The Snows of Kilimanjaro

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.

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Davy - Sporting Achiever 2010! (I know!)

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.

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Right! Time to DO something!

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

Kilimanjaro, with bikes! Details to follow.

Nice giraffes!!

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Merry Christmas from Tango and Cash!

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

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TrailBadger Christmas Party 2009

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!

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CCAR Antrim Hills - Close but no cigar

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! ;-)

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Cuchulainn Challenge 2009

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

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