Managed 5 scoring rides in
Managed 5 scoring rides in the last week but it should have been 6.
A mate and I caught a ferry to Dublin and had a night on the town – me watching the WC qualifier against Cyprus. Hit a couple of literary pubs, one regular haunt of Brendan Behan and another mentioned in Ulysses.
Day 1 we rode to Athlone a nice town on the river Shannon. The next day I put on my green with red band cycling jersey for a return to Mayo which is the County GAA colours. We rode to Tuam, Cong and in to Co Mayo round Lough Mask to Partry to a b&b run by a former good level cyclist. Day 3 we raced, and beat, the rain through Castlebar, Pontoon, Ballina and round the coast to Sligo and past Ben Bulben and Yeats resting place.
Day 4 was a big day for me as I entered the North at Belleek for the first time. I had lived in Mayo as a young lad so entering the North felt strange. I knew it would be just regular people going about there lives and of course this is how it was. From Belleek we followed the North West passage route to Starbane and avoiding Derry we headed over towards Limavady finishing in the dark.
Day 5 we rode the beautiful NI coast to the Giant’s Causeway and south to Magherafelt. This was only a 78 mile day as my bottom was suffering big time and I could not sit in the saddle and pedal – I was out of the saddle to pedal – and the pace was slowing. I bought some Sudacreme but another problem with my achilles was getting worse.
As it was a short day it meant the last day was going to be about 125 miles and I could not be sure of being able to do it so I abandoned and rode to Antrim and got the train to Dublin. My mate completed the ride and was well impressed with his first visit to Ireland. The weather was good, quite a bit of rain on the first day into Athlone and some in the Cong / Clonbur area but excellent after that. People friendly and helpful both sides of the border. But 10 euro for 2 pints of Guinness!