Wrapping Up our Ireland Ride

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Accommodations (daily mileage, elevation, etc.)

Ireland you…

~fed us with your healthy, wholesome food

~quenched our thirst with properly poured pints of Guinness 

~kept us clean with gentle (sometimes lashing) rain

~challenged us with your lofty hills

~reminded us of your country’s deep faith and our own every time we passed a Marian grotto or church

~made us stronger and more confident with your wind gusts and headwinds

~made us smile at your tailwinds

~wowed us with spectacular scenery, your green fields, majestic coastlines and let’s not forget the hydrangeas 

~kept us safe with your courteous drivers allowing us to safely travel on bicycles for 1,200 miles

~entertained us with your musical reels and jigs 

~astonished us with your exceptionally clean public areas, restrooms, hotel rooms, restaurants and well kept homes

~piqued our curiosity and taught us with your ancient structures, stone fences, memorials and customs

And above all you loved us and embraced us with all you had and we couldn’t be more grateful.💚

What would we have done differently?

• We wouldn’t bring our tent, sleeping bags or pads. Didn’t bring the kitchen equipment on this ride and didn’t need it.

• We should have brought our collapsible coffee cups.

Bike ride bloopers:

• My Garmin stopped working after a week which means I had no idea how far, fast or high I was going. And I had no route to follow; I just had to be sure I didn’t get separated from Tom. That happened just one time when I stopped to take a pic and the one fork in the road that wasn’t marked with an EV1 sign got us in trouble. Tom was ahead and he veered right when I was behind and veered left. I was pedaling as fast as I could to catch up with him until I finally got a phone call with his voice asking “Where the heck are you?”🤣

• A bee stung Tom’s head near his eye with 10 miles to go on the last day. He’s going home with a swollen eye and looking like a battered husband. Maybe he is after having to give me turn by turn directions and climb data for the last two weeks since my Garmin stopped working.

• My sandals fell off the back of my Tailfin bag. Worst part was that I left them somewhere they weren’t supposed to be (littering).
• The snaps on my high visibility jacket wouldn’t snap after I washed it once. For the rest of the ride, I wore the jacket every day for safety but the sleeves irritatingly flapped in the wind.

Tips for cyclists:

• Ride northbound. Winds are predominantly southerlies.

• If using a helmet mirror, bring one for right side of your helmet so you can see traffic approaching from behind.

• Bring rain gear and I mean the whole shibang, coat, pants and booties.

• If new to bike touring you may overlook the importance of a light weight back pack. Bring one. We used ours every day to load items off bikes to take inside, we used for quick stops at the store and trolling around town with raincoats in case we need them.

• Get proficient with the pro version of Ride With GPS. There are times when routes need to be created on the fly and downloaded to your Garmin. For example, Tom created routes to and from the train stations and bike friendly alternate routes when need due to weather.

Tips from Tom:

People ask, “how did you find your places to stay every night and did you reserve it before your trip?”

On these trips we always look forward to finding camping sites since we love sleeping in our tent.  I researched ahead of time where the caravan and camping locations were, (that’s what they call it in Ireland) and put them as POI on our gpx RidewithGPS routes that get downloaded to our Garmin.  

First of all there aren’t a lot of tent camping spots along our route and after our first two tent stays waking up in a soaking wet tent in the rain and wind, it just wasn’t that much fun.  

So our focus was on living it up on this “Holiday” bike trip and do inside stays.  My daily routine was to tell Chat GPT, where we were riding the next day and make suggestions of highlights we shouldn’t miss, places we should stay and suggest a pub of the day.  

I would then go to the place’s (Hotel, B&B, Hostel, Glamping) website, booking.com, Google Maps and try to find the best place and go ahead and book it a few days ahead of time.  You really couldn’t go wrong with any stays as they were all so clean and beds/showers were glorious at the end of the day.  

Most B&B’s offered a great Irish Breakfast as part of your stay (Eggs, Bacon, sausage, tomato, white and black pudding, toast, and baked beans). Now you know why I didn’t lose any weight on this bike trip

Thanks again for taking an interest in our ride. Your prayers and encouragement meant a lot. And special thanks to Tom who is a bike trip planning expert. He really knocked it out of the park with this one!☘️

Click on the image below to ride highlights video: