Here is a post from Shane Eno – a high school teacher from my hometown of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. Shane followed myself and Chris’s journey across North America and frequently dropped us comments (which are always great when your on the road!). If you have sometime you should checkout his blog and also read up on his plan below.
The Plan
I am not a ‘touring cyclist’ – not that there’s anything wrong with touring cyclists. I consider myself to be a ‘roadie’–if it can’t fit into a jersey pocket, then it doesn’t come along for the ride. So when you picture me biking in Ireland don’t think about panniers and saddle bags and back packs. There will be no tents, sleeping bags nor camp stoves anywhere near my bike.
The plan is to rent a car so that I can drive about the island and ride in much the same way that I would at home. If all goes according to the vision, my life over the next 14 days will fall into the following routine: drive to an area, ride, hike, eat massive amounts of food, drink Guinness (amounts may vary), sleep, repeat.
The idea for this trip is to be fairly flexible; it’ll be a bit by the seat of my bib shorts. Here’s the best I can do for an itinerary:
> Fly into Dublin on Aug 13
> Connemara (northwest of Galway)
>Inishmore (the largest of the Aran Islands)
>The Burren and the fabled Cliffs of Moher
>The Dingle Peninsula
>The Iveragh Peninsula (Ring of Kerry)
>The Beara Peninsula
>Fly out of Dublin on Aug 28
I’ve perhaps saved the BEST FOR LAST! From Aug 21-23, I’ll be following the three-day Tour of Ireland. I’ll watch Stage 1 on the Category One Mount Leinster climb, take in Stage 2 on The Vee, a Cat. 2 climb and watch the last stage in Cork which finishes with a with three-loop city street circuit including the 23% gradient climb of St. Patrick’s Hill.
Oh, almost forgot to mention that seven-time Tour de France Champ LANCE ARMSTRONG and 10-time TdeF stage winner MARK CAVENDISH will be riding the Tour of Ireland. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that.
So come back to this little blog often to read about my adventures with my bike on the Emerald Isle. And please, if you’re reading this stuff, leave me a comment; it’s nice to know that people are out there checking this stuff out.
