DAVIDSTOWN 2

Holy God! What an evening! It started like the Vietnam war was fought; I dropped down on Davidstown out of nowhere, bike and kit in hand and was in a warzone within 20 minutes of landing. The warm-up wasn't one really, just a healthy shock to find a cancer survivor shaking my hand and pedalling along beside me in the day's afterglow. I had such a smile on my face at the start I'm sure people thought I was juiced. So the search for the enemy began within a klick of the start, out of nowhere... probing attacks and random defiance began. Not everyone it seems, read the manual. Just like in-country in the Delta back around '68, skirmishes happened and unhappened like Casper the unfriendly ghost materialising out of thin air, albeit a heavily armed version. I held fire. No use in bursting off all your ammo in a firefight only to find yourself isolated and empty-handed. Davidstown is an organic process. Getting used to the pace of that cross-country slog takes patience and understanding. Finally, confronted by the enemy becoming more daring on the 4th lap it was time to lock and load. I had enough ammo for three rapid bursts. One was used to up the pace, push the envelope, fill the legs and head with fast flowing blood. The second was a counter-attack to put a number of rivals in their place. The third, and longest, death-defying burst, was up the outside and into the last turn smoothly, switching the firing pattern to auto as the runway-length finishing straight hove into view. It was so far to that LZ that I changed gear twice, changed position once, to keep the sub-kilo front wheel on terra firma. Fifth to the line. Into the chopper for extraction. Gone.############################################################################################################################### DE-BRIEF; Shane Doyle shouted something along the lines of 'Lets go Lads!' And that my friends, was akin to shouting 'mad minute!'. The bunch swarmed, the frontal vacuum of the race sucked the successful to the last bend and all hell broke loose. Five from the same tight platoon in the top six. Victory. Not to mention the comebacks and hijacks and fresh meat and good friends and bantering and grovelling and the odd pilot-fish. And was that James Maddock at the back, making a return to the fray after his free but unhappy ride in a medevac chopper last month? I tell you, there are amazing soldiers out on Wednesday nights; those that have massive battles just to get to the start, or personal fitness fights, or mental battles that can be insurmountable to others. But all the time theres just those good people, good, good people that make a snapshot, one-hour event, an extravagant experience.