Ireland - All About the Bikes

After 15 posts on our trip to Ireland last fall, what else could I possibly have to share about this trip...

Well a few folks have asked about our bikes and other gear. So I'll just do one final post all about the bikes.

Ireland - Duckett's Grove Under Sunshine

Saturday was our last full day in Ireland. Our flight out of Dublin was scheduled for early Sunday morning, so we'd need to clean, disassemble and pack bikes the night before. Of course, we also needed to get back to Dublin. Fortunately, chauffeur-extraordinaire, David, was ever-accommodating!

Ireland - Carlow

For us, no trip to Ireland would be complete without a journey down to Carlow. While John grew up in Dublin, his parents were from County Carlow. He, along with his brothers and sisters spent many a summer working and playing at his grandparent's farm. Most of his extended family still live in County Carlow and John's sister, Daphne bought a house there a few years ago, and extended an invitation for us to come stay whenever we'd like. She may grow to regret that.

Ireland - The Sally Gap

Since we'd been hitching lifts with David for a couple of days, when he was called back into work in Dublin, we found ourselves back on the east coast as well.

I really can't complain though. The sun was out and the winds were calm.

Now while I had managed to get down to Blessington a couple times during the week that John was working, John had not yet gotten out to ride his favorite old local roads himself and was eager to head down that way.

Ireland - Slieve League Cliffs

In our desperate quest to have a day of cycling without rain, we were again lured north by the fiction foisted upon us as a weather forecast. So yet again, we loaded up the car and drove north, this time aiming for the fishing port of Killybegs, gateway to the rugged coastline of southern Donegal. 

Sadly, David also got word that he might be needed to work in Dublin the following day. So we feared this might be our last day on the road together. Therefore we decided to try to take in two of the landmarks that for John are symbolic of Donegal, the Glengesh Pass and the Slieve League Cliffs.

Ireland - Sligo (Yeat's Country)

I admit it. I was starting to grow weary of the rain. I looked at the weather forecast, and determined that we'd need to head up to Northern Ireland if we held out any hope of getting photos without puddles. I fired off another email to our friend, Constance Winters, to see if her schedule had freed up any, but she was still swamped. So we didn't even have a proper excuse to cross the border. 

However, since David had joined us and we had access to his car, we decided to take advantage and hit a few of the farther flung areas that normally would us take a few days to even get to by bike or train. And we'd just get good use of out of our rain gear.

Ireland WETport

--Just a reminder for those seeing this in December or January, that I'm way behind with the blog and making every attempt to get caught up with these posts from our trip to Ireland. This is about a ride from November 1.--

All Saints Day in WETport and the Halloween trick is on us!

David had finished up his work in Bellmullet in County Mayo on  Friday and drove down to Westport to join us for a few days of cycling. As we discussed various route options and the weather, and the prospect of riding with or without gear, we decided to stay a second night in Westport, allowing us to do an unencumbered loop ride on Saturday, with some hope of drying out gear from the previous day.