Bandy in Banagher - Race Report

Oof! Ivan Park and the boys and girls from Causeway Coast Adventure Racing put on a tough show on Saturday - GREAT crack though, and soon the pain of our lungs spewing onto the trail made us forget about the rain!

Tango and Cash were set upon by the snarling pack on the hill-top during the run, the noble pair scuppering their chances of another win by hanging around to make sure nobody got lost on the hill ;-)

Ended up fourth, but would have won it if Ivan had stuck to his original plan of forgetting to adjust for starting times - confound it! Mac and Paul were WAY fitter and faster than anyone else in the race, and would have finished the whole thing in about 3 hours, except some interesting navigation meant they covered twice as much ground as the rest of us!! Sorry, guys, haha!! :-)

The international field was further spiced up by old Tango and Cash compatriots Stevie "McMoab is My Church" Holden, and Jonny "McMoab is Stevie's Church" Gray, who made up their own finish line, and came splashing impressively into the car park through the river. Like a couple of big pike!


Plenty of action photographs, the highlights of which showed Tango using his latest hydration system during the middle bike section, and Cash frantically making his way across the ravine to try and get away from Steve Curry, who spent overly long making sure that harness was nice and tight round the butt-cheeks!


Dubbed the "Pet Shop Boys of Irish adventure racing", Ivan Park and Steve Curry proceeded to wow a baying audience at the after-race party. Performing their Kenny Rogers-inspired anthem "The Count of the Cowardly", their rhythmic, pulsating hip-hop cleverly weaving a timely Hallowe'en Dracula reference with the pair's first teenage fumblings in the dark as terrified fledgling adventure racers. Needless to say there wasn't a dry eye in the house!

Looking forward to the next one, guys!

Loads more photos of the race here, at Sleepmonsters (see the links over on the left to get the photos)