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A Race Against Myself Across Ireland

The Incredible Kindness of Strangers

By Marguerite Jordan

If a middle-aged non-athletic woman with very little biking experience decides to pedal solo across a country – say, Ireland – for which  she does no training whatever, overpacks by far and has never changed a tire, what would you say?

I might as well mention at the outset that she detests making reservations in advance, knows nothing about shifting gears, has no sense of direction and no map-reading skills, nor did/does she have much lung or pedal power.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster, wouldn’t you say?

Au contraire, my friends, it was the time of my life.  By far, it was one of the top adventures I’ve ever had.

I zigzagged my way west from Dublin Airport, mostly on back roads, and occasionally even on the National Road, the N4.  I ate in pubs and restaurants and on the road, with food I picked up at little stores in the towns. I did eat a lot of the creamy delicious Irish ice cream, and I certainly drank my share of Guinness.  As they say, “Guinness is Good for You!” I stayed in B&B’s, of which there are 11,000, scattered all over the country.

I came home after two incredible weeks, tired, sore, lighter by eight pounds and much more muscular -- and thoroughly convinced that I could accomplish almost anything.  I never went in a straight line so I cannot say with certainty how many miles I covered, but I think I biked about 400 miles, give or take, and I probably walked about forty or fifty miles. (I do not bike hills!) I may have met 500 people, and I think I danced with at least fifty of them! Pubs, parties, and even one special wedding made it a very merry visit.

I had one rule – every time I came to a settlement, whether it was the main street of a town, or just a cluster of a few houses, I took off my helmet and walked my bike.  I found that the helmet made people a little afraid to approach me, and be being off the bike I wanted to signal that I had the time to talk.  What’s more, I used different muscles walking and gave my rump a change from the hard bicycle seat.

TO SLIGO OR BUST

Even though I chose Sligo as my west coast destination, about 150 miles away as the crow flies, because I wished to attend the annual W.B. Yeats Summer School and Festival, after a short time there I ultimately changed my plans and criss-crossed back to the east coast.  I wanted to be with one very special family in the village of Killucan, a place so tiny that I didn’t even find it on the map the first time around. 

The Ennis and Whelehan family figured so prominently in my two week saga that I felt attached to them.  They thought so too: when I walked into the Banquet Hall at the restaurant in Mullingar (a week after our first meeting) for Brendan’s wedding reception, they seated me at the head table.  I already knew more than half the 450 guests, having spent many hours the previous weekend partying with them. Still I was surprised when the priest, in giving his blessing to the young newly married couple from the dais, added his introduction of me.  I was “the aunt from Amerikay.” But, I am getting ahead of myself.

READ ABOUT IT, IMAGINE IT, DO IT  (HA, HA)

I began the trip pretty much as I do everything – by reading.  I found books about biking, about Ireland, about people who met their own self-set challenges. Then once I started talking about the trip, I knew I couldn’t look back.

Gradually a plan emerged. The east coast of Ireland I knew from a prior visit was flatter, much flatter than the west.  Past the airport outside of Dublin, where almost a third of Ireland’s population resides, I knew I would find many small roads and not too much traffic.

I also wasn’t yet ready to test myself on the West Coast’s high tourist areas like the Ring of Kerry or the Cliffs of Moher, where I might have to share the road with oversized tour busses or speeding cars.  Besides, as I found out, you find the real Ireland in the not-so-famous small towns that haven’t been overrun by tourists.

GET ON THE BIKE, WHY DONTCHA?

At just five feet tall, I thought it might be difficult to find a rental bike that’d fit properly; plus I wanted to “hit the ground running.” Also, I was unsure of the vagaries of renting a bicycle, so I packed my own. 

Per airline instructions, the seat, pedals and front tire were removed, by my husband.  He loaded everything into the car before driving me to the airport.  I had overpacked my luggage – panniers and backpack – considerably. I handed off about ten pounds of stuff (mostly books) to my daughter, while Steve was unloading the bike for me curbside at check-in.  “Here, hide these,” I said to her.  I then went inside the terminal and crammed the bike into a heavy-duty  plastic bag for the flight to Ireland. (Some airlines provide boxes.)

Once on the ground at Dublin Airport, I was pleased to discover a “bike-mounting” area inside the arrivals hall.  Although I had been given instructions by my husband before I left, what to do next was all quite a mystery to me.  I fiddled with wrenches and rachets unsuccessfully.  The only good thing was that the bike rested in a metal cradle off the ground and I could see the gears at eye level.

I had never handled my bike before, never knew what went with what, and, above all, I certainly didn’t want to get my hands dirty.  To that end, I pulled out my one and a half pound plastic container of scented Baby Wipes, as if having them near kept me from getting grease on my paws. 

I nervously began to assemble the parts, the tire, the seat, the handlebars and the panniers. (Before the trip, I did not even know what this word meant.)  They are saddlebags that need to be securely fastened to the rear rack.  For about twenty minutes I was the alone in the “Bike-Mounting Corner” of the airport. 

I was very relieved when along came a group of  teen-age boys, all nattily attired in club racing gear (tight shorts, rosey red and brilliant green vertical striped shirts, bicycle shoes, and jaunty little cotton caps.) 

“Oh, goodie,” I thought. ” I will watch what they do and then learn how to assemble a bike.”  They threw their gear together so efficiently that I didn’t have a chance to ask them anything.

One young man looked over at me and said, “You’re all right now, are you?”  as they merrily sped away.  That left just the airline customer service representative who had been watching me warily.  Wearing a nice crisp white business shirt when he came over to help, he left with grease stripes on his cuffs.

FIRST FIVE MILES – BY FOOT, TO THE NEAREST BIKE SHOP

He fixed the bike so that it looked assembled and disappeared hastily when another customer asked for his help. I rolled my overpacked bike outside, only to be met by about a hundred shouting Air Rianta workers, on strike and angry.  Police – they are called Gardai (Guard-DEE) – stood nearby and watched them. I was too unsure of myself to mount my bike with so many people around. 

I walked down some service roads off the airport and away from the crowd.  I was wearing a backpack (I was quickly to discover that this is a big cycling no-no), my panniers were stuffed like sausages and somehow the front wheel was not fully connected to the frame.  I found this out when I almost caught myself before falling into the street.  Because everything was so overstuffed, it was a soft landing. As I righted the bike, I saw the sign, “Swords, 5 miles”.  This I knew was the nearest town heading more or less toward Sligo, and away from the airport. 

MURPHY’S LAW

Reduced to its briefest form, “Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”  covered the remaining part of my day.  Having had no sleep on the airplane, with my confidence at its lowest, I was at the point when I felt ready to cry.  I also had to pee, but there were no bathrooms within sight.  I jumped over a hedge, and as I squatted down so cars wouldn’t see me, I had one devilish thought. 

“Maybe someone will come along and steal my bike.  Then I won’t have to go through with this.  I could drive a car like a normal person.”  Echoes of my husband’s loving yet doubting refrain filled my ears.  “Ready for anything, prepared for nothing.”

ENTER A CAST OF THOUSANDS OF WONDERFUL PEOPLE

Sondra was the owner of a small B&B, and she looked like an angel.  She helped me in every way possible.  She untied the twisted bungee cords that were holding my panniers (sort of) in place; she made me a cup of tea and heated up some soup; she looked up the number of the local bike shop and told me how to get there.  Later, she took all my excess baggage and stored it for me.  Best of all, she called her father, a long-distance trucker, and asked him to design a route west for me.  The following morning, she spent a half hour going over my map with me and discusssing the pros and cons of certain routes.

And, so it went for the rest of the trip.  Everywhere people stood ready to help and to have fun. 

Doing this ride was something I was compelled to do. I was forty-eight and felt the need to challenge myself before it was too late. I had visited the country of my grandparents and great grandparents before, and knew enough about the ways of the people to feel that if ever I were to travel by bike, Ireland would be by far the safest place.  

In addition to riding my bike, I wanted to go out in the evening to pubs and hear great music and meet people. 

I didn’t need to go out at night to start to meet the locals.  As soon as I left Sondra’s B&B I began meeting people along the road.  A lady waved to me from her front lawn and we chatted for ten minutes or so, about the weather, her roses, politics and “Wasn’t I brave?”  We were about the same age, and she could not believe that someone in their forties would think to do this.  Several times a day every day I had conversations with folks walking along or in their yards.  Little kids came up to me on the street and began to talk. They were also very funny. Everyone waved.Their curiosity and friendliness made me feel good. 

I met a number of people considerably older, in their seventies and eighties, and I got the feeling that they were not all that impressed.  Somehow their lives were much more difficult than mine.  Many pople invited me into their houses for tea.  I may have been traveling alone, but I was never lonely. 

KILLUCAN WAS WHERE I LEARNED “IRISH”

It was a tiring day that brought me to a nearly deserted roadhouse a few days after I left Dublin.  I asked for a place to stay nearby.  “Nope,” a woman said.  “Nothing here in this town.”  I had seen a small hand-printed sign saying ”Killucan Festival This Weekend.”  What about that, I asked.  She shrugged. “Well, you can try it.” 

It was four miles away and I was hot and tired by the time I entered the one-street village.  I spotted the Killucan Village B&B, just as Eileen Whelehan, the proprietor, was returning from an errand.  She looked me over (cyclists are sometimes considered scruff guests), and, she later told me, thought I looked harmless.  She helped me store my bike behind her clothes dryer and fixed me some bread and butter and a cup of tea. Her nephew, Thomas Ennis, entered the room and began a conversation that was to last well over a week. He had the gift of gab and he was a great host.

One of eleven children, Tom, and all his siblings were in town (from Dublin, from other Irish towns, and from New York, where a few now lived) for a family vacation. This weekend was the Festival and next was his older brother Brendan’s wedding. 

Everyone in town (all 450 of them) attended the festival, which had live music, dance performances by children and adults, horse-shoeing by local farmers, butter-churning demonstrations, a dress up your dog contest, road bowling, and, a contest of strength that dates back to the earliest days, a rope pull.  Two groups of men, from different families and different villages, participate in an exercise that seemed as much a contest of wills as it was of strength. I imagined the early Vikings and Celts  having this contest hundreds of years  ago.

Irish drinking laws are pretty strict.  Pub hours usually end at 11 PM, unless a town petitions for a later closing time, “Extended Hours.” Next door to the B&B Eileen’s husband, Tom’s uncle, Jimmy Whelehan was pulling pints to beat the band in the Ennis Pub.  There stood Brendan, erstwhile bridegroom-to-be.  Usually not much of a drinker, he was in his cups when I met him, surrounded by friends who were bying him “jars”..  He tried to focus on my face as he asked, “And, who might you be?”

Knowing the Irish love of a joke, and egged on by Thomas, I replied, straight-faced, “Why, Brendan, don’t you remember me?  I am your aunt.”  The two expressions that describe Irish conversation (craic “CRACK) and general kidding around (good gas) have completely different meanings in English.  The craic that night was that the woman on the bike gave good gas. Tom and his friends were teaching me the ropes.

After the two o’clock drinking hours extension expired, a woman who owned a huge house down the road invited everyone in the village over for more drinks and more gas.  Tom walked me home at 5 AM, and when I arose at noon, no one except Eileen was around.  “How’s your head,” she asked kindly.

As we all said good bye later, everyone invited me to Brendan’s wedding, the following Saturday.  I thought it would be unlikely, because I had planned on the Sligo Summer School, more than 100 miles away.

CURLEW MOUNTAINS, SLIGO AND THEN …I LEARN TO CYCLE FAST

The sights all over the country were breathtaking: cottages, castles, kids, rivers, cows and cattle, horses, beautiful farms and fields, ancient high crosses, empty roads and many many small towns, some ragged and lonely and others teeming with life. 

The trip gave me the opportunity to be outdoors almost all day every day and I discovered how much I enjoyed that feeling.  Although it rained from time to time, it never amounted to much.  I didn’t even pack rain gear; I just took shelter when it was pelting.  Most rain was short-lived.  ***This is not something you can count on.  Frequently when I stopped for a lunch break at a roadhouse pub, the owner would refuse to charge me anything for the food. 

In my one bit of “preparedness” I  brought along two maps, one each for the east and for the west.  Unfortunately, they did not completely overlap.  On a northwesterly course, past the place where I had crossed the Shannon River, and leading to the Boyle Abbey, in County Roscommon, I had just seen the leafy green Lough Key Park, numerous dolmens and ancient stone structures that marked the beautiful region. 

In the distance I noticed a hill, which began to grow taller as I got closer.  I noticed a road sign, “Curlew Mountains” and then I checked both my maps. These enormous hills stood between me and Sligo, with no alternative route available and they were nowhere to be found on either map.  (As I walked the road to the top of the mountain, I reckoned that this was where the advantage of a Bike Tour becomes obvious.) Live and learn.

A few days later, on a break at the literary conference, while sitting at the doctor’s surgery waiting to have some blisters looked at, I recalled the kind invitation of the Ennis family.  “It is not everyday that you become an aunt AND are invited to a wedding,” I told myself.

Once again I pulled out those blasted maps.  This time I was going to avoid Curlew, not knowing of course that just as much height would be involved in the new route.  It was different on the trip back, because I knew I had an intractable schedule. I became a stronger cyclist and took fewer breaks.

Not only did I have to cover almost a hundred miles, but I needed to stop and find something to wear for the wedding, as well as a gift.  My black bicycle shorts and t-shirt just wouldn’t cut it at an Irish dress-up occasion.

I chose my outfit at a store in the market town of Mullingar not far from where the reception was being held. After paying for my purchase, I ran into a jewelry store to buy a mantle clock and the clerk shopped nearby for some thread to match my purple pants suit.  The new outfit flapped behind me as I cycled to a nearby B&B.  The lady of the house hemmed the three-piece silk pants suit while I quickly showered; then her husband drove me to the crowded reception. 

Eileen and Jimmy and Tom greeted me with kisses and Brendan tore away from his bride, “Auntie!  You made it!” I felt honored and happy.  This is Ireland, where the crack and the gas and the great people make you feel so welcome. I’m home.

WHY DID IT WORK OUT?

Number one, you can always count on the Irish to show you a good time. This goes miles towards counter-acting unruly bike chains, rutted roads, barking dogs, getting lost, etc.

Number two, I am a  hopeless optimist and an inveterate traveler. I had only recently taken up bike riding, at the tender age of forty-two, more or less on a dare. I knew very athletic people who biked 70 or 80 miles a day, and even those who considered 35 a sum to achieve on an outing. Naturally I didn’t ever think I would be among those who covered several hundred miles in a week. Too much work, too daunting.  Yet, when there is much to see, I somehow made the effort.

Number three.  Being alone sharpens your skills and your sense of, “Oh, wait, there is no one else to take on the tasks of travel.”  If I didn’t find a place to stay or eat, I would be in big trouble. I could only count on my own self, and that was good enough.  Even when I ran into a tiny town with no rooms available (a cattlemen’s convention was in town), a sweet woman sent me to her sister-in-law’s house where I slept in one of her kid’s beds, while the children made do with doubling up in another room. I woke the following day to see a seven year old pulling his blue sweater out of a bureau drawer next to my head. I woke with a start and followed him downstairs to a full Irish breakfast of eggs and bacon and sausage and fried tomatoes and mushrooms.  And that’s one further beauty of this kind of travel  -- you eat pretty much as you please. 

PLANNING A CYCLING TRIP TO FIND THE HEART OF IRELAND

Airlines:  Aer Lingus 1 800 223.6537 If you choose to bring your own bike, consult with them on their policies and packing procedures.

Bike Rental Now that I have visited this country thirteen times, by every method possible, and several times on a bike, I think that it is easier to cycle here if you rent. You get back-up service and information on the ground. 

Irish Tourist Board 1 800 223.6470 Call for brochures, maps, cycling routes, information on B&B’s, bike rentals, etc.

Also, because solo travel is not for everyone, I can recommend the following very excellent bike outfitters to help you plan your tour.

Moynan Cycle’s, in the town of Nenagh, on the Tipperary side of Lough Derg, is perfectly situated in the heart of some gorgeous, relatively easy terrain. Peter Moynan and his family will take time to show you the best routes or will arrange a complete outing, showing you the way.  They and others in the Nenagh region can be contacted through the local tourist office.

http://www.shannon-dev.ie/tourism/holidays/act-cycling.asp

Flannery’s Bikes, Sligo, has touring, tandem and “Granny Bikes”, the kind with a motor for hills, which you might need if you decide to do the Curlew Mountains or if you go north to Donegal.

E-mail flanaganscycles@ireland.com

Killucan Village B&B, Village Pub on the Main Street Tel. 044 74760  Ask for Eileen and Jimmy.  Maybe Tom will be in from New York.

B&B’s and restaurants in this Tipperary Lough Derg neighborhood are among the friendliest in the country. 

If you get tired of cycling, you can always take to the water here and alternate cruising and biking.

Emerald Green Line, a boat charter company, will rent you both boat and bikes for a week or longer.  Contact their agent, Connoisseur Boat Lines or
E-mail info@emerald-star.com

Texts and photographs, copyright, Marguerite Jordan

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