The first race took place in Banagher forest on the 21st October, 28 pairs took part in a race which turned out to be harder than most teams were expecting. The race route had been changed several times on the run up to the big day due to access restrictions, with the final route decided on the Wednesday before, when the Water Service finally give us permission to use the reservoir within the forest. All the competitors agreed the kayak section on the reservoir was one of the highlights of the race, even if it did see a handful of them take cramp.
Teams lined up at the start in the middle of one of the heaviest showers of rain we had during the month of October, as they headed of from the start they were still unsure what lay ahead of them until they arrived at the map give out point, all they knew was they were starting on bikes. The bike section was a short loop around the south section of Banagher forest. 

At the first TA team Tango and Cash were going that fast they arrived at the checkpoint before the marshals, they were the first team to go out onto the foot section which took teams up onto a ridge before returning back down into the forest to collect their bikes again, but before they were allowed to go they had to knock down 2 targets.

Back on the bikes again and down through the ford beside the event HQ for the 2nd task which was to demonstrate they could repair a puncture on their bikes, with some teams finding this task harder than others. To make matters worse one team had only just changed a puncture before hand and others had some to change afterwards.

From the HQ it was a bike ride up over the mountain to the kayak section which was followed by the third task which was an orienteering loop on foot. Once back at the bikes it was back up over the mountain again and 3 checkpoints later they would arrive at secret task number 4 (a rope section over the river). Long queues built up here and some teams were given the option of going on and not getting the time penalty. The last secret task seen the teams having to crawl through a pipe before getting the checkpoint which we had to move to a safer place (it was hanging beside the mini waterfall, but due to the rain which had fell the river had become to deep to send teams into)

Team Crash Test Dummies finished first and are now in the lead for the series points, they were closely followed by Not the Sunday Run in second place and Team Purple in third, full results are at the top of this report.

Pictures

Many of the teams taking part in the first race will have been aware of Shane popping up in many different places and snapping away at them as they took part in the many different tasks on the race route. His pictures are now on Sleepmonsters and can be viewed and bought here. 
In keeping with CCAR, Shane has kept his prices at a very keen rate so why not have a look at them and maybe buy a few of them to show yours friends and work colleagues what you get up to at the weekend.

Thanks

CCAR would like to thank the teams who came to the race and hope they all enjoyed it.

We would also like to thank Steve at Realcycles.com who shortly before the race agreed to put up over £1000 worth of prizes for the race series hence the reason the series is now called the RealCycles Adventure Race Series, Realcycles have their shop in Carryduff and stock a wide range of mountain bikes and also have a vast knowledge when it comes to mountain biking. Why not check out their website www.realcycles.com

• Todd's Jeep
• Forest Service
• Limavady Borough Council
• The Water Service 
• Causeway Coast Kayak Club
• Adventure Ireland