed square on his nose on the other side
Any other business - four additional items were presented under AOB:

rhino-charging the igloo from all sides whilst Aran tried to patch up the holes from the inside;
a long debate on the obvious short-comings of civilian pilots;
attempting to fix an unexplained subsidence in the TrailBadger HQ perimeter wall; and
lamenting the state of Jack's wife's new car.

The TrailBadger igloo, poised and ready to receive its challengers,
prior to its untimely demise

Breaking News - Man with red coat stands in front of windmills

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:43:00 +0000

Big Davy, on Big Collin, 14 November

CCAR Race 1, Cootehill, 6 November 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:02:00 +0000

Lamentably, Tango and Cash weren't able to make this one, giving rise to plenty of pre-race taunts (as in the poster below) from some of the younger (and pretty pasty-looking, it has to be said) competitors.

Defying their ill-looking poster pallour, a big congratulations has to go to Sean and Enda, who came a creditable fourth in the race, despite suffering a puncture, a penalty, and an additional three sittings at the cracker-eating task - "COOOOOOOKKIEEEEES"

The irony of the team name "No race for old men" won't be lost on the lads, given that the average age of the folks on the podium was 63 (only brought down by Melanie Spath, who surely can't be any more than 21, and Gerry Kingston, who is currently studying for his 11+ and says he is really looking forward to "big school").

Causeway Coast Adventure Racing (CCAR)

Slieve Martin Slaughter 2010 (early shift)

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 14:28:00 +0000

Unable to make the official Slieve Martin Slaughter at 9am on Saturday due to a cake-baking competition we were judging that morning, we took our chance 8 hours earlier to reunite the Post Bike with the summit of Slieve Martin, then tore down the switchbacks on Davy's new tandem.

Anyone who fancies a rattle on the Post Bike over Fern Gully, now's your chance, as we left the bike up at the summit for some brave soul to have a crack!

Our tandem descent proved tricky enough, as we had lost the batteries for the bike lights on the way up; found one of them right at the bottom of the switchbacks, but the other one remains on the hill somewhere. If you find it, stick up a message.

Official NTSR Slieve Martin Slaughter 2010 event report here.

(1:00am on Slieve Martin, misty and c-c-c-cold)

(1:10am - A final moment with the post-bike before we departed on the tandem)

(4:00pm - The old post bike lounges majestically atop Slieve Martin, slaughter completed for another year)

TrailBadger Annual Scotland Trip, 1 - 3 October

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:38:00 +0000

Click image for full size.

Inspired by Rembrandt van Rijn's "The Nightwatch" or "The Shooting Company of Franz Banning Cocq"

Starring: Team TrailBadger, Glentress 2010
Creative direction: Ian Shovels
Art restoration: PJ

The Mourne 500 - Take 2! 30 July

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:23:00 +0000

Every point in the Mournes over 500m in height – 21 hours (18 hrs 26 min from Point 1 to Point 39), 68km, 5400m of climbing.

Atop Finlieve, the Mourne 500 completed

Following our abject failure on 5 June, we were all lined up to give the Mourne 500 another crack with the bikes on 30 July. Unfortunately, Davy had to pull out at the last minute due to a particularly nasty bout of athlete’s foot, so instead Enda and I decided to have a quick stroll around the route to stretch the legs, Enda fresh from completing the Transalp Challenge with Mickey Laverty as Team TrailBadger the week before.

GPS stats of our Mourne 500 route on the day

Photo Gallery of the Mourne 500

Incapacitated as he was, Davy joined us for every stride via his trusty CB radio, and was a constant source of inspiration and advice through what turned out to be a pretty arduous 21 hours!

We decided to do the route in the opposite direction to the previous bike effort, parking at Carrick Little car park and heading up Binnian, our start time about 11:20am in the rain and mist.

Food and supplies were similar to before, with LOTS of pizza, chocolate, gels and energy bars (crisps too would have greatly improved the experience), plus first aid kit and bivvy bag, torch and extra layers, etc. But no bikes!

The weather was unpredictable, with rain, drizzle, mist, wind, sunshine and clear skies to keep us on our toes, but it was pretty cold, wet, windy and miserable through the night. Throughout, we were glad of our compass to keep us right, as visibility was very changeable.

It started to get dark when we were coming off Ben Crom around 10pm, and the following mountains were tackled in total darkness: Doan, Slieveloughshannagh, Carn, Muck, Ott, Slievenamuck, Cock, Pigeon Rock. The first hints of daybreak greeted us as we tackled Slievemoughanmore.

After our final point, Finlieve, we shuffled down to the road and started a 12km trudge on the tarmac back to the car. Once we got to the shop in Attical, to our great relief a geological research team were kind enough to offer us a lift back to the car park in their Land Rover.

So, who’s next for this one?!

All the points on our route

The Mourne 500, 5 June 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:02:00 +0000

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." Michelangelo

Spences Mountain - the end of the line for us

The challenge

We’ve been lying low in 2010, so we thought it was time we hit some peaks with the bikes. Hence the challenge of the Mourne 500 was born... Every point in the Mournes above 500m, unsupported (no help from others, with supplies or anything), and of course in the company of our singlespeed bikes. We identified 35 points to be visited, and we set our route to try and nail it on 5 June 2010, with the intention of leaving a Tango and Cash calling card at each point.

How we got on

We failed! We started at 02:30 (yep, that’s 2:30am) from Carrick Little car park, and headed along the road on the bikes towards Finlieve, our first target point. The weather was dry, warm and sunny the whole time (after 04:55 anyway, when the sun came up).

Distance we travelled: 67 km

Vertical climbing: 3,562 metres

See all our photos (links to Picasa)

Detail of our route, including escape point - click for large

In short, the mountains brutalised, battered, tore, wrenched and drained us, and we reluctantly decided to take ourselves off the hills after completing Spences Mountain (our 28th point), with 7 points of our Mourne 500 challenge remaining. It was soon to be pitch dark and, aside from feeling absolutely dreadful, clambering around on the side of in particular Slievelamagan with bikes on our backs in the middle of the night was just too darn dangerous, and we weren’t equipped properly.

So we peeled off our intended route below Rocky Mountain and took the path down to Dunnywater and back to Carrick Little car park along the road. Arriving back at the car at 22:30, that was exactly 20 hours on the mountains, a good solid day’s work-out by anyone’s reckoning, and boy we were in pieces.
A quick chicken and chips in Newcastle nearly didn’t happen, as chippy staff were concerned that we were a couple of near-comatose drunks! The drive home to Antrim via Belfast was completed at about 27 miles per hour, and on a number of occasions on the M2 we were very thankful for the invention of rumble strips!

Looking back over the map, we worked out that only about 200 metres max of our climbing was done with us actually riding the bikes. The rest of the time we were carrying or dragging them, and that was the case for lots of the flat and downhill too, given the tricky ground. We had lots of food, kit and supplies with us; with bike on back that was over 40lbs of weight to our packs, which was hard enough going in bits. Forget the bikes; it would be a really good challenge on foot, and we know a few folks who might be up for that...

Anyone who nails this one, it’s a helluva big achievement, and there’s a beer on us from Mourne Country’s own Whitewater Brewery (makers of Belfast Ale, at grid ref 260 171) for anyone who can do it. We’d love to see somebody give it a crack, so get in touch if you want any info.

Good to see Barry Tinnelly and his boys along the way (thanks for the Mars bar and brandy ball), also Rowan and Ian of 26Extreme in Trailbadger tops, who were scouting their big race for this weekend coming, the Mourne Way Marathon.

Dreadful bits

It was a hard day out, no question, but there were a couple of bits that were particularly tough going. Some of the terrain was woeful, especially dragging or carrying a bike, but none of the climbs have made our list!

Coming down off Eagle Mountain to Windy Gap – deadly steep
Descending Donard to Crossone – 300m very steep descent through thick vegetation and rocks
Finlieve to Shanlieve – peat hags, clambering them up and down, up and down, endlessly (until it ended)
From Doan to Ben Crom and back to under Meelbeg – more peat hags, long grass, real heavy going
Descending one of the Meels - can't remember which one, but it was hellish steep and tricky going from rock to rock

Choosing our target points

Anything that looked like it had more than 10m prominence (stickin up!) from the ground around it, we added to the list of points to be visited, and we threw in a few more that we were not sure about, just to cover ourselves, as some of the maps have differing data on them. We got this info just by studying the contour lines on the maps, nothing more scientific than that, and I know the nerds could probably pick holes in some of our choices. It’s worth saying, we didn’t clamber up on top of any tors (apart from Bearnagh main tor, which I nearly fell off), as rock-climbing ain’t our thing!

Pizza

We were delighted to be sponsored by Antrim’s Pizza the Action for our Mourne 500 attempt. We started out with 48 slices of pizza, and we ate 38 of them during the day. Ham and pineapple was the best topping by a mile, and went down a treat. “Mighty Meaty” was a poor choice for one of the pizzas (our fault), so 3 slices of that ended up in the Ott car park, 2 in Bloody Bridge River, and the other 3 fell apart in the bottom of the rucksack, and they’re still there. The only other pizza remaining was 2 slices of chicken and sweet-corn, which was palatable but dry, and required a little extra seasoning. A huge thanks to Hugh of Pizza the Action for fuelling the fat boys in our challenge; definitely good grub for that kind of long day out.

Give us a shout if you want any info about this route.

The UN aid convoy made it through in the nick of time

Sunrise in the Mournes, circa 5:00am

A typical climb - slogging up Bearnagh

View towards Hen Mountain off the top of Cock Mountain

Only 47 more slices to go

More "Man from Del Monte" than "Man from Milk Tray"!

Davy snuggles into his final resting place, on top of Crossone, the end now close

A bottle of this stuff with our compliments if you can nail this route

Tango and Cash are now on Twitter!

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 15:54:00 +0000

TrailBadger Annual VE Day Commemoration

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Thu, 13 May 2010 10:38:00 +0000

As is custom, the TrailBadger crew spent 10 May, 65th anniversary of VE Day, in full uniform, off the beaten track in the Mournes. A great day out in glorious weather, and home for tea.

Started at Trassey, round Meelmore to Fofanny Dam (where we picked up Monsignor James Keown), down the road to Pigeon Rock, up the wall over Pigeon Rock, down to the Hen Track, over the saddle between Tornamrock and Rocky Mountain, down through the forest to Cloughmore Stone, into Rostrevor, chicken and chips, up Finlieve, down the track and into Attical, ice cream, then back to Trassey up the road. Poor Mark suffered badly for the last hour, but it was all for one, and one for all! ;-)

The Hung Parliament

James worked hard on his suntan

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:33:00 +0000

Ambitions of realising our African dream were dashed at the first hurdle, when we were unable to satisfy ourselves as to the security of our pallet of Denny sausages once it would hit the Dark Continent. Undaunted, the months of planning paid off and, at the first attempt, on 1 April 2010, we nailed it!

The Road to Killyman Giro

Killyman, just outside Dungannon, Co Tyrone, was our target for the day. Given that the Tango & Cash team headquarters is in Antrim, lapping Lough Neagh in an 80 mile drive-by seemed the only sensible option, setting out at 10am.

Next up, our choice of bicycles for the trip – two pre-war clunkers with rod brakes; a gents’ Triumph Roadster and a ladies’ Raleigh of similar specification, both in truly appalling condition – perfect! The only preparation they needed other than dragging them out of a farm shed was pumping up the tyres, and hey presta, they stayed up!

The weather was sunny but cold, perfect for our new 100% acrylic sports cardigans. We had fine views all day over Lake Victoria, but we had to keep on the move to escape the attentions of hungry lions and rampaging zebra!

We thought our party was well and truly over when the pedal broke off the Triumph just after Ballyronan. Cue much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

We were lucky to stumble into the yard of Jim Clements, a local farmer with a big heart and an even bigger welder! Jim was great craic with plenty of bike stories of his own, and it was with some regret when, after half an hour, we were back on the road and bearing down on Killyman.

The "Killyman Giro" in the bag, we were happy boys to reach the village Post Office for some provisions, as we had been battering into the wind for 40 miles and needed some energy food. Hula Hoops, Cream Eggs, a six-pack of Blue Riband wafer biscuits, washed down with some great craic with the Post-Mistress, were just the ticket to put us back on form, and we set out for a feed in Portadown with the wind on our tails.

JP’s in Portadown put the GTX back into our Castrol.

The legendary Rowan McMahon, fresh from a batch of tax returns, turned out to wish us luck on our last 30 miles.

Given how far we’d come, a broken chain at 5:20pm outside Lurgan we hardly even considered to be a minor inconvenience, and we were soon back on the road.

Still smiling after 82 miles (well, not really - this photo was taken at mile 6!). We were tired boys when we finally hit home at 7:15pm.

Davy - Sporting Achiever 2010! (I know!)

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:35:00 +0000

It's often said that behind every great sporting achiever, there's a great partner; so it came as no surprise that Davy was to be crowned Sporting Achiever of the Year at the 2010 Thales company awards.

In winning the trophy, Davy joins an elite group of athletes including 2001 winners the Deep Sea Angling Club, as well as 2008 champion Paddy Mallon, who won the Loughshannagh Horseshoe fell-running race in 2007 being the only person out of 200 runners who didn't climb the wrong mountain in the fog.

Davy's surprise at the award was matched only by his delight that Usain Bolt hadn't got that job in the credit control department.

Right! Time to DO something!

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:40:00 +0000

OK. No muckin' about. 2010 is about...

Kilimanjaro, with bikes! Details to follow.

Nice giraffes!!

Merry Christmas from Tango and Cash!

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Not much racing this year, but we travelled the length, breadth and height of Ireland with Enda and Mark on the Ireland's Extremities trip in May, and somehow managed to retain our Belfast Rat Race title with Karen (BECAUSE of Karen, actually) by a mere six seconds. So we'll eat our turkey with some satisfaction this year.

Best wishes to everyone who has provided us with support and laughter in 2009, and, to anyone we have offended, please remember the timeless words of Napoleon Bonaparte:

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence".

Looking forward to hooking up in 2010.

Rick & Davy

TrailBadger Christmas Party 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:05:00 +0000

Fourteen hardy souls braved the cold to enjoy the TrailBadger.com Xmas BBQ on Friday 11 December, sett (geddit?) on the rolling banks of Sixmilewater tributary the Clady Water.

Ian, Enda, Stevie, PK, Hugh, Jonny, Phil, Sparky, Davy, Lauren, Tom, Conor, Bug and Rick enjoyed a cocktail of hotdogs, bbq beans, condiments, lubricants and open fire, with the unmistakable tones of Billy Ocean leading off the Friday night sounds of the 80’s on the beat-box. Bug led the charge with the catering in his time-honoured Ray Mears style.

The TrailBadger Man of the Year trophy was presented to Mr Wallace, for outstanding endeavour during 2009. Delighted to receive the award of a Tyrone Crystal fruit-bowl, his delight soon evaporated when he was presented with half a pint of Bulmers & Baileys (which basically turns to cheese as soon as the two mix). Credit to him, he got three quarters of the way through eating it before he finally threw up.

Each attendee was also presented with his new badger pelt, on the understanding that everyone would complete the TrailBadger Trials Challenge, a rickety see-saw made from a wooden box and a broken aluminium ladder.

Miraculously, nobody died, but Sparky NEARLY did. Stevie, particularly upset by the incident, was heard later to cry "You're all a bunch of Palestines!"

See video of what happened to Sparky

The formalities were completed with the installation, in the TrailBadger bike emporium, of the 2010 Ace Fixings calendar, which, it was unanimously agreed, was extremely tastefully done.

TrailBadger Man of the Year 2009

"Bulmers & Baileys, you say? Interesting"

"Right, em, not quite what I was hoping for, I'll be honest"

Only 300ml to go!

CCAR Antrim Hills - Close but no cigar

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:35:00 +0000

A crisp, cold, still day was the perfect back-drop for the CCAR Antrim Hills race from Watertop Farm on 28 November. It was great to see a big turn-out for the last race of the 2009 series, nearly 30 teams, and hopefully it proved encouragement enough for Ivan to put on another series in 2010!

Delighted with our performance on the bikes after a dodgy foot section, we were third to finish, nine minutes behind the unstoppable Passing Wind and two minutes behind Deliverance Cousins, after just over 3.5 hours of racing.

Results are not yet clear. We were timed out at the abseil waiting unduly long for the terrified, squealing Deliverance Cousins to do the abseil, and we reckon that after time adjustment, we have managed to just hold onto second place.

(Edit 1 Dec: Joint second on the results, but it seemed clear on the day that Deliverance Cousins had just nicked it.)

Deliverance Cousins Enda and Sean bask in the glory of nearly beating us.

RACE REPORT - If you did not attend Watertop Farm on 28 Nov, don't even bother!

Once Joan had worked out what side of the start/finish line we were to be standing on, the hooter sounded and we all took off on the foot section along paths, roads, and slippery bridges.

Passing Wind led from the start, showing a clean pair of heels from after 50 yards. We, however, maintained very dirty pairs of heels throughout the foot section, completing it in about 15^th spot, having mistakenly thought that it was a mandatory walk.

During the assault course, Davy initially attempted to go through the pipe, but had to resort to the zip-line instead, cracking some poor sod in the balls with the harness when passing it back to the top.

We were on the bikes with no messing, passing a couple of teams in the process, and were up and across the road into the forest, stamping hard up the hill.

We met Deliverance Cousins on the path, utterly bewildered and completely lost at a junction, so we took them under our wing and guided them up to the checkpoint at the chambered grave. Passing Wind headed back past us as we approached it, so we realised we had suddenly found ourselves up in second place. We guided the Deliverance Cousins out to the next checkpoint out on the road, before the big tarmac descent down into Cushendun.

Heading downhill, our singlespeeds were no match for the Deliverance Cousins’ geared steeds, and they disappeared out of sight quickly. We got to the boats as quickly as our little spinning legs would carry us, and were surprised that we were so close to the guys in front. We took our chance to beach Passing Wind on a rock and drench the unsuspecting Deliverance Cousins on our way up the river.

We lost a wee bit of time hunting for the checkpoint in the cave, which we tried to make up for on the way back from the pier by taking a short-cut onto the beach, but Ivan wasn’t in the mood for any entrepreneurship, and sent us back round to Steve at the jetty on the river.

We made short order of the run round the village, but didn’t see a soul during it. On the beach, Ann congratulated us on being both the fastest AND the slowest competitors on the space-hoppers.

Glad to be back onto the bikes, we were soon carving into the lead of the guys ahead. Things got technical on the rough track, and we could see the guys a couple of minutes ahead of us making slow progress, which spurred us on – they even had to get off and walk a few times, so we knew they were bound to be really suffering!

Over the back of the hill, we pushed on as hard as our legs would spin, but again, on the singlespeeds this was not as quick as we wished.

We arrived down at the wee lake just as Deliverance Cousins were leaving. Passing Wind’s technique across the pond had them now well ahead. Billy stood in the boat and held Gerry’s legs wheelbarrow style, whilst the ginger Dervish did the butterfly stroke out front. Genius!

All that was left to do was to get up to Keith, Jonny and Greg at the abseil, wait for Deliverance Cousins to do their bit, and get back to the centre sharpish.

Karen Duggan and race partner Richard had a great old tussle with Barry and Didi for first mixed team and, despite Karen tearing off towards Dublin with 100 yards to go, they just managed to hold on to take it.

A massive thanks to the whole CCAR team, crowned by Joan and Shirley's superb spread afterwards. A brilliant day’s fun, and definitely a format that suits the majority of folks. Another wee bonus loop for the first few teams back would have crowned it – maybe in 2010?

On a final note, history is what was written, not what happened! ;-)

Cuchulainn Challenge 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:51:00 +0000

An unsatisfactory day at the office for Tango & Cash with Pimm's & White on 7 November, at the 8 hr Cuchulainn Challenge, understudy to the 24 hr Cooley Raid. We don't know how we did, but it was well short of our exacting standards due to a range of factors, all of them our fault!!

(Edit: turns out we were 1st team of four, and 3rd overall in the 8hr race, but loads of teams doing the 24hr race skinned us, so it's not actually much to shout about!)

(Another Edit: there was supposedly an error in the results, and we were actually 1st team of four and 2nd overall in the 8hr race - the bad day at the office turned out pretty darn good!)

Highlight of the day was watching Billy and Gerry of Passing Wind paddling their canoe for about 100 metres sitting BACK TO FRONT, wondering why it wasn't handling so well, then nearly ending up in Carlingford Lough trying to get turned round - brilliant stuff!

We struggled in the kayaks (even though we were sitting the right way round), losing about 10 minutes or so on the front-runners, then really suffered on the initial climb on the bikes until we got warmed up. By that time, we were about 30 minutes off the pace, and never to regain it.

Davy took a nasty tumble off the bike not long after the kayaks, trying to avoid some chap who just stopped in the middle of the road whilst Davy had his nose in the map, so at least that gave us something to talk about! We hardly saw another team all day, so the usual banterous exchanges were kept to a minimum.

By the time we had finally found our mojo, we knew we hadn't a mission of catching those in front. So, we took a gamble and went for the foot orienteering instead of the bike bonus, in the vain hope of aliens abducting anyone they saw on bikes, to leave the way clear for us. This section through a misty, barren, featureless wasteland removed any remaining energy and enthusiasm for life, as well as most of Enda's epidermis (due to him breaking in a new pair of shorts - ouch!!).

It was pitch black when we were dropping back into Carlingford on the bikes after a tough enough final section, so we even skipped the easy bonus at the end and were delighted to finally arrive back at base after about 8.5 hrs on the trot.

Thanks to Ivan and the rest of team CCAR for another great race, albeit it wasn't our day.

Gerry Kingston from Passing Wind hones his pony-trekking skills

TrailBadger.com Annual Scotland Trip, 16-18 October

noreply@blogger.com (Tango and Cash) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:52:00 +0000

Sixteen hardy souls braved baking sunshine and balmy temperatures to endure the meteorological hell that was Glentress and Innerleithen.

Faces set like stone to the driving blizzard and gale force winds, the brave 16 remained steadfast atop the mighty peak at Innerleithen, boldly singing rousing hymns, contemplating their sure destruction, and welcoming their glorious transition to eternity.

Jonny wondered as to the precise spot of his icy grave, completely lost and disorientated in the total white-out conditions.

John Ritchie was the beneficiary of this year's trip to Borders General Hospital. (I'm happy to report that the liposuction was a complete success).