Extreme Sports Adventurer

My nephew was persuaded to come along on the next leg of my cycling trip. He looked far more the business than I did with my little straw basket hanging from the handle bars and my crocs as footwear for rain resistance.

We started off at 10am and we cycled from Rathdrum, through Redcross to Arklow, 15 miles in all. Though I had convinced him the worst of the uphills were already behind us, it was actually quite a gruelling cycle from Redcross. However, we did spot three Kestrels flying overhead which distracted us for a while. Then 'the reward' downhill, across the N11 motorway and into Arklow where we stopped for a food break (and their heavenly chocolate malt) in Eddie Rockets.

We met up with my support vehicle, the camper van, and my sister took over the cycling from her son. The sister cyclists happily shopped for a pair of crocs (mine had split) before saddling up and hitting the road to Kilmuckridge, our final destination. Though it felt like more, it was 26 miles on small country roads with beautiful sights and some quaint houses to feed our brains while our legs did all the work.

We cycled for nearly 5 hours, the last two hours were psychologically and physically draining. We had various ways of keeping ourselves sane. My sister chanted the Hail Mary and I talked to the ferns and ditches as they were all I saw as I kept my head down and peddled. We could have asked to be rescued by our support vehicle, but we are both stubborn people, and the thought never crossed our minds (or did it I?).

The weather was with us, it was a perfect day for cycling with not a drop of yesterdays rain. We stopped off in Ballygarret, a pretty little village whose local publican was having a mock wedding as entertainment in the pub later that night. The last leg of the trip was not far, but of course there was more uphill, and then we landed in Morriscastle to the campsite, where another sister and her family had joined the party. It was a relieved reunion (at about 6pm) and we enjoyed the craic, the slags and a proper seat to sit on for the rest of the night.

The next day, today Sunday, (I do not have a blip), the wind and rain woke us and it seemed to be down for the day, so I hitched a lift with my support vehicle back to Wicklow. It only took two hours! I had cycled 66 miles in nearly 12 hours. It is not a journey that I will be doing every weekend, but a great experience.