bike at home on Sunday in a bid to show just how well he can handle the rougher side of racing.

And he accomplished just that, by winning the first mountain bike race of the season at Admiralty House Park.

With last year's Series and National Champion, Steve Sterritt, having recently returned to Ireland, the title for top local rider is up for grabs, and Butterfield sounded a fierce warning of his intentions with this performance.

While not being too pressured, the youngster was made to work for his victory by last year's Series runner-up, Peter Matcham and National Championship runner-up, Brian Steinhoff.

Matcham got off to a flying start in the nine lap race with Steinhoff close on his wheel.

However, the pair were lucky to survive a crash at the bottom of the first downhill, somehow managing to maintain a brief lead over Butterfield despite the mishap.

But despite the traffic it did not take long for the youngster to catch the lead pair.

The next four or five laps saw Matcham and Steinhoff take turns leading each other around the course, trying to keep Butterfield within sight, but by the seventh lap he had opened up a 30 second lead. With just two laps to go Matcham was able to pull away from his tiring adversary.

Butterfield won in a time of 42:32, with Matcham just over a minute back in 43:44 and Steinhoff holding on to third at 45:50. Patrick Churchill, who had a strong end to last season, picked up where he left off last year and finished a comfortable fourth in 47:54.

Newcomer Rolf Runkel finished sixth in 51:14 and did well to hold off two junior riders who have moved up to the open category, Chris Conway (51:41) and Nick Taylor (51:45).

One of the closest races of the day was in the Junior 10 and under category.

Last year's Champion, Tim Fox, squeezed out an exciting one second victory over first time racer Justin Collis in a time of 22:19. Ricky Sousa Jr., last years runner up, was just a bit off the pace and had to settle for third in a time of 24:36. Aaron Fenn (30:06) had a good battle with Alex McManus (30:36) to take fourth place.

In the boys 13-14 category, first time racer, Tyler Abbott had a great performance, completing six laps in just 30:40 and winning by over four minutes over second place finisher Geoffrey Smith (34:51).

Abbott's average lap time of about five minutes was almost as fast as the top riders in the open category.

Coyatito Smith did well to finish third in 38:14, holding off another newcomer to the sport, Richard Collis, who finished 30 seconds down on Smith with a time of 38:43. Khamari Phipps and Alex McManus also had a good tussle for fifth and sixth spots, with Phipps ending just 20 seconds ahead of McManus in 42:33.

Adam Petty had a good start to the season, but is hoping for more competition in the boys 15-16 category as only three riders made it to the start line.

Petty managed to put a gap of more than four minutes on James Adams, who finished in second place with Gregory Rose coming to the finishing line in third in a time of 1:02:52.